The offense-starved Pittsburgh Pirates finally made an aggressive offseason move, agreeing to acquire two-time All-Star second baseman Brandon Lowe from the Tampa Bay Rays as part of a three-team trade that also includes the Houston Astros, sources told ESPN, confirming multiple reports.

The Rays will send Lowe, left-hander Mason Montgomery and outfielder Jake Mangum to Pittsburgh. The Pirates will deal right-handed pitcher Mike Burrows to Houston. Tampa Bay is acquiring a pair of prospects from Houston as part of the deal.

Lowe, an All-Star in 2019 and 2025, gives the Pirates a veteran bat for a lineup in desperate need of some pop to support a promising young pitching staff led by National League Cy Young Award winner Paul Skenes.

Left-handed Lowe hit .256 with 31 home runs and 83 RBIs for Tampa Bay last season and now heads to PNC Park, where the 21-foot-high Clemente Wall in right field could be a tantalizing target.

The move is an unusually aggressive one for the Pirates, who have been reticent to acquire much in the way of salary in recent years. Lowe, 31, is scheduled to make $11.5 million in 2026 and can become a free agent after the World Series.

Pittsburgh was said to be pursuing slugger Kyle Schwarber, who opted to stay in Philadelphia. The Pirates did trade for outfield prospect Jhostynxon Garcia, who hit 18 homers in Triple-A in the Red Sox organization in 2025.

Adding Lowe, however, is the kind of splashy move that shows the team is committed — in 2026, at least — to upgrading an offense that was at or near the bottom of the majors in nearly every major category, including runs and home runs.

Burrows, 26, went 2-4 with a 3.94 ERA for the Pirates last season. He might have been the odd man out in a starting rotation projected to include Skenes, Bubba Chandler and Mitch Keller next season.

Left-handed Montgomery will have a chance to carve out a spot in a Pittsburgh bullpen that includes closer Dennis Santana and veteran left-hander Gregory Soto. Montgomery went 1-3 with a 5.67 ERA in 57 games last season for the Rays.

Mangum, 29, hit .296 and stole 27 bases in 118 games for Tampa Bay during his rookie season.

Outfielder Jacob Melton and right-hander Anderson Brito are going from Houston to the Rays in the trade. Melton, 24, hit .157 during his debut with Houston last season but batted a solid .286 at Triple-A Sugar Land before his call-up. Brito, 21, had a sub-4.00 ERA while playing in the low minors last season.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

The Baltimore Orioles acquired right-hander Shane Baz in a trade with the Tampa Bay Rays on Friday, sending a four-prospect package and a draft pick in a rare intradivision deal.

Following a search all winter for starting pitching, the Orioles targeted Baz and paid a heavy price, giving up outfielder Slater de Brun and catcher Caden Bodine — both first-round picks this year — breakout right-hander Michael Forret, outfielder Austin Overn and a competitive-balance Round A pick that comes with more than $2.5 million in slot money, sources said.

In Baz, the Orioles landed a 26-year-old coming off his best major league season. Over 166⅓ innings, Baz struck out 176, walked 64 and posted a 4.87 ERA. With just shy of four years of major league service, Baz will not be a free agent until after the 2028 season.

The Rays, who are also finalizing three-way deal in which they would send second baseman Brandon Lowe to the Pittsburgh Pirates and receive outfielder Jacob Melton and right-hander Anderson Brito from Pittsburgh, are replenishing a farm system as they try to navigate an increasingly competitive American League East.

Bodine and De Brun are the headliners of the return package from Baltimore. Bodine was chosen with the 30th pick in the draft out of Coastal Carolina, where he was touted for his strong defense and superior swing decisions. After signing, he played 11 games in Low-A, where he hit .326/.408/.349. Seven picks later, Baltimore took De Brun, a toolsy, talented outfielder whose size — he is listed at 5-foot-10 and 187 pounds — belies a well-rounded offensive game.

