One Way for the Blue Jays to Go for It

The Blue Jays are a pretty good team. Sometimes they look like a very good team, and with an upgrade or two, they might get to that level consistently. There’s a decent shot this is the team that busts the extended franchise playoff slump, and with the trade deadline around the corner, you know the front office is active. They’ve been open about the activity, and you can see where upgrades would be wanted. Because of the Blue Jays’ situation, I’ve long been fascinated by the idea of a Johnny Cueto/Aroldis Chapman addition for a package built around Jeff Hoffman and Daniel Norris. And then more, presumably. Extreme seller’s market and everything.

From an outsider’s perspective, it would be a blockbuster. It would change the landscape of the American League now, and it could shift the Reds’ future fortunes. That said, there are a few hurdles. For the Jays, Norris could conceivably help in 2015. It’s also not impossible to imagine Hoffman making a difference in the bullpen down the stretch. And for the Reds, if you deal Chapman, that subtracts from 2016, and then that takes you to a slippery slope. The Reds might not want to go that far. If they had their druthers, they’d move rentals and try to get back at it a year from now.

So maybe that’s not so realistic. Maybe the Reds don’t want to tear down. And maybe the Jays don’t want to take anything at all away from 2015. The idea could use some restructuring. Which brings us to something I’m going to hate: I absolutely love the guy, but, imagine if the Jays were to dangle Marcus Stroman.

There might not be a more interesting potential trade asset. Stroman isn’t a prospect — he’s proven himself over basically a full season in the major leagues. Stroman also isn’t a short-term contributor — he’s on the disabled list, probably through the end of the year, because while he says he could return, these things generally don’t happen. From here on out, the Jays can’t be counting on Stroman to provide anything. And he is still in the process of coming off surgery. There are question marks. And there’s outstanding upside.

If the Jays made Stroman available, some teams would be more interested than others, but you’d have to think that would open the door to almost anything. At least out of those pieces realistically out there. The Jays would be dealing from their future, but not from their present. And it would sting, but it would be one piece, one valuable asset, exchanged for a better shot at making a run right now. I’m not saying the Jays have to go for it, but if they went for it like this, it would be a pure 2015 upgrade.

It doesn’t get better than Cueto out there. He’s a rental, but he’s an awesome rental, and he’d give the Jays something they don’t have. Cole Hamels is really good, but he doesn’t seem to want to go to Toronto. Jeff Samardzija and Scott Kazmir are good, but they’re not on Cueto’s level. Maybe they won’t even be moved. Cueto, also, is pretty affordable, salary-wise, so let’s stick with the Reds.

The Reds would be interested because Stroman could help as soon as next April. While he also isn’t Cueto, he’d be a decent approximation, with five years of team control. And while Stroman is probably going to be a Super-Two player, that’s just about money, not years. By adding Stroman, the Reds wouldn’t be tearing things down — they’d be trying again in 2016. They’d still have Chapman, and Todd Frazier, and Joey Votto, and so on. Maybe the Reds need to tear down, but the preference is usually to try to contend. No one wants to enter a rebuilding process.

So you have Stroman going one way, with five years of control. And you have Cueto going the other, with just months until free agency. Maybe there’d be some bonus for Toronto to have an exclusive negotiation window, but Cueto probably isn’t signing long-term. The trade favors the Reds, so it could use some balancing out. Enter free-agent-to-be Mike Leake. Leake, like Cueto, means nothing to the Reds down the road. But he’d further improve the Jays’ rotation depth. And so that the Jays wouldn’t get stuck with only rental value, the Reds could also include Tony Cingrani. Cingrani is a work in progress, and he’s been on the disabled list. He might not have it in him to be a starter. But he’s under control for a while, and he has more major-league strikeouts than innings pitched. He seems to have his uses.

Nothing makes it easy to trade someone like Marcus Stroman. Let me make that clear: thinking about trading Marcus Stroman sucks. A healthy Stroman, in fact, might be the one thing these Blue Jays are currently missing. But what Toronto has is a shot at the World Series, and Stroman gives them something most other teams don’t have. So he’s a rare trade asset. Look at the current projections. By ZiPS and Steamer, the Jays are in line to finish about six games behind the Yankees in the East, and they’re in line to miss the wild card by about a win. By season-to-date numbers, the Jays are in line to finish one game behind the Yankees in the East, and they’re in line to be about a win up in the wild card. This is a tight race, and the Jays know they have a good core. They could swing the biggest difference-maker of a trade. A trade rivals wouldn’t be able to match, with so little out there.

Adding Cueto and Leake to the rotation would improve the Jays’ projection by almost two and a half wins. It kind of depends who you take innings away from, but the Jays aren’t exactly short on under-achievers. It’s a deal that would leave them with too many starters, but down the stretch they’ll probably need more than five. And then there’s the other benefit: Toronto has been looking for help in the bullpen, but if they added Cueto and Leake, they could address the bullpen internally. Aaron Sanchez was an effective reliever a year ago. Norris could help in the pen. Even Hoffman could potentially help in the pen, in September and beyond. There’s also the Cingrani factor. The Jays need pitching, but with an addition or two and some shuffling around, the holes can be plugged. And the offense, quite obviously, is there. Michael Saunders is theoretically on the way back, to boost the outfield.

On that note, maybe this gets a little bit bigger. Talking about deadline deals involves a lot of speculation. I don’t know when a trade is good enough to be agreed to on both sides. On the chance this still isn’t good enough for Toronto, they could request to include Saunders and Jay Bruce. The Reds have reportedly had Bruce on the market for a while. He’s not part of their future, even without a decision having been made yet on whether to blow it up. For the Reds, Saunders just occupies Bruce’s spot, for cheaper, and he’s got upside if he’s healthy. For the Jays, Bruce slides immediately into a corner, and he’d be around for next year. The Jays aren’t hurting for offense, but any improvement is an improvement.

Anyway, the Jays could have a pitching staff. It would come at the cost of a hell of a player, and no one wants to give that player up. The instinct is to say, no, it’s too much. And maybe it is, but this market has so few sellers, and the Jays have an opportunity. Next year, they’d be down a Stroman, but they’d still have Norris, and Hoffman, and Sanchez, and a number of others. Stroman is a part of the Jays’ future. Indirectly, he could be a bigger part of the Jays’ present. If the Reds don’t want to tear things apart, they might not do any better with non-Chapman assets.

All this is is an idea. Maybe for the Jays, it’s just not worth it. But these opportunities don’t happen every year. And Johnny Cueto is going to go somewhere.