Blue Jays: Why trading Justin Smoak may be harder than it should be

I’ll concede that I don’t know enough about the rosters for every team around Major League Baseball, but as I look through the current depth charts of the contenders it’s not that easy to find a fit for Smoak at all, let alone an obvious one.

I don’t know that the Blue Jays will be rooting for an injury to happen to the first baseman of a contender, but unless that happens between now and July 31st it might be hard to find a suitor for the talented switch-hitter.

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With that in mind, Blue Jays fans need to prepare themselves for several different possible outcomes.

Maybe the front office decides to extend their respected and productive veteran for another year or two at a small raise.

It’s also possible they accept whatever they can get for him prior to the deadline, which would give Tellez regular reps at first base and open up a few more at-bats at DH for the stretch run.

Who knows, maybe they keep him around all year as a veteran mentor if the market doesn’t work out. It might seem like an obvious move to trade someone who can still be a middle of the order hitter, and hit from both sides of the plate, but baseball is weird these days. I mean, Dallas Keuchel and Craig Kimbrel are still waiting for contracts.

Maybe I’m wrong and Atkins and company find a great deal for Smoak before the trade deadline this year, but it’s more likely that the market won’t exactly help them out on this one. That said, I’ll say it one last time, an injury could change everything. We’ll see if anything changes over the next couple of months.