HOUSTON — In a confounding season with muddled standings and a highly unlikely, but not totally impossible, pathway to the post-season, this trade deadline promised to be fraught for the Toronto Blue Jays.
They weren’t ready to fully concede to their daunting playoff odds by selling off their pending free agents, but also couldn’t afford to hold for a low-probability run at October and risk no return for their expiring assets. They needed worthwhile value back to diminish the on-field product at their sold-out stadium, but teams are better than ever at identifying their very best prospects and keeping them out of deals. They wanted to, at worst, move laterally in the present while also moving forward substantially in the future. Yet even as they talked about remaining in the race, some of the teams they are, or could be, competing against for the final wild-card berth emerged as top trade partners, within a conflicted wider market.
And then there was the emotional toll on players, coaches, staffers and, of course, fans, of tearing apart the heart of the team that came within inches of winning the World Series last fall.
The only way to balance those competing, even contradictory forces was to drive in opposite lanes at the same time, and that’s the approach the Blue Jays took in adding 10 players through six trades, highlighted by Jose Soriano’s acquisition ahead of Monday’s 6 p.m. ET deadline.
Joining Soriano are Spencer Arrighetti and Jameson Taillon to help bolster the rotation; John Klein and Josh Stephan to add upper-level pitching depth; Josh Smith to add versatility in a dice roll he can recapture past form at the plate; Brett Bateman for a near-term centre field option; and Ty Southisene, Dasan Hill and Dameury Pena for longer-level upside.
Gone are Kevin Gausman, Jeff Hoffman, Daulton Varsho, Adam Macko and three prospects, including headliner Arjun Nimmala, Eddie Micheletti Jr. and Angel Rivero, leaving the Blue Jays different but deeper, especially on the mound, than they were.
The weeks and months ahead will determine whether they’re better, too, although “we feel we’re in a healthier position moving forward,” said GM Ross Atkins.
“The thing we were the most pleased with is that we were able to acquire pieces that can impact the team immediately and will be here for the long term,” he added later. “That was important to us and usually a hard thing to do in the situation that we were in, as far as we’re concerned.”
Some things had to break their way for this deadline to have played out the way that it did, beginning with the Angels, currently being run by John Mozeliak, deciding to put their controllable assets in play, Soriano among them.
Back when Mozeliak was in charge of the St. Louis Cardinals, he and Atkins completed several deals, including ones that brought Randal Grichuk and Aledmys Diaz to the Blue Jays, which surely helped the process. The Angels needed real upside for their system and Nimmala, the headliner currently up at double-A, provides that. Micheletti is a hard-hitting outfielder, also at double-A, while Rivero showed well in the Florida Complex League.
It was a steep price, but Soriano gives the Blue Jays a complement for ace Dylan Cease, who is under team control through the 2028 season, while also giving them a jump on their winter shopping.
Nimmala “was the difficult part of that trade, making that decision. He’s been very good and he’s going to be,” said Atkins. “Adding Bateman and Southisene softens that blow somewhat. The progress of other players in our system and some of the depth we have in triple-A already and in double-A was part of the equation, as well.”
Under normal buy circumstances, Soriano’s addition would have energized the group and for some it did, in atypical fashion.
“When they acquired Soriano, I thought I was going to stay there because it was like, all right, they’re going to build for the future, but also still try to win this year,” said Varsho, traded to the Astros for Arrighetti. “Ross was pretty honest with me. He’s like, ‘Hey, if I get a package that I think will help our team for the future, I’m going to take it.’ As the day was getting closer to that time, in my mind, I was like, ‘OK, nothing’s going to happen.’ Then it happened. Emotions, obviously, poured in, but very grateful and that’s a blessing for me.”
Shortly after Varsho said his goodbyes in the Blue Jays clubhouse, Arrighetti circled the room saying his hellos, followed by Smith, which narrowly preceded Hoffman being called into manager John Schneider’s office to be told he was being sent to the Minnesota Twins, which led to another round of hugs.
“Just sad to have to say goodbye to everybody,” said Hoffman, who had hoped to stay but wasn’t shocked to be traded. “Our front office has been clear about how they’re approaching this deadline. Even though we were adding some, I figured there were probably still going to be moves made that maybe affected our roster on the field. I think everybody was kind of prepared for that. Just kind of the luck of the draw.”
In the midst of all that action, Shane Bieber, another pending free agent who was warned that he might be dealt, tried to simply get ready to start a game against the Astros that felt like a footnote rather than the main event.
At about 4:45 p.m. CT, 15 minutes before the deadline, pitching coach Pete Walker approached him and told him his start was on, an all-clear that he wasn’t being dealt. Bieber proceeded to allow one run over 5.2 innings in a 3-1 win, grateful to be staying and that the uncertainty of the deadline had passed, describing the Blue Jays’ buy-and-sell approach as “interesting,” while allowing the clubhouse to exhale.
“I think so,” he said. “That’ll hit for me personally tonight and tomorrow. I was really just trying to have tunnel vision on preparing for that lineup and going out there and pitching.”
That’s what remains now for the Blue Jays, at 53-60 and four games back of the Cleveland Guardians for the third wild-card spot, but still with five teams in front of them. They made trades with two of those clubs — sending Macko to the 55-58 Texas Rangers and Hoffman to the 56-57 Twins, while Varsho landed with the 58-56 Astros, who are atop a mediocre AL West — underlining the tensions within this hybrid deadline.
“This is a different deadline than 2024,” Schneider said in reference to the full selloff that summer. “The message is we’re not just saying, hey, we’re done competing, you know what I mean? It was a unique time to add talent for the now and for the future and I feel like we did that. So it starts with guys that have been here, we understand we have X amount of games to play better. We’re still trying to win. We’re still trying to get into the post-season and there’s definitely areas that we need to get better at. So hopefully the additions help, but I think a lot of the guys that are here, they need to kind of continue to get better, too.”
Over two hectic days of trading, the Blue Jays appear to have successfully moved the franchise in different deadline directions at the same time. That’s a rare and challenging needle to thread, one the players must try to replicate on the field. The roster is bent into a new shape, and we’ll find out if it’s a better one.