Brewers falling off trade deadline bubble could gift Blue Jays ideal addition

Even with the Milwaukee Brewers sitting at 43-35, that hasn’t stopped analysts on MLB.com from predicting the Brewers to sell off a few pieces at the trade deadline. Last week, Mark Fiensand pointed to the fact that the “Brewers have a history of dealing players as they get closer to free agency (see Josh Hader, Corbin Burnes and Devin Williams).” Meantime this past Saturday, Thomas Harrigan reiterated that notion, saying, “The Brewers have never been shy about making bold, forward-thinking moves. In 2022, the club dealt closer Josh Hader at the Trade Deadline -- even while leading the division. Prior to the 2024 campaign, the Crew sent ace Corbin Burnes to the Orioles in another blockbuster. Both pitchers had a full year of team control remaining before free agency (or a year and change, in Hader’s case).”

Brewers falling off trade deadline bubble could gift Blue Jays ideal addition

This is leading everyone to believe that the Brewers could in fact be inclined to move starting pitcher Freddy Peralta, who will be a free agent at the end of the 2026 season and Peralta is exactly the kind of pitcher the Blue Jays should be targeting at the deadline.

While the Brewers currently have a better record than the Blue Jays, they are sitting at the edge of the wild card playoff bubble, and face increasingly stiff competition for one of those three spots as the Mets, Phillies, Giants and Padres continue to win games around them, and they have to contend with a St. Louis Cardinals team in their own division that seems to be hitting their stride as well.

With all of these parameters in place, the Blue Jays should try and seize a player who would easily be the best in-season addition the Blue Jays have made to the big league roster in about four years.

At the 2021 trade deadline the Blue Jays traded a couple of top prospects to the Twins to get José Berrios, a legit ace, who is about as durable and dependable as anyone in the game. Berrios came to Toronto with one year left on his contract, before he signed an extension to stay for seven additional seasons. That extra year of control for Berrios was likely the reason for the high cost in the trade as the prospects the Blue Jays sent the Twins were two of their top four in the system.

Toronto might not be looking at that exorbitant of a price for Peralta, but he is a guy who would be worth it just the same. Peralta has a 10.53 K/9 rate since 2023 which ranks eighth in all of baseball. He is coming off back-to-back 200 strikeout seasons and at 29-years-old should still have plenty in the tank, with less than 1,000 innings under his belt at the big league level. He’s kept his ERA under 4.00 every year going back to 2020 and has only missed significant time once, which was in 2022.

While the Blue Jays have been searching for an answer to the back end of their rotation all season, they might be better off acquiring someone that would be considered a front line starter, who would give Toronto’s rotation not only some depth, but another weapon that would be hard for competing teams to match.