With the calendar flipping from June to July in just a few days, that means the looming threat of the MLB trade deadline looms ever larger on the horizon. With each passing day, we begin to get a better idea of who is looking to use the deadline to improve their chances of making a World Series run and who is looking to jumpstart their rebuild for next season or even beyond.
One team that is currently most likely to be in the seller group is Toronto Blue JaysThis is actually a bit of an upset (in more ways than one) for the Blue Jays. They’ve made the postseason three of the past four seasons, but they were winless all those times. Recent dismal playoff history aside, the Blue Jays were considered to be in the thick of postseason contention. Sure, they wouldn’t be competing for the division (as evidenced by their 16% odds of winning the AL East coming into spring training, according to FanGraphs), but they were at least a team with realistic hopes of returning to October baseball, as FanGraphs playoff odds gave them a 49% chance of making the postseason this year.
At the moment, It’s no big deal For any team from the North to return to the tournament, Toronto is now light years behind in the division with a record of 37-43. They are 13.5 games behind first place Baltimore and have a 0.0% chance of winning. Their wild card hopes are also dwindling by the day, currently sitting 6.5 games behind the Kansas City Royals for the third-to-last wild card spot, with three teams vying for Kansas City’s spot. That’s why FanGraphs currently gives Toronto a 6% chance of making the postseason. Still, it’s better than zero!
Looking at the current state of baseball, it’s easy to imagine that the Blue Jays aren’t doing particularly well. Their pitching staff has an overall ERA of 106 and an FIP of 108, both good numbers for a pitching staff that ranks in the bottom 10 in baseball. Yusei Kikuchi and Chris Bassitt are doing their best in the starting rotation, as are guys like Yimi Garcia (pre-injury) and Trevor Richards in the bullpen. Still, it’s not enough to lead the Blue Jays to victory, and it’s a far cry from the great work their pitching staff did last season.
That being said, if Toronto is putting up numbers at the plate, the pitching staff will just be a thorn in the team’s side. After all, the 2024 Blue Jays have also been worse overall at the plate, with the Blue Jays hitting .234/.312/.372 overall, with a wOBA of .304 and a team wRC+ of 98 as of Friday’s game start. They’ve also seen a big drop in power, with their isolated power dropping from .161 last season to .138 this season. That’s a bottom-five number across the MLB, and their other numbers are mediocre at best. Given the Blue Jays’ overall decline in productivity on the mound and at the plate, it’s suddenly very easy to see they’re in serious trouble here.
So, it’s simple, right? A team that has no hope of making the postseason should definitely be sold, right? Surely GM Ross Atkins could put up the old “For Sale” sign and start answering the phone with the intention of starting a rebuild? Turns out, no. that It’s simple: As The Athletic’s Caitlin McGrath noted in a recent article, the franchise is fresh off a costly renovation of Rogers Centre and doesn’t want to force a rebuild on its fans so soon into their tenure in the newly renovated stadium.
Given how much money has already been pumped into this team to begin with, it’s fair to say this isn’t just a matter of flipping a switch and saying, ‘Right, it’s time to get going again,'” Atkins told McGrath. The aforementioned article:
“Every decision, whether it’s stadium renovations or the state of the organization, has to take the future into consideration,” Atkins said, “but as you’ve seen over the last four years, we’ve put a lot of money into our current team financially, trade-wise, resource-wise, and we’re going to continue to do that until it doesn’t make sense anymore.”
With all that in mind, if the Blue Jays are still in a similar position in both the division and wild card when the trade deadline starts to loom, it’s safe to assume Toronto will start selling. If they do, the question shifts to whether they move soon-to-be free agents or move their stars as well. If they simply stick to getting what they can for guys like Yusei Kikuchi and Yimi Garcia, it’s clear they’ll try to do it again, possibly with a retooled roster in 2025.
However, players like Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Bo Bichette are also on the table, with rumors gaining a lot of traction after Vladimir gave an interview to Deportivo Virus about the possibility of being traded to a team like the Yankees:
Here is a translation of that comment: From ESPN:
“I would never sign with the Yankees, even if I died,” Guerrero Jr. said in 2022. In 2023, he told the New York Post, “This is a personal thing that goes back to my family. … I’m not going to change that.”
But I would never say it’s impossible.
“Like I said, I’m a player. If a team picks me or does something, it’s because they need it, of course. I’m happy to help any team,” Guerrero told Virus Deportivo on Monday, “but right now I’m just focused on helping the team get out of this slump.”
If I were a Blue Jays fan, this would ring alarm bells. Maybe walking back his comments about his feud with the Yankees is a sign of growth and maturity, but that’s not the point. The main point is that when a player has publicly spoken about being willing to work with any team he is traded to, even if it’s a team with which he has had “personal issues,” keeping him on the team never bodes well. Again, I’m not taking issue with what Vladimir Guerrero Jr. said. It was about as close as you can get to a professional, yet honest, answer to that question. The fact that it even made headlines speaks volumes about the state of the Blue Jays.
That said, there are still no signs of a Blue Jays-Yankees trade happening. Trade talk at this point is nothing but smoke, and signs of fire are just around the corner. But as each week goes by without the Blue Jays getting going, some tough choices may be forced north of the border. Whether it’s a restructuring or a complete rebuild, it’s clear that the Blue Jays aren’t going to be able to bring the World Series trophy back to Canada on their current form.
