Blue Jays match up perfectly with clearest trade deadline wild card

The Arizona Diamondbacks are trying to stay relevant in the fight for the NL West this season. Despite a 7-3 record in June, they remain a .500 team going into Thursday’s action sitting 34-34 on the year. At 6.5 games back of the division leading Dodgers and 4.5 games back in the NL Wild Card race, the Diamondbacks could be right on the brink of “make it or break it” this season. They recently lost a staff ace caliber arm when Corbin Burnes hit the IL for the remainder of the season, set to undergo Tommy John surgery. They are also a team that has had issues with their pitching both in the rotation and in the bullpen all year.

According to Jim Bowden of The Athletic, this should help line up a deadline deal between the Diamondbacks and the Blue Jays. Bowden says, “The Blue Jays have made acquiring a starting pitcher their priority at this trade deadline. They match up well with the Diamondbacks for one of their impending free-agent starters, (Zach) Gallen or (Merrill) Kelly, if Arizona decides to sell.”

Blue Jays match up perfectly with clearest trade deadline wild card

There’s some irony here in the fact that the Blue Jays were also targeting starting pitching in the offseason and Burnes was one of the guys they were hoping to sign. Now that he’s hurt, the team that did acquire him might help the Blue Jays finally cross that need off their list. Toronto did get Max Scherzer, but with just three innings under his belt in 2025, that hasn’t helped the Blue Jays pitching at all this season and they probably wouldn’t mind acquiring someone with some playoff experience to slot in as Bowden Francis continues to struggle.

That’s where Gallen and Kelly come in. Both Gallen and Kelly will be free agents this offseason and if the Diamondbacks start selling at the deadline, these will be two names that will likely get dangled.

Gallen is not having his best season, with a career high 5.15 ERA and leading the league with 35 walks in 80.1 IP. But at 29 years old and 33.2 playoff innings under his belt, he should still have plenty left in the tank to bounce back and put up good numbers for the rest of the campaign. An All-Star in 2023, Gallen has the seventh highest fWAR over the last three seasons with a 12.2 mark and his 3.20 ERA is the fifth best in that time, among starters with at least 500 IP.

Kelly is a late bloomer, who didn’t reach the majors until he was 30 years old, debuting with the Diamondbacks in 2019. Now at 36-years-old, he’s proving age is just a number as he is holding opponents to a miniscule .199/.253/.338 slash line. He’s bouncing back nicely from an injury-plagued 2024 season, in which he made just 13 starts. It’s been so-far-so-good for Kelly, but opposing GM’s would rightfully wonder just how much he has left in the tank. But if he keeps putting up these kinds of numbers, with a 129 ERA+, he’ll be a sought-after commodity at the deadline.

Arizona have more than a handful of pending free agents, most of whom are pitchers, but there’s also third baseman Eugeno Suarez and first baseman Josh Naylor who are set to hit the market after the 2025 season. The Blue Jays could match up with the Diamondbacks as they have several intriguing infield prospects in their system, including Orelvis Martinez, Will Wagner (who was being mentioned as a potential 2025 Rookie of the Year candidate) Josh Kasevich, Rainer Nunez and Josh Rivera all at the Triple-A level.

Surely there is a name (or two) within that group that would entice the Diamondbacks to start talks with the Blue Jays.