Blue Jays should be willing to trade a top prospect or two

The MLB lockout continues to drag on and fans can just hope that soon there will be a resolution before Spring Training starts.  Until then, we can still look forward to the potential season and what the Blue Jays can do to improve to the point that they are not just a playoff team, but also a World Series contender.

The most notable area the club needs to improve the most is at third base, where their current choices are either Santiago Espinal or Cavan Biggio.  Both players are better used as a utility type player than an everyday player at the hot corner.  The name that keeps coming up to be the fix is Cleveland Guardians 29-year old Jose Ramirez.  The three time All-Star has finished top six in AL-MVP voting in four of the past five seasons, including finishing top three in a trio of those campaigns.

Ramirez would come with two years of control and would replace the power lost by the departure of Marcus Semien.  The fear from many fans is what the cost would be to acquire Ramirez, as  names like Jordan Groshans, Gabriel Moreno and Orelvis Martinez keep getting brought up as potential pieces of a trade.  When I read comments on forums and on Twitter, there are a lot of fans that don’t want to risk giving up a potential future All-Star.

I have to admit that at one-time, I was often in favour of hoarding prospects because of the “what if they become the next Ivan Rodriguez” factor, but is that reality?  Over the years, specifically the Alex Anthopoulos seasons, the Blue Jays traded several prospects in blockbuster trades and how many of those players developed into Major Leaguers, let alone All-Stars?

In November 2012, the Blue Jays made a massive 11 player deal with the Miami Marlins that included five high end prospects, three of which were rated as top ten prospects in the organization.  Anthony DeSclafani had turned out into the best player of those prospects, but he has bounced around to a few different organizations and battled injuries, while pitching more than 125 innings just three times.  There is no saying what the team could have or would have stuck with DeSclafani.

From the end of the 2014 season to the 2015 Trade Deadline, the club made three massive deals acquiring Josh Donaldson, David Price and Troy Tulowitzki.  Again the Jays unloaded the prospect cupboards to make those deals and out of all those prospects, while some have become Major League contributors, they are replacement level players at best.  Many believed several of them were going to become cornerstone players, but they never amounted to anything close.

The difference between that 2015 team and now, is the core of the previous Blue Jays was an aging team and did not have more than a season or two to take a run.  The current Blue Jays are young and aren’t being replaced for a while, so you can afford to be riskier with your prospect trades.

In all those trades, you do have to look back at losing Noah Syndergaard and Travis d’Arnaud for a 38-year old middle of the rotation knuckleball pitcher in R.A. Dickey.  However, that trade looked bad right from the early rumours of it going down.

My opinion is if the club does not need to give up all three of their top trio of prospects, they should definitely be all in at acquiring Ramirez, and this includes having those top prospects available.  What is your opinion, is there anyone that is completely off the table for the Blue Jays to trade to acquire like Ramirez?