Dodgers trade Nick Nastrini, Trayce Thompson, Jordan Leasure to White Sox

The Dodgers on Friday traded for pitchers Lance Lynn and Joe Kelly. Los Angeles is sending Trayce Thompson and minor league pitchers Nick Nastrini and Jordan Leasure to the White Sox.

Jeff Passan of ESPN was first to report the full trade.

Nastrini is the prize for Chicago in the deal. The Dodgers’ fourth-round pick in 2021 was part of this year’s prized Double-A Tulsa rotation, where Nastrini had a 4.03 ERA in 17 starts, plus 85 strikeouts and 37 walks in his 73⅔ innings.

He made one preseason top-100 prospects list, ranked 54th by Baseball Prospectus, though was not rated in BP’s top 60 in their midseason update of rankings. Jarrett Seidler, a senior prospect writer at Baseball Prospectus, chimed in:

Thompson struggled mightily with the Dodgers this season. He hit three home runs in his first game, but had just eight hits in 67 at-bats after that before landing on the injured list with a strained left oblique. Thompson in that stretch was hitless in 39 consecutive at-bats, the longest hitless skid by a Dodger in over a century.

Thompson is currently on the 60-day injured list and was on a rehab assignment with Triple-A Oklahoma City, for whom he hit four doubles and a home run in two games.

Because he’s on the 60-day injured list, Thompson did not count toward the Dodgers’ 40-man roster, so the team still needed corresponding roster moves to clear two spots for Lynn and Kelly. Those moves were Triple-A reliever Justin Bruihl and Double-A shortstop Eddys Leonard getting designated for assignment.

Leasure had a 3.09 ERA in 29 relief appearances for Double-A Tulsa this season, with 56 strikeouts (a 39.7-percent strikeout rate) and 16 walks in 35 innings. The Dodgers drafted him in the 14th round in 2021 out of the University of Tampa.