Blue Jays: In hindsight, the worst trades that weren’t made

After the front office failed to capitalize on Josh Donaldson’s trade value, many fans are critical of how things went down. What other trades has the franchise “missed” on making over the years?

The Josh Donaldson trade is going to be something that’s debated among Blue Jays fans for years, regardless of how the rest of his, or Julian Merryweather‘s careers finish out. It would help if Merryweather became a solid rotation piece, and/or Donaldson didn’t return to being an MVP calibre player, but the complaining will persist regardless.

To some degree that’s understandable, but fans must also remember that hindsight is 20/20 and when Mark Shapiro and Ross Atkins elected to keep their star third baseman and give competiting a shot in 2018, I was admittedly in favour at the time. As we all know now, trading him last winter would have been the far better idea, but that sorta thing happens in baseball, unfortunately.

Not moving Donaldson earlier has had me thinking back to other periods in franchise history when the front office didn’t go through with a trade that was reportedly on the table. Sometimes we’re thankful those trades never  happened, but others, like in the case of the Blue Jays reportedly missing out on a chance to get Jack Flaherty from the Cardinals last winter, are a little more difficult to swallow.

It’s not the first time that’s happened in franchise history though, so let’s have a look back at some of the worst deals that never happened, and think about what could have been if things had gone a little differently.