Blue Jays Trade Deadline: One target from EVERY non-contending team to pursue

AL West trade targets

While the American League Central had four teams that are already more "out of it" than "in the hunt", the AL West is a little bit of a tighter race. The Mariners are currently 38-42, 10.5 GB of the first-place Rangers, who seem to be running away with the division. With playoff odds at just 11.3 percent, there's very little chance that the club stands pat and doesn't make an effort to get something of value out of their rental pieces.