Former Orioles RHP Dylan Bundy Benefits From Joc Pederson Trade

Former Baltimore Orioles RHP Dylan Bundy received another huge boost this offseason after the Los Angeles Angels acquired outfielder Joc Pederson from the Dodgers on Tuesday night.

For baseball fans, the end of the Super Bowl marks the highly anticipated switch from football season to baseball season. On Tuesday night, Major League Baseball wanted to make sure it had your attention.

After weeks of speculation of a possible trade involving Boston Red Sox outfielder Mookie Betts, the highly anticipated blockbuster deal finally happened. As first reported by ESPN.com’s Jeff Passan, the Red Sox are sending Betts, starting pitcher David Price, and cash to the Los Angeles Dodgers in exchange for outfielder Alex Verdugo.

The Red Sox also received pitching prospect Brusdar Graterol from the Minnesota Twins, who landed the big pitching arm they had been in search of in RHP Kenta Maeda.

But that wasn’t all!

In a separate deal, the Dodgers have agreed to send outfielder Joc Pederson to the Los Angeles Angels for infield prospect Luis Rengifo. That’s good news for former Baltimore Orioles starting pitcher Dylan Bundy.

The Orioles didn’t have a dog in Tuesday night’s race, but it was still an exciting night of finding out how the dominos fell in all of these deals. As an Orioles fan, my first thought after seeing the Joc Pederson trade news was “good for Dylan Bundy.”

Originally heralded as one of the top pitching prospects in baseball and expected to headline the Orioles starting rotation for years to come, Bundy’s up and down tenure in Baltimore came to an end earlier this offseason as the Orioles sent him to Los Angeles in exchange for four pitching prospects.

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However, after following his career from his time in Single-A ball to the big leagues, I’ll always have a soft spot for Bundy as he attempts to continue his career out west and trend upwards after a rough 2018 campaign that saw him lead the league in losses (16) and home runs allowed (41).

Bundy now has a lineup consisting of Mike Trout, Anthony Rendon, Shohei Ohtani, and Joc Pederson to give him plenty of run support. That’s 133 home runs just from those four bats in the lineup and more than 20 Wins Above Replacement. Bundy will also have one of the top defensive shortstops in the game in Andrelton Simmons behind him on defense.

The Angels won’t lose many games due to a lack of offense, but can they put together a pitching staff worthy of a deep playoff run? That will be the one of the biggest questions in 2020. The O’s won’t be competitive for a few more years, in the meantime, maybe the Angels finally get over the hump and we get to watch Bundy take the ball in the playoffs with a historic lineup behind him.

There are still a few days left before the start of spring training. Will we see any other notable trades go down?