Blue Jays, not Dodgers, get pitcher David Price
Detroit Tigers pitcher David Price delivers to the Tampa Bay Rays on Tuesday.
David Price will not be coming to the Dodgers.
Not now, anyway.
The Detroit Tigers agreed Thursday to trade Price to the Toronto Blue Jays, as first reported by CBS Sports. The Tigers would get a package headlined by pitcher Daniel Norris, ranked as the Blue Jays’ top prospect and No. 18 in all of baseball, according to Baseball America. Norris, 22, pitched briefly for Toronto in each of the past two seasons.
The Dodgers, as they have for the past two years, declined to include their top prospects -- infielder Corey Seager and pitcher Julio Urias – in any deal.
The Dodgers still could sign Price as a free agent this winter. It is considered unlikely that Price would sign in Toronto. However, the Blue Jays have an urgency to win now that the Dodgers do not, trying to end baseball’s longest postseason drought at 22 years. The Jays’ attendance has dropped by half over the last two decades.
The Jays (51-51) are seven games out of first place in the American League East and two games out of a wild-card spot, so they are mortgaging at least part of their future for what most likely would be a chance to advance to a sudden-death playoff game. They acquired shortstop Troy Tulowitzki from the Colorado Rockies this week, although his contract extends through 2020.
The Dodgers have yet to confirm or announce the three-way trade widely reported Wednesday night, in which they would complete their starting rotation by acquiring pitchers Mat Latos from the Miami Marlins and Alex Wood from the Atlanta Braves.
Although the Dodgers would have loved to have thrown Clayton Kershaw, Zack Greinke and Price in the first three games of a postseason series, a formidable rotation is no guarantee of October success.
In 2011, the Philadelphia Phillies had what was regarded as perhaps the most menacing rotation in recent history, with Roy Halladay, Cliff Lee, Cole Hamels and Roy Oswalt.
The Phillies led the league with 102 victories, but they lost to the St. Louis Cardinals in the division series.
MORE DODGERS NEWS:
Sore hip keeps Dodgers’ Clayton Kershaw from making his start
Cole Hamels? David Price? No, Dodgers trade for Marlins’ Mat Latos
Yasiel Puig breaks out of slump with laugh, and with mom
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