Not long after the Los Angeles Dodgers reached an agreement with the Boston Red Sox and Minnesota Twins on a blockbuster three-team trade, they additionally were poised to send Joc Pederson and Ross Stripling to the L.A. Angels in a secondary move.
The Dodgers’ trade with the Angels hinged on the three-team deal first being completed. Although it had been agreed upon, it still was pending medical reviews, player physicals with their new teams and approval from Major League Baseball because of the amount of cash included.
It never got past the first obstacle, as the Red Sox raised issue with Brusdar Graterol’s medicals. So the original trade came undone and the Dodgers instead completed separate deals with the Red Sox and Twins.
However, that was only after a delay that spanned several days, which reportedly angered Angels owner Arte Moreno. He’d had enough by the time the Dodgers got around to orchestrating the two trades and withdrew the Angels from the agreement.
So Stripling was among the Dodgers pitchers who reported to Camelback Ranch on Thursday for the start of Spring Training, and he did so with a focus on moving forward after his first true brush with being part of trade rumors, via SportsNet LA:
“It’s my first time going through anything like that. I’ve been with the Dodgers for eight years, and you see stuff on Twitter in the past of slight trade rumors, but never the first time where it’s like Ross Stripling to the Angels, confirmed. I was kind of like, ‘OK. I haven’t heard anything but I guess it’s confirmed.’
“And then it was kind of five days of nothing. Andrew Friedman was keeping me up to date as best he could but I don’t even know if he knew what was going on necessarily on the Boston-Minnesota side of things. It was a whirlwind for me, my wife, my family.
“My friends were calling and asking what was going on. I was like, ‘I don’t know. Either way I’m going to be in Arizona (for Spring Training) and Southern California, which is nice. … First time going through it but at the end of the day stoked to still be in Dodger Blue. Obviously, just here to help the Dodgers win.”
Stripling previously had been speculated as a potential player who was involved in trade talks with the Pittsburgh Pirates during the 2018 Winter Meetings. However, that detail did not surface until well after the fact.
Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman and manager Dave Roberts have both made it clear they are pleased to still have Pederson and Stripling part of the organization, and they expect them to play a key role this season.
That being said, L.A. reportedly is still open to trading Pederson, who is due to become a free agent at the end of the year.
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