6 past trade deadline acquisitions that ended up helping the Blue Jays reach the postseason

Honourable Mentions: David Cone (1992), Rickey Henderson (1993), Troy Tulowitzki (2015), Francisco Liriano (2016)

There is a quartet of additional notable players that deserve an honourable mention on this list. In 1992, a key transaction actually took place after the standard MLB trade deadline, as the Jays acquired the services of future Cy Young winner David Cone from the Mets prior to the waiver trade deadline at the end of August. Cone would go on to post a solid 4-3 record with a 2.55 ERA, 1.28 WHIP, with 47 strikeouts over 53 innings pitched. Despite appearing in only eight games down the stretch due to the late acquisition, he managed to help the Jays reach the postseason for the third time in four years, and ultimately to their first World Series. Despite the trade-off being future superstar in the making Jeff Kent, along with just an average performance by Cone during the postseason, many of the Jays’ faithful still believed the deal was worth it as it brought them their first ever championship.

In 1993, the addition of Rickey Henderson helped the Jays take full control of the basepaths as Henderson scored 37 runs and swiped 22 bags in the 44 games he played down the stretch. However, his .215 average along with his paltry offensive output of four home runs and 12 RBI left a lot to be desired, as he had shown in the past to be way more productive than that. Nevertheless, Jays’ fans will always remember him help setting up and scoring on Carter’s historic home run to win the 1993 World Series.

In 2015, in addition to both Price and Revere, the Jays also went out to land the big fish in Troy Tulowitzki from the Colorado Rockies as a part of Anthopoulos’ big push for the playoffs. Tulowitzki definitely helped stabilize the Jays defence at the shortstop position down the stretch, but he struggled quite a bit from the offensive side of things after leaving the hitting haven in Colorado. They would also find out later that he tends to be injury-prone, as it eventually took its toll on him and wore down his effectiveness in the long run. Nevertheless, he did end up doing his job in getting the Jays into the playoffs.

Finally, in 2016, Francisco Liriano turned out to be another key deadline acquisition that helped the Jays reach the postseason. After joining the Jays, Liriano joined their starting rotation and delivered quality starts in six of the eight games he started, going 2-2 with a 2.92 ERA, 1.18 WHIP, giving up 16 earned runs with 16 walks and 52 strikeouts in 49.1 innings pitched. They even utilized Liriano out of the bullpen a couple of times to acquaint him with the role in the event they made the postseason and planned to use him out of the pen, showing his added flexibility. Unfortunately in the end, he wasn’t utilized much during the postseason, but he certainly did his part in the regular season to get the Jays there.

We certainly hope that the 2023 trade deadline acquisitions can do the same and become a part of Jays’ history like the aforementioned players by helping the team once again get into the postseason and beyond.