Blue Jays: The possibility of Alejandro Kirk being traded after the lockout

This entire offseason has been slow-moving with the ongoing negotiations and the owners locking out the players once the CBA expired. While the two sides continue to battle it out, there is still hope that the Toronto Blue Jays will still get a full season in but a deal needs to happen sooner rather than later for that to happen.

In the meantime, we have debated and discussed all Winter how the Blue Jays roster can be improved once the offseason gets back underway, with some areas potentially benefitting from some outside reinforcements:

• One or two bullpen arms
• Third baseman
• Fifth starter

While the Jays do already feature a pretty solid lineup, if they are able to add and shore up these areas, especially in the bullpen which hurt the Jays last October, World Series aspirations are not too far off. On top of that, adding an impact player like Jose Ramirez or Matt Chapman would also make the current roster that much better, however, the fallback of these types of player additions is that substantial prospect capital or talented players need to head the opposite way.

Enter Alejandro Kirk.

The stocky Blue Jays catcher burst on the scene back in 2020, giving fans a small glimpse of what he can do in a short amount of time. Heading into 2021, Kirk was projected to get some significant reps at the Major League level after beating out Reese McGuire for the Opening Day roster but a hip injury sidelined him to just 60 games and 165 at-bats, finishing with a .242/.328/.436 and a .764 OPS with eight home runs. While this wasn’t the type of season fans were hoping to see from the Mexican product, Kirk still holds a lot of trade value for a variety of reasons.

Blue Jays catcher Alejandro Kirk could be traded this season given the amount of contract control and the imminent arrival of prospect Gabriel Moreno.

As per the previous CBA, Kirk only has 1.04 years of service time and is not free-agent eligible until 2027. While this could change once a new CBA is in place, Kirk’s bat is his calling card compared to his fielding ability, sporting a .995 fielding percentage with a 17% caught stealing percentage for his career. He has a power stroke that has the ability to put the baseball over the outfield wall across the diamond and while his arm is not eye-popping at the moment, he is quick moving behind the plate and hopefully, the caught stealing numbers will improve once he gets regular reps, as he did boast a 39.2% as he made his way through the minor leagues.

With all that in mind, Baseball Trade Values has Kirk sitting at a 15.8 which carries some weight, especially since he has the potential to get better with more reps under his belt at the Major League level.

One thing that may also be pushing for Kirk to be traded is the imminent arrival of top prospect Gabriel Moreno, who appears ready to make his MLB debut sometime in 2022 which will create an even greater backlog at the position with McGuire and Danny Jansen already in the mix.

Jansen appears to be going nowhere while McGuire may get traded or DFA’d considering he is out of options, but if the club keeps intending to have Moreno behind the plate, Kirk may find himself the centre of a trade package to try and improve the current roster. His name was also already brought up at the 2021 trade deadline when the Blue Jays and Cleveland Guardians discussed a Jose Ramirez deal but the trade never materialized.

Moving forward, Kirk is one player on the current Jays roster who could be dealt this year, whether it be once the lockout ends or more towards the trade deadline with Moreno being closer to the big leagues. HIs value is high and with the logjam at the position, it makes sense that the club would dangle Kirk in trade discussions and capitalize on his value amongst a position that does not boast a lot of free-agent talent this year.

What are your thoughts on Alejandro Kirk potentially being traded?