Forret, a 14th-round pick in 2023 out of junior college in Florida, put up a 1.58 ERA between High-A and Double-A this year, striking out 91 and walking 21 in 74 innings. At 6-foot-3, Forret features a wide arsenal of pitches and could hit the big leagues by 2027.

Overn, 22, was a third-round pick in 2024 who has track-star speed and stole 64 bases between High-A and Double-A this year, batting .249/.355/.399 with 13 home runs and 43 RBIs.

The Orioles have been the busiest team in baseball this winter, signing first baseman Pete Alonso and closer Ryan Helsley, trading for left fielder Taylor Ward and reliever Andrew Kittredge, and now adding Baz to a rotation that includes left-hander Trevor Rogers, right-handers Kyle Bradish and Dean Kremer, and some combination of Tyler Wells and Cade Povich for the fifth spot.

SANTA ANA, Calif. — The Los Angeles Angels agreed Friday to a last-minute settlement with the family of deceased pitcher Tyler Skaggs after jurors, deliberating for more than two days, sent queries that suggested the verdict might go in the family’s favor.

The amount and terms of the settlement — ending a yearslong battle over culpability in Skaggs’ death — were not immediately disclosed. The Skaggs family had been seeking $118 million in potential lost earnings plus added damages.

“The Skaggs family has reached a confidential settlement with Angels Baseball that brings to a close a difficult six-year process, allowing our families to focus on healing,” the family said in a statement. “We are deeply grateful to the members of this jury, and to our legal team. Their engagement and focus gave us faith, and now we have finality. This trial exposed the truth and we hope Major League Baseball will now do its part in holding the Angels accountable. While nothing can bring Tyler back, we will continue to honor his memory.”

Skaggs’ family sued the Angels after Tyler Skaggs died in 2019 after an Angels employee, Eric Kay, gave him a fentanyl-laced pill that killed him. Kay is serving a 22-year federal prison sentence for his role in Skaggs’ death. If Kay hadn’t provided that pill, jurors were instructed, Skaggs would not have died that night.

Lawyers for the Skaggs family and the Angels were in discussions Friday morning both outside the courtroom and privately in front of Judge H. Shaina Colover as the jury began its third day of deliberations. Settlement talks picked up in earnest Thursday, according to a source.

On Wednesday, the jury asked questions about the testimony of the five wage experts and about whether the jury would also be allowed to award punitive damages. Throughout the trial, the jury heard baseball wage experts testify that Skaggs’ lost career wages ranged from $21 million to nearly $125 million.

Jurors sat through 31 days of courtroom drama, which included testimony and depositions from 44 witnesses and arguments from attorneys. They viewed 312 exhibits.

The jury instructions required answers of up to 26 questions that varied from easy-to-answer stipulations of fact to more complicated assessments of negligence or culpability. Nine of 12 jurors had to agree on each question — but not necessarily the same nine jurors.

In the end, the jury did not get to render a verdict or assign “percentages of responsibility” among Skaggs, Kay and the Angels.

Angels lead attorney Todd Theodora argued it was “undisputed in this case that Eric was doing this on his own” and that the Angels were unaware Kay was distributing pills.

Plaintiffs attorney Daniel Dutko argued that the Angels knew of Kay’s drug problem, pointing to a Drug Enforcement Agency interview with Kay after Skaggs’ death that stated Kay had told his superior in 2017 that he and Skaggs were doing drugs.

The Skaggs family argued the Angels did nothing to prevent or monitor Kay’s drug abuse and did not discipline or terminate him. By doing so, the family said, the team put Skaggs in harm’s way.

“We’ve spent two months in trial,” Dutko said during his closing argument. “At any point have the Angels taken any responsibility?”

The Angels claimed they were not aware of Skaggs’ drug addiction and that he concealed it from the team. Theodora said the club signed Skaggs “under false pretenses” because he did not disclose his prior addiction to Percocet and that not even his wife knew about his previous addiction.

Angels attorneys said Kay was not operating in the scope of his employment when he provided pills to Skaggs and other players and that team officials were unaware of Kay’s illicit drug activity. The Angels argued it was Skaggs’ reckless decisions that led to his death.