Blue Jays: Three significant “shake it up” trade ideas

As the Blue Jays continue to search for a spark to get their talented team going, it might be time to consider a significant trade ahead of the Aug 2nd deadline.

As Josh Goldberg put it on twitter on Wednesday, the Blue Jays have now played the “manager card”, in hopes of shaking things up for a talented but underperforming team. John Schneider has taken over the managerial duties from Charlie Montoyo, and the decision has been met with mixed feelings as far as what the players have said in the media. It’s clear Montoyo was well liked by the majority, but also that some folks inside the organization felt that a change was necessary.

The first game of Schneider’s career as a MLB manager went well as the Blue Jays beat the Philadelphia Phillies on Wednesday on the back of yet another quality outing from Ross Stripling. The veteran right-hander has been a godsend for the rotation since Hyun Jin Ryu went down, and he was excellent again in his last outing ahead of the All-Star break. However, the Blue Jays dropped the opener of a four-game set to the Kansas City Royals on Thursday, which was all that much more disappointing considering the Royals had to leave 10 players at home thanks to the rules around crossing the border into Canada (or the United States) without a vaccination.

Thursday’s loss was a reminder that simply changing out the man in charge of the dugout isn’t going to fix all of the problems with this team overnight. I have no doubt that Schneider can have a positive influence on this team, but the roster has some pretty undeniable flaws at the moment, something even Ross Atkins admitted to the press this week when discussing Montoyo’s dismissal.

So what should the Blue Jays do about it? I’d like present three trade ideas that I think would fit the mold as the type of significant deal this team should be looking at right now. These are nothing more than ideas, and it takes two to tango as with any trade, but I tried to be creative while also staying within the realm of possibility.

Here are the tires I’d be kicking if I were in Atkins’ seat over the next few weeks.