5 of the Blue Jays' most valuable (but realistic) trade chips this offseason

Ricky Tiedemann

Ricky Tiedemann has been one of the Blue Jays' top prospects since the moment he was selected in the third round of the 2021 MLB Draft. He's got more potential than any other prospect in the system, but he's done nothing but tease the Jays and their fans over the past few years. Injuries, injuries and more injuries have wiped out essentially every full season of his development so far.

Tiedemann, still just 22, has made a combined 41 appearances in his minor-league career so far. In 2023, he made 15 starts but they only consisted of 44 innings. He made eight starts this past season, but the 17.1 innings he took the mound in were not all that pretty. Eventually, Tommy John surgery wiped out his year and is going to keep him on the shelf for the vast majority, if not entirety, of the 2025 campaign as well.

Still, it's hard to deny the fact that Tiedemann is one of the game's very best pitching prospects when he's healthy. The Blue Jays have every reason to be bullish on his long-term future, but a prospect-hungry team could easily see him as a long-term project worth embarking on.

At every single stop in his minor league career, Tiedemann has struck out batters at alarmingly-high rates while keeping his walk rates lower than you'd expect from a pitcher throwing as fast as he does. His fastball is paired with one of the most fun-to-watch sliders in the game and it's hard not to get excited every time he takes the mound.

By the time Tiedemann is ready to pitch again, the Blue Jays will have Kevin Gausman, Yariel Rodriguez, Alek Manoah and Bowden Francis all under contract as rotation options. This is without even mentioning a potential free-agent addition, as well as Adam Macko, Jake Bloss, Lazaro Estrada and Rafael Sanchez, who are all on hand as minor-league depth. Simply put, Tiedemann may just be leapfrogged on the depth chart by too many arms, to the point where it'd make more sense to deal him than to wait around for him to maybe get healthy.

There's never going to be a shortage on teams looking to add to their pitching depth, especially when it comes to a player with as much hype surrounding him as Tiedemann does. It just feels more and more likely that the Blue Jays look to avoid going the Ricky Romero 2.0 route and trade Tiedemann while he is still viewed so highly in the industry. He'd be the centerpiece in any major deal, so perhaps now is the time before injuries take away anymore of his shine.