6 surprising players that could be traded if the Blue Jays are out of it at the deadline

RHP Yimi García

Back in the 2021/22 offseason, Yimi García signed a two-year, $11 million deal with the Jays to help bolster their bullpen depth. With his past experience in high leverage usage, he was expected to form a solid duo with Romano in the backend of the bullpen to close off games. For the 2022 season, García did exactly that, as he came as advertised, pitching to a 3.10 ERA, 1.049 WHIP, giving up only six home runs while walking 16 and striking out 58 over 61 innings pitched with 23 holds. The Jays appeared to be set with the same dominant duo for 2023, while they focused on upgrading other aspects in their pitching.

However, this season has been a completely different story for García. It has been a struggle for him since the start of the year and has yet to find his groove entering the third month of the season. In 29 games, he has given up 17 earned runs including four home runs already, to go along with nine walks and 33 strikeouts and two blown saves, leading to an ERA of 5.53 and a WHIP of 1.45. If he keeps this up, the surprise isn’t going to be that he will be available at the trade deadline; the surprise is if there will be any team that would even give up any asset(s) to obtain him if so. Anything coming back from a García trade, or perhaps even just letting García go, would be a win for the Jays, as he would be the perfect example of an addition by subtraction for the ballclub.

Hopefully, the Jays will remain in contention for the rest of the 2023 season so that they do not have to worry about losing potentially any of their key players mentioned above at the trade deadline, except maybe for García who at this point is expendable.