Blue Jays need to pounce on these options as Diamondbacks signal they are selling

The Seattle Mariners officially kicked off trade deadline season with their reported acquisition of Canadian first baseman Josh Naylor on Thursday evening. The 28-year-old from Mississauga will be a free agent at the end of the season and was hitting .292 with an .807 OPS, 11 home runs and 59 RBIs in 93 games in his first year with the Diamondbacks.

The Mariners gave up tow of their Top 30 prospects, according to MLB Pipeline and both are pitchers. LHP Brandyn Garcia is Seattle's No. 13 prospect, drafted in the 11th-round in 2023 and just made his MLB debut this week. RHP Ashton Izzi is their No. 16 prospect, a fourth-round pick from 2022, currently playing in High-A.

This return would suggest the Diamondbacks are starting to prepare for life without one of Zac Gallen and / or Merrill Kelly. The two pitchers are both slated to be free agents in the offseason and have been the subjects of plenty of speculation for the last several weeks, with many insiders linking those players to the Blue Jays.

Blue Jays need to pounce on these options as Diamondbacks signal they are in sell mode

However, the Blue Jays may not be targeting starting pitching as much as they were before July as Eric Lauer has been nothing short of incredible since he was inserted into the rotation on a regular basis on June 11. In those eight starts (including Thursday against Detroit) Lauer has thrown 43 innings, allowed just 14 earned runs, has 47 strikeouts and has given up just 7 walks.

While there may still be questions marks around Max Scherzer's effectiveness, as the two-time World Series Champion turns 41 on Sunday, the current Blue Jays rotation, as is, is holding it's own. Possibly negating the need for another starter.

But If the Blue Jays want to really swing for the fences and go "all-in" maybe they need to pry both a starter AND a hitter from the Diamondbacks. There is lots of speculation that the Yankees could be interested in third baseman Eugenio Suárez and MLB insider Steve Phillips recently suggested that it wouldn't be the worst idea for the Blue Jays to snatch him up before the Yankees can.

Adding Suárez at third would make the Blue Jays lineup incredibly deep and would give them a true power threat in the middle of the lineup as Suárez has hit over 60 home runs since joining the Diamondbacks at the beginning of the 2024 season. A trade for Suárez would be just as much a move to bolster the Blue Jays lineup as it would be to prevent the Yankees from upgrading theirs.

It would be a massive deal for the Blue Jays to land the likes of Suárez and a Gallen or Kelly in one fell swoop - but now that the Diamondbacks have started to stock up their farm with a couple of younger arms, the Blue Jays could be comfortable in approaching the D-Backs in negotiations. They may be looking for other areas to upgrade and the Blue Jays have a bevy of young, controllable position players with potential which they could dangle in front of the Diamondbacks.

With the deadline still a week away the Mariners have got things off to a hot start by securing one of the leading bats that was rumoured to be available on the market. They've now put the rest of the league on notice that they are ready to make some noise and it will be interesting to see how other teams, including the Blue Jays, will respond.