Blue Jays: Bottom Four Trades under GM Ross Atkins

Ross Atkins and the Blue Jays’ front office have done a great job rebuilding the roster, but not every move they’ve made has worked out.

I will be the first to admit that since coming to Toronto in 2015, GM Ross Atkins has been as good as any baseball executive at player development and creating payroll flexibility for a team that was swimming in bad contracts. However, Atkins has been less than desirable when it comes to his handlings of trading the star players from the 2016-2018 Blue Jays. It almost feels like every single good player on the Blue Jays was moved at a point when their value as a trade chip was the lowest.

Again, I admire Ross Atkins’ ability to pick right on prospects such as Cavan Biggio and Bo Bichette. But with that being said, if Atkins had not been so ‘in between’ on the rebuild phase and had a fire sale when it was obvious this team was not going to compete (circa 2017), then the Jays would have an even deeper farm in what is already considered among the best in baseball.

This offseason has been moving slowly, so now is as good of a time as any to take a look back on Atkins reign as GM. Before I make this list, I want to still note that Atkins has hit lightning in a bottle for a few trades like Teoscar Hernandez for a declining Francisco Liriano. I don’t want to discount his trades altogether, but for the most part he was not great when it came to the trading of star players during the rebuild.

Let’s take a look back at some of these trades where it was evident that Atkins missed the optimal time to trade.

Hung on to a star a little too long

(4) Josh Donaldson for Julian Merryweather (CLE) – August 30th, 2018

Before Blue Jays fans storm my dwelling with pitch forks, I don’t think lowly of Julian Merryweather. In fact, his small sample size in 2020 exhibited electric stuff, featuring a devastating 20mph difference between his 100mph four seamer and his change up.

Now with that said, the Jays traded for Merryweather at a time when he didn’t have much of a track record as he missed all of 2018, and had a 5.52 ERA over 25 starts in the preceding season between AA and AAA ball. To add insult to injury, he was (and is) nearing the wrong side of 30 which indicates the upside may not be there like it would for a 24 year old prospect. Even since the trade, Merryweather made just one appearance in 2019. The stuff is great, but results are what truly matters and theres a lot of uncertainty surrounding Merryweather.

The Jays should have unloaded Josh Donaldson during the 2017 trade deadline when he was having a monster season despite missing most of April and May with a calf injury. Donaldson finished that season with 33 home runs, a .944 OPS and MVP votes. By the trade deadline it was evident that the Jays were not competing for anything and there was no reason to aimlessly hold onto a bonafide stud and risk what would eventually happen, namely a value-plummeting injury.

In 2018, Donaldson would suffer another calf injury in the spring and he would only be able to play 36 games for the Jays. As a result of still being injured when traded, the demand for Donaldson was much lower than it would have been in the preceding season. Donaldson would make just 16 appearances for the Indians in 2018.

A wasted opportunity

(3) Aaron Sanchez + for Derek Fisher (HOU) – July 31st, 2019

Aaron Sanchez really fell off the map after his stellar 2016 season where he led the AL with a 3.00 ERA in 192 IP. Unless they planned to extend his contract into their expected window of competing, there is no reason that a player who performed at this level should have remained on a rebuilding team.

It doesn’t appear that they were offering an extension around this time and the front office even went as far as snubbing him out of tens of thousands of dollars on his pre-arb contract based on a CBA technicality, much to the dismay of his agent Scott Boras. The years that followed 2016 saw Sanchez battle through injury mangled seasons and this derailed any chance of getting a good package for Sanchez. He dealt with a variety of injuries, mostly with chronic blisters on his pitching hand, as well as a consistent problem with his fingernails. It sounds like minor stuff, but for a pitcher at the highest level, it was enough to derail him.

Again, the Jays roster was aging and underwhelming by midseason 2017 and there is no reason that the front office shouldn’t have capitalized when his value was highest. This rings even more true based on the apparent fact that they had no intentions of giving him an extension.

Also going to Houston in the deal were fan favourite reliever Joe Biagini, and Cal Stevenson, a middle of the road prospect.

Not much in return from the Yankees

(2) J.A. Happ for Billy McKinney and Brandon Drury (NYY) – July 26th, 2018

Many Jays fans forget how good J.A. Happ was between 2016 and 2018. In those three seasons, he produced an ERA of 3.44 with a blistering hot record of 47-21 in 88 starts. When he took the mound, it always felt like he was going to pitch deep into the game and give his team a chance to win.

I get that he was traded for only a half season of control, but in the past the price has always been high for quality starters at the trade deadline, and it felt like the Jays rushed to unload him. Given the fact that he signed a 3-year, 51m contract in the succeeding offseason, the Jays would have been far better off offering him a qualifying offer for 17m and letting him walk for a first round draft pick.

Instead, they got mediocre Brandon Drury and a prospect in Billy McKinney. The stinger for Jays fans is that the front office should’ve known what they had in Drury and McKinney. Drury had produced a below average 95 OPS+ with decent defence in his first three big league seasons, while McKinney had posted a modest OPS of under .770 in over 2000 minor league PA. In my opinion, the Jays should have held onto Happ and offered him a QO that he’d probably decline, thus giving the Jays a draft pick from whomever signed him. Given the fact that Drury and McKinney have both moved on from the Jays organization, it is likely that they would have gotten much more value in a draft pick.