How One Underrated Deal Became the A’s Best Trade Since 2020

Back in 2023, the Athletics didn't do too much at the deadline, making just two moves. One was to send Jace Peterson to the Arizona Diamondbacks for Chad Patrick (who was just pitching in the NLCS with Milwaukee). The other is the nominee for the biggest trade the A's have made since 2020.

The deal: A's trade Sam Moll to the Cincinnati Reds in exchange for right-hander Joe Boyle. The hard-throwing righty was called up at the end of the '23 campaign, getting into three games and racking up 16 innings with a 1.69 ERA, giving up just eight hits, five walks and striking out 15.

Given that he'd struggled with walks in the minors, he immediately emerged as someone with a lot of potential for the rebuilding club. He was part of the A's rotation to begin the 2025 campaign, and in six April outings he held a 6.08 ERA, walking 20 batters across 26 2/3 innings, along with 24 hits allowed. He did end up striking out 28 in that span, but he was sent to the minors in May.

Boyle would return in August, primarily as a starting pitcher, but he held a 7.04 ERA that month, and ultimately ended up being tried out of the bullpen to end the season.

Last offseason, the A's traded Boyle to the Tampa Bay Rays, which is why the Moll deal could end up being so impactful.

Boyle Flipped to Tampa

Not too long after the Athletics signed Luis Severino to a franchise-record deal, they went out and made a deal with Tampa, sending Boyle, first baseman Will Simpson, righty Jacob Watters and a Comp Pick (Brendan Summerhill) in exchange for veteran lefty Jeffrey Springs and swingman Jacob Lopez.

Springs served as a much-needed veteran in the A's rotation in 2025, and as he gets further away from his surgery, figures to be an even better pitcher next season.

Lopez initially served as a long reliever out of he bullpen, but he was in the A's rotation full-time towards the end of May, and he really began to make strides in that role. As a starter, Lopez held a 3.96 ERA in 17 starts with a .225 batting average against and a .312 OBP. Walks are still a little bit of an issue, with his rate hovering at 9.2%, but he showed that he could have Cy Young potential.

The biggest factor in his potential candidacy is that his strikeout rate sat at 27.7% as a starting pitcher, which is the same rate as Jacob deGrom this past season. Lopez ranked No. 15 in strikeout rate among starting pitchers with at least 80 innings, and the pitchers ahead of him on the list are some of the best in the game.

At the top you have Zach Wheeler (33.3%), followed by Logan Gilbert (32.3%), and closer to Lopez you have Joe Ryan (28.4%), Hunter Brown (28.3%) and Freddy Peralta (28.2%). Among left-handers, Lopez ranked fourth.

The biggest difference between Lopez and those other pitchers is the walk rate. The top six pitchers topped at a 6.2% walk rate (Hunter Greene). The other factor here is that Lopez ran a fairly high home run rate comparatively to the pitchers around him (1.29 HR/FB).

Those two stats go hand in hand, and if the southpaw makes some tweaks this winter, he should be able to go deeper into games more consistently, which will put him more firmly into that echelon of pitcher.

He showed he has the tools at the big league level in 2025. The hope is that in 2026 he can show that he's a top-of-the-rotation starter for the A's.

Final Thoughts

Similar to the MIller-for-De Vries deal, this one isn't set in stone just yet, and that's perfectly understandable. We saw Joe Boyle excel in a limited workload for the club in 2023, then get shuttled up and down the following season before getting traded. Lopez's A's debut was more prolonged and showed growth throughout, which does inspire a little more confidence in the lefty.

What makes the Moll trade stand out here though is that they may have turned a veteran lefty that's more of a situational piece in the bullpen into not just one, but two pretty solid starting pitchers. Of course, there were other parts of the Boyle trade with Tampa that aren't necessarily being accounted for, but there's no argument that Boyle was the centerpiece of that trade.

So in other words, without the Moll trade, there is no Springs/Lopez trade.

The reason we're deeming this the best trade since 2020 is that they didn't have to give up Matt Olson or Mason Miller to make it happen. Trading those types of players away, you're expected to get good return pieces. Trading a situational lefty and turning that into a guy that has Cy Young qualities? That's a pretty good deal.

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