Boston Red Sox Surrender Excellent Prospect in Surprising Trade Deadline Deal

6:20 p.m. ET: The Boston Red Sox made a surprising deal right before the trade deadline on Thursday, acquiring starting pitcher Dustin May from the Los Angeles Dodgers.

In exchange, the Red Sox gave up top prospect James Tibbs III, who had been acquired from the San Francisco Giants in the Rafael Devers trade.

Robert Murray of Fansided had the information.

May, 27, is a rental pitcher and figures to slot into the Red Sox rotation with Garrett Crochet, Bryan Bello, Walker Buehler and Lucas Giolito. He's gone 6-7 this season with a 4.85 ERA. He's struck out 97 batters in 104.0 innings, working his way back from a Tommy John surgery that cost him the entirety of the 2024 season.

Tibbs was ranked as the No. 5 prospect in the Red Sox organization by MLB Pipeline, but he was not in the MLB Top 100.

The 22-year-old was a first-round pick (No. 13) in 2024 out of Florida State. He's hitting .232 this season between High-A and Double-A. The Red Sox promoted him upon acquiring him. He has 13 home runs and 39 RBIs this season.

The following comes from a portion of his MLB.com prospect profile:

Tibbs offered one of the best combinations of swing decisions and hard contact in the Draft. He has a smooth left-handed swing with plenty of bat speed and strength, giving him solid power to all fields. While at Florida State, he closed the holes he once had against breaking pitches, shrunk his strikeout rate from 32 percent as a freshman to 12 percent as a junior and boosted his walk rate from 12 percent to 18 percent. He has stood out more with his pop than his hitting ability at High-A, though he has drawn a healthy amount of walks.

Boston currently sits in the second wild card spot in the American League.

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