Cleveland Indians: 4 impacts trade deadline moves have on 2022

2. Rays get OF Jordan Luplow, RP DJ Johnson, Cleveland Indians get SP Peyton Battenfield

Like the Astros, the Rays seem to produce very, very good players, so be excited about Peyton Battenfield, Tribe Town. He’s rated as the 29th best prospect in the Tampa organization.

Battenfield, 23, has 95 strikeouts in 67.1 innings, to go along with  a 2.14 ERA. He could be viewed as a starter, as 12 of his 14 appearances between Class A and Double-A have been starts. He’ll report to the Class AA Akron RubberDucks. It wouldn’t be surprising to see him at Class AAA to start 2022–so really, he’s not that far away.

Luplow had a stellar 2019, posting an OPS over 1.000 against left-handed pitching in 2019. He never got it going in the truncated 2020 season, but he came out with a bang in 2021–but then landed on the injured list.

There was talk of Luplow becoming an every day player, but unfortunately, the Tribe could never find out if he had it in him, because of injures. That’s a part of the game, though, if you want to be an everyday player. I’ll be interesting to see how Tampa uses him.