Blue Jays: Top 10 Playoff Push Trades

A Pitcher and Two Prospects

8. Francisco Liriano, Reese McGuire and Harold Ramirez for Drew Hutchison

If you want to look at one of the best trades in franchise history, I think this trade would go down as one of the top. On the surface, it looked like Drew Hutchison was a solid pitcher as he was coming off a 13-win season in 2015, however it was more to do with offensive support as he had an ERA of 5.57. In 2016, John Gibbons did not have confidence in Hutchison on the mound and he needed another pitcher.

The Pittsburgh Pirates were looking at shedding Francisco Liriano’s nearly $27 million dollar contract and all it cost them was prospect Reese McGuire and Harold Ramirez for struggling Hutchison.

We won’t get into what happened to Hutchison and how he has fizzled out, or what the future looks like with McGuire. The Blue Jays were looking for some insurance in the starting rotation which turned out to be Liriano. Liriano would end up starting eight games and coming in relief twice during the regular season.  In his eight starts, he averaged 6IP and a 2.66 ERA.

Liriano came up huge in the Wild Card game that offseason against the Baltimore Orioles.  With the game tied in the tenth inning, Liriano was brought in with one out and got the next five batters out which led to Edwin Encarnacion’s historic walk-off home run.  Liriano was the pitcher of record that night picking up the win.

Liriano would be traded the next season for Teoscar Hernandez and Nori Aoki.