Tyler Glasnow is set to take the mound when the Los Angeles Dodgers host the Texas Rangers Friday evening, but there was a chance he wouldn’t be playing for LA at all if it wasn’t for a country music superstar.
Glasnow, a dark-horse Cy Young candidate who hails from Santa Clarita, was traded to his hometown team in December 2023 from the Tampa Bay Rays.
When Dodgers superfan Brad Paisley appeared on the Dodgers Territory podcast, he revealed his key role in bringing Glasnow home.
LOS ANGELES, CA – OCTOBER 25: Clayton Kershaw #22 of the Los Angeles Dodgers talks with Brad Paisley prior to Game 2 of the 2017 World Series against the Houston Astros at Dodger Stadium on Wednesday, October 25, 2017 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Alex Trautwig/MLB via Getty Images)
Brad Paisley Hosted a Trade Summit for the Dodgers
Paisley said he was hosting a few dozen Dodgers front office members at his home when he was put on the phone with Erik Neander, president of baseball operations for the Rays, and the singer invited Neander to join them.
“He put Erik Neander on the phone and I said, ‘Hey, you’re with the wrong team, you can be here,’” Paisley recounted. “And then he said, ‘Man, I wish I could,’ and then he got on there with Andrew [Friedman, the Dodgers’ president of baseball operations], and he said, ‘That sounds like Brad Paisley. That’s a good impression.’ And Andrew said, ‘No, we’re really at his house, and he’s got a bar, and we’re all hanging out.’”
After Friedman confirmed with Paisley that his invite to Neander was real, Paisley found himself hosting trade discussions.
“The next thing you know, eight Tampa Bay Rays front office people walk in,” Paisley said. “We’ve already got about 30 Dodgers. There’s eight Rays.”
While Paisley was a generous host, he didn’t go all out. Instead, he dangled a carrot to encourage the trade discussions.
“It was about 11 o’clock when Erik came in,” Paisley said. “And here’s the GM of the Rays, and he sits down at the bar and he’s like, ‘What do you got?’ And I said, ‘Well, this whole top shelf is the most expensive stuff. And you don’t get that until Tyler Glasnow is a Dodger.’ He’s like, ‘Fine, I’ll just deal with you. What do you think of so-and-so?’ I’m like, ‘That’d be a great Ray.’”
After some private discussions between the teams, Friedman indicated to Paisley that “it’s looking good.”
“And then a couple of days later, he wrote me, ‘You get the assist,’ which is really fun,” Paisley said. “It is what you hope. When I think of baseball movies or any of these things, I think of guys at a bar, piano music in the background, and they write some stuff down on a napkin and then they’re like, ‘What do you think?’ ‘Yeah, we’ll do that.’ That’s kind of how it happened.”
The Dodgers and Rays Weren’t All Business at Paisley’s House
While it’s unclear how long the talks lasted, the party certainly went on into the wee hours of the morning.
Paisley refused to name names, or even identify this person’s team, but one executive had quite a night.
“They stayed until 4 in the morning and called an Uber,” he said. “One of the front office people with one of the teams face planted in the front yard on the way to the Uber. Not kidding. Had grass stains on their face when they got back to the hotel at 5 in the morning. And yeah, this is all true.”
Hope remains that one day, we’ll find out who this is.
Katie Woo, reporter for The Athletic and co-host of Dodgers Territory, said on social media that she’s digging into the story.
“It is my civic duty as a journalist to find out which MLB exec face-planted leaving Brad Paisley’s house this night,” she wrote.
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