Blue Jays have traded Roberto Osuna to the Houston Astros

In a shocking development in Monday, the Blue Jays traded Roberto Osuna to the Houston Astros, five days before his suspension is even over.

While the Blue Jays were expected to make several of their players available before the non-waiver trade deadline tomorrow, I don’t think many of us expected the announcement that came late Monday afternoon, with The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal having it first.

The Blue Jays traded their star closer, Roberto Osuna, to the Houston Astos. The details haven’t even been released just yet, but we’ll update you here at Jays Journal as they become available.

Osuna was on the block for a different reason of course, as the team was faced with trying navigate how to re-introduce him to fans once his suspension was over on August 4th. His legal proceedings haven’t even finished up just yet, so this is a very complicated situation, and one that I’m surprised Houston would sign up to get involved in.

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On the field, Osuna has been one of the best young closer’s in baseball, and even became the youngest to ever reach 100 saves earlier this year. Unfortunately that highlight was nearly erased with the legal trouble, and subsequent 75 game suspension he faced.

His career 2.87 ERA in 221 appearances, and his playoff pedigree at such a young age are obviously still appealing to a team like the Astros, who have faced their own struggles at closer with Ken Giles‘ rocky season. Whether or not the gamble will pay off remains to be seen, but Osuna does also have three years of contract control remaining, which plays a bit factor in this equation.

As I said above, we’ll update you with more details as they become available, but the Blue Jays definitely made a statement by moving him at this time. Once we know the return, it’ll be a lot easier to evaluate just how good the move is, and what it means for the ball club going forward.

In a bit of a weird aside, our own Clayton Richer actually called this trade going down last week, which I’m sure I’ll hear about for years to come. We’ll see how close the return is, but the destination makes sense in terms of closer need.

*Update- Giles is involved in the deal, which makes Clayton’s prediction that much closer. Lovely.

Stayed tuned, this should be an interesting next 24 hours, especially after this bombshell.