Toronto Blue Jays: Players to upgrade through trade

The Toronto Blue Jays are looking to upgrade at multiple positions this offseason, I am going to take an in depth look at the centre fielders that could help.

It goes without saying that not every player in major league baseball holds the same amount of surplus value.  Due to age, amount of team control and salary among many other factors, teams use a complicated equation to figure out the current value of all players across the majors and the minors to help determine who to target in trades and what assets to use to acquire those targets.

Every team has their own way of calculating the value of every player, and a math equation alone cannot be used to accurately predict a player’s true value to a different front office.  A perfect example of this is that Danny Jansen holds more surplus value than both Lourdes Gurriel Jr. and Teoscar Hernandez, but I know I would prefer to have either one of the outfielders on my 26-man roster based on performance to date.

If the rumours of Cleveland’s interest in Gurriel Jr. as a main piece in return for Francisco Lindor hold any truth, it would appear at least one front office valued Gurriel over Jansen.

While surplus value still needs to be used in conjunction with the eye test and teams still need to trust the scouts they hired to make player evaluations. It is definitely a good jumping off point to help figure out what potential players the Blue Jays could target in trades this off season.

I will explore every position and try to figure out who the Blue Jays front office should target in a trade to improve the roster, or if they should even be looking to upgrade a position at all. We are all well aware that Bo Bichette is probably the shortstop of the future, but because he can potentially play other positions around the diamond, we won’t discount a potential addition at the position.

We will start with the outfield and in particular the centre field position. All things being equal, if I was choosing one player in baseball today to build my franchise around, it would be Mike Trout.  Even entering his age 29 season and coming off a year that saw his stats dip from his usual lofty levels, I believe he is the best player in baseball.  The Los Angeles Angels, however, are proving that even though you employ the best player in the sport, it doesn’t mean that you will be able to build a winning organization.

Things, however, are not equal, and this is where surplus value comes into the equation.  Ronald Acuna Jr. is considered the most valuable asset in the major leagues and that is mainly due to the fact that he accepted an 8-year deal worth $100 million plus two option years at a $17 million AAV.  The Atlanta Braves essentially bought out Acuna Jr’s entire twenties and almost every expert believes it is hands down the best valued contract for any team in the majors.  The contract is the definition of undervalued.

The Atlanta Braves are overpaying Acuna Jr. for what would be his last two pre-arbitration years as well as what would have been his first two trips through the arbitration process. As a super 2 player, Acuna Jr. would have had four trips through arbitration, the third of which would have come with a salary pretty close to what he will get paid under the terms of his eight year deal. Where the true value in that contract lies is the final year of arbitration plus the two seasons of free agency, as well as the extra two option years, paying him an annual average value of just $17 million a season.

Mike Trout for comparison at age 22 signed a six year deal worth a total of $144.5 million.  The final two seasons of that deal paid him just over $33 million per season, before his new 10 year $365 million extension kicked in this offseason.  It is Trout’s age and that contract that make Acuna Jr. the way more valuable asset around the majors.

It probably goes without saying though that neither of those players would be available in a trade unless a team was willing to go far above and beyond any logical trade package.  According to baseball trade values, the Blue Jays top four most valuable assets combined, Bo Bichette, Vlad Guerrero Jr, Austin Martin and Cavan Biggio, do not equal the surplus value that Ronald Acuna Jr. has on his own.

I will attempt to examine players that the Blue Jays could realistically target in trade to upgrade different positions around the diamond and what a realistic package of assets it would take to acquire that player. For the purposes of this experiment I will focus on players that have made their major league debuts, but that doesn’t mean minor players won’t be used in trade proposals to help make trade values more equal.

I will try to determine whether the Jays would be better off trading for one player over another, and the skilled player may not always be the best player for the Blue Jays to acquire.  So with that, let’s take a look at what centre fielders the Blue Jays front office, led by General Manager Ross Atkins, could acquire to improve the roster.

Who might be available?

It is well known that the Blue Jays are looking to improve their overall team defence, and maybe no position on the roster is a bigger weakness defensively than centre field. Other positions could use a defensive upgrade to be sure, but maybe none of them are as important as the one currently manned by Randal Grichuk.

Grichuk is by no means a horrible defender, but his optimal defensive position would probably be left field.  The Blue Jays have one other player on the current roster that could be considered a centre fielder, but heading into his age 29 season, Jonathon Davis has yet to prove that he is anything more than a depth piece.

Let’s start off by getting the centre fielders that won’t be available out of the way, I already talked about Mike Trout and Ronald Acuna Jr. and we can add Cody Bellinger, Luis Robert and Kyle Lewis to that list.  I will also add Christian Pache to this list as I don’t see the Braves looking to move him, and he will probably move Acuna Jr. off the position in 2021.

I also can’t see the Jays and Yankees coming together on an Aaron Hicks trade.  I won’t mention any players around the league that are not an upgrade over what we currently have.

So that leaves us with three small groups of potential additions. We will call the first group option C, it includes Lorenzo Cain, Kevin Kiermaier and Bryan Reynolds. Cain and Kiermaier still bring high level defence, but in 2019 Cain took a step back with his bat before a slight resurgence in a very small sample size, as Cain opted out after only five games.

He is owed $35 million over the next two seasons.  Kiermaier hasn’t fared well offensively the last two or three seasons and is still owed $26 million over the next two years.  Reynolds was pushed off the position in 2020 by an old friend in Anthony Alford, until Alford got injured.  Reynolds comes with five years of control and had a very good 2019 before falling off in the shortened 2020 season.  Between not being a full time centre fielder and his down season with the bat, I’m not sure Reynolds is a good fit, and that goes for the other two as well.

The second group consists of two players that may not be much of a defensive upgrade over Grichuk in centre, but are definitely offensive upgrades, and one player that is certainly a defensive upgrade while not adding much with the bat.  Those players in question are Brandon Nimmo of the Mets, Ian Happ of the Cubs and Harrison Bader from the Cardinals.  Bader and Happ both come with three years of arbitration control and Nimmo comes with two years of control.

Nimmo and Happ, however, have similar surplus value and would cost more in a trade than Bader would, but only Bader would really improve the defence.  A package for either Happ or Nimmo would most likely start with one of Alejandro Kirk or Orelvis Martinez, a starting price I am not sure I would be willing to pay based on their defence.  Gabriel Moreno or Alek Manoah would probably get the conversation started as well, add a Trent Thornton or Anthony Kay plus another asset and maybe you could either GM to listen.

Maybe the Mets will be more motivated to sell Nimmo if they happen to sign George Springer.  Perhaps the Cubs could be convinced to package Happ with Willson Contreras, I would be a lot more inclined to put Orelvis Martinez into a package if it included two seasons Contreras.  Maybe a package of Martinez and Danny Jansen gets it done.