Should The Blue Jays Trade Marcus Stroman?

After the first half of the season for the 2015 Toronto Blue Jays, the focus within its fan-base is zeroed in on one thing – trades. The general consensus is that the Jays need to acquire, at the very least, a high quality starting pitcher in order to give them a much desired playoff push. It can also be argued that in addition to the need for starting pitching, the Jays need bullpen assistance, and ideally, someone that can be used as a sort of “super utility” to offset the woes that are in left field and the infield.

Now, in a perfect world, Alex Anthopoulos can utilize his ninja skills and acquire all of the areas of need without giving up too much. Unfortunately, the reality is that there are many other teams that are flirting with the notion of a playoff push, and are also looking to  acquire the same areas of need that the Jays are seeking. In other words, it’s clearly a seller’s market.

This story seems familiar, no? For at least the past several seasons, Jays fans have been chirping that the team is just “X” away from making that playoff push. Yet, what has also been consistent for the same amount of time is that the Jays failed to acquire what was needed. This is sometimes because teams that Anthopoulos tried to initiate trades with want in return what we like to call “The Untouchables.”

We’re all familiar with these types of prospects/players; the type of players that would ultimately damage the team more (on and off the field) than any return could possibly mitigate, or so we like to believe. In the past, the Jays would balk on deals involving a potential returns because opposing clubs wanted these “untouchables.”

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In hindsight, however, perhaps the Jays would have been better off making such deals. I’d like to first take a look at some examples of players that we would have deemed “untouchable,” but in hindsight we end up face-palming ourselves at the notion of refusing to move them. Hopefully, if we recognize that the Jays were actually better off dealing these players, we can allow ourselves to put things in perspective and come to realize one difficult yet glaring thing – there is no such thing as an untouchable.

Next: The Untouchables