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What would an outside-the-box deadline deal look like for the Blue Jays? - Sportsnet.ca

WHAT WOULD AN OUTSIDE-THE-BOX DEAL LOOK LIKE?

There are paint-by-numbers deals and then there are more complicated trades. Here are a few ways the Blue Jays could make some outside-the-box moves:

• Trade a big-league catcher: In talks about the likes of Lance Lynn and Mike Minor, the Rangers are believed to have asked about the Blue Jays’ young big-league catching, according to a source. While trading Danny Jansen or Reese McGuire could be disruptive to the pitching staff, catching depth is a strength of the organization, so it’s a possibility the front office could consider.

• Explore three-team trades: If the Blue Jays are having trouble lining up with one trade partner, they could make things really interesting. Cleveland has a history of three-way trades, the Padres are in the middle of everything this year, and the Mariners are always up for a deal.

• Acquire prospects: Just because the Blue Jays have a strong farm system doesn’t mean it couldn’t be better. In 2016, the Blue Jays made a trade that landed them present help (Francisco Liriano) and future help (Reese McGuire) at once. If a similar opportunity emerges, the Blue Jays will be interested.

WHO COULD THE BLUE JAYS GIVE UP?

The last time the Blue Jays were summer buyers, their farm system ranked 24th in MLB, according to Baseball America. Four years later, they’ve had the chance to build for the future and now their prospect depth ranks fourth. That means nothing is off-limits in talks with other teams.

“It’s game changing for us,” Atkins said. “We can be in on every player.”

But as the Blue Jays acquire more talent and their 40-man roster gets stronger, holding onto players becomes more challenging. The Blue Jays are just a few months away from having to protect Rule 5-eligible players, a list that includes some promising players:

• Gabriel Moreno, C

• Otto Lopez, SS

• Kevin Smith, IF

• Riley Adams, C

• Josh Winckowski, RHP

• Logan Warmoth, IF

• Cullen Large, IF

• Zach Logue, LHP

• Justin Dillon, RHP

• Ty Tice, LHP

There won’t be room for all of those players on the 40-man, but at a time that rosters include 26 spots and many teams are looking to cut payroll, there’s reason to believe this year’s Rule 5 Draft will be busy. Instead of losing players for nothing this winter, the Blue Jays could theoretically trade Rule 5 eligible players now.

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‘One eye on now and one eye on the future’: Blue Jays GM explains deadline moves – The Athletic

With their team in a playoff spot, the Blue Jays front office headed into this year’s trade deadline with a careful plan to make roster improvements. They had needs — starting pitching, infield reinforcements, a bench bat — and following Monday’s 4 p.m. ET deadline, they had addressed each of them, adding a pair of starters in Robbie Ray and Ross Stripling and versatile infielder Jonathan Villar before the clock expired.

But perhaps more crucially, the Blue Jays did the majority of their shopping via the rental market, buying pieces for modest prices, while not subtracting from their major-league roster or their collection of top-ranked prospects.

In essence, the front office was opportunistic in making their current team better, beefing up areas of need, while not seriously jeopardizing the club’s future. Because as much as a playoff appearance is beginning to seem likely this season for the Blue Jays, who still have a hold of the final American League playoff spot after Monday’s 4-3 loss to the Baltimore Orioles, a deep run may be less likely. The young squad could gain a lot of valuable experience from October baseball, hence making moves to improve their current roster, but the Blue Jays’ serious window of contention will surely open wider starting next season and beyond.

“We had two main goals,” Blue Jays general manager Ross Atkins said on a Zoom call with reporters Monday evening. “One eye on now and one eye on the future and making sure we balance that. And we feel like we balance the future by not parting ways with our upper-echelon prospects and we balance the present by bolstering our major-league roster.”

And for now, the Blue Jays still have the payroll flexibility and prospect capital to spend at a later date, should a better opportunity to really go for a World Series run arise in the future.

“There were other things we could have done,” Atkins added. “It’s thinking about wanting that opportunity to continue for us, so it doesn’t mean just holding on to prospects, it means continuing to acquire and develop them, but we are confident that into this offseason and hopefully next deadline that we will have plenty of access to continue to acquire talent.”

In a sign that shows what a difference a year can make, the Blue Jays were among the busiest buyers during this deadline period. While no team was as active as the San Diego Padres over the last 48 hours, the Blue Jays made five separate deals over the last week.

While none of the Blue Jays deadlines moves made a huge splash, they at least took care of some immediate concerns, while keeping one eye on the future of their franchise, which they hope is morphing into a consistent contender. Because, as much fun as a playoff appearance could be this year in this wacky shortened season, the overarching goal is for postseason games to be a yearly occurrence. In that way, they’re looking to emulate another pretty successful club, who have deployed the slow build strategy to great success.

“You look at the Dodgers, they’ve never made the big splashy, huge (move), I mean, Mookie Betts is a great player, but it’s never all-in at one time,” Atkins said. “It’s a steady growth that they continue to build up their system. They continued to make their 40-man more efficient and obviously very effective. I think it’s important to be measured and there isn’t one juncture where, in our view, that you put all the cards on the table. For us it will be, hopefully, continuing to be able to build and have a system that continues to also be providing talent for us and not just trade pieces.

“That’s our goal, we’ll hope to continue to be measured. At the same time, it’s not without making really significant deals that mean very high prices, but it’s too hard to say on when exactly that time will be when those bigger deals occur.”

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TSN Blue Jays reporter Scott Mitchell joins the guys on Overdrive to discuss how all of the Toronto Blue Jays moves made at the deadline are players with upside without having to give up too much to acquire them. Scott also discusses how GM Ross Atkins showed some restraint not acquiring a big game devastating their farm system to try and go on a run this year.

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Blue Jays get busy at the trade deadline

After a very busy day at the MLB trade deadline, Ben Nicholson-Smith, baseball editor for SN.ca and co-host of SN's 'At The Letters' podcast, joins Sportsnet Tonight to break down all the moves and what they mean going forward.

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Blue Jays reinforce roster while showing restraint, discipline at deadline - Sportsnet.ca

TORONTO – Even in a market with scant inventory, there was still an opportunity for buyers determined to remake their teams ahead of baseball’s trade deadline. San Diego Padres general manager A.J. Preller, for example, romped through the aisles like a hoarder at Costco, making six deals involving 26 players in a buildup so audacious, the Toronto Blue Jays’ bold 2015 augmentation seemed modest in comparison.

Lance Lynn of the Texas Rangers was available for the right price. So, too, was Dylan Bundy of the Los Angeles Angels. The Pittsburgh Pirates felt things out for controllable arms like Trevor Williams and Chad Kuhl. Nothing is out of reach on Jerry Dipoto’s Seattle Mariners.

So, big deals were out there, including one Blue Jays GM Ross Atkins thought had some legs but his team eventually abandoned because “we just realized we weren’t going to line up on.” That might have been Mike Clevinger, whom Preller landed from Cleveland, or Lynn.

A case can certainly be made that this wasn’t the time for the Blue Jays to go bigger, not in this bizarre, pandemic shortened 60-game season in which the expanded playoffs opened up a path to post-season contention that might not have otherwise existed.

The main reason they’re in this spot is because the stable of young arms the club has worked so diligently to amass in recent years has begun to align with a talented nucleus of position players. As this season has shown, no amount of pitching is enough, it’s difficult and expensive to acquire, and subtracting from that must be done prudently.

A complicating factor is that in the absence of minor-leagues this season, extracting full value for prospects not at a club’s alternate training site was near impossible. Were teams to value players based on last year’s performance? What’s the impact of a lost development year? How do you account for the off-season or more gains/setbacks?

“Not having as much access to scout as much talent and really zero in and do deep dives on our prospects,” was one of two trends to really impact the way the Blue Jays operated, Atkins said, the other being the scarcity of full-blown sellers.

“Especially in the NL,” he said, “the amount of teams that are in the race impacted our ability, seemingly, to what we would normally anticipate a price to be, or an appropriate acquisition cost seemed to be mildly different. And I think that was heavily influenced by teams being in it.”

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[carnage24]

oh thank you

[Trilogy]

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2020 Blue Jays. Sons and chunky boys.

[Cyrus]

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Interesting, I wonder who Ben C. wanted from us....

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this might be a trade we regret

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this might be a trade we regret

Bleh, was hoping it wasn't him. He's one of the best prospects that wasn't in that 60 man group.

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this might be a trade we regret

It certainly might be. Williams has quite a bit of potential, though he's still effectively embryonic as a pitcher: he has a massive frame but doesn't throw spectacularly hard (yet), has a sometimes wonky delivery (to date), and his secondary stuff lacks polish (so far). The Dodgers have an excellent development system, so he could well be quite good. Could.

[-MetA4-]

Kendall Williams is a nice prospect, but you're kinda gonna have to give up something to get 2 years of control on a pitcher who has historically been good ast the MLB level. Williams is 20 and has pitched 16 innings in rookie ball - at this point if he even becomes Ross Stripling that will be a good turnout.

Its okay, part of becoming a good team means being comfortable trading guys like this. They can find a similar prep pitcher in the 2nd round in next year's draft.

[Michael Bradley]

This will be both an enjoyable and painful time for Jays fans depending on your perspective, as the team's competitive window is likely starting up, which means focusing on improving the big league roster will take priority over loading up on the farm system. We will likely see more prospects, bigger than Williams, being traded in the next year or two (wouldn't shock me if it happens as soon as this winter). The key is to make sure to keep the high end prospects, and move 11-30 ranked prospects unless there's a bigger deal involved which will force a top 10 prospect being moved. Some of those 11-30 ranked prospects might end up being good, and Williams has practically no pro experience so a year or two from now this deal might look different, but ultimately these are the moves the team will have to make in order to be good enough to contend during the Guerrero-Bichette-Biggio years.

[SharoneWright]

but ultimately these are the moves the team will have to make in order to be good enough to contend during the Guerrero-Bichette-Biggio years.

There's a chance, though, that if Biggio and Williams swapped birthdays, these would be known as the Guerrero-Bichette-Williams years, and we would be dealing Cavan. I just hope management is deliberate in identifying our core, and not just trade the farm to support what's already playing in the MLB. This is going to be key when you consider the middle-infield depth percolating in the minors. Keep the best/move the rest. Also, ideally, you only move a guy out who your internal scouts rate lower than the industry average. Hopefully, that was the case with Kendall.