Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher David Price is looking for an opportunity to start and it seems the club wants to make it happen. With Peter Gammons of The Athletic reporting the Dodgers’ willingness to move Price, he’s now one of the leading MLB trade candidates this summer.
While Price is nearing the 18th green, he can still be a respectable rotation staple. He finds ways to paint the strike zone and induce weak contact with his cutter and sinker. Price has a wealth of postseason experience and is accustomed to coming out of the bullpen. Best of all, the Boston Red Sox are already covering part of his salary in the final year of his contract.
Keeping that in mind, here are three ideal landing spots for a David Price trade.
David Price returns to Tampa Bay Rays
How about Price going back to the team that drafted him with the No. 1 overall pick in the 2007 MLB Draft, the Rays, to help them win their first-ever World Series?
Sentimental aspects to the side, Price could be a valuable piece to manager Kevin Cash’s pitching staff. At the moment and for the better part of the last two years, the Rays have been ravaged by injuries on the pitching front (Shane Baz, J.T. Chargois, Luis Patino and others are on the injured list). To boot, a handful of their long relievers and starters are off to slow starts. Price gives Tampa Bay another able arm.
David Price stats (2021-’22): 3.91 ERA, 1.4 WHIP, 2.33 K/BB over 78.1 innings pitched
The southpaw could either serve as a four-to-five-inning starter or another long reliever for the Rays. One way or another, he’d serve as a veteran complement to their pitching staff. The Rays should at least be open to such a move given how their young starting pitching was rocked against the Boston Red Sox in the 2021 American League Divisional Series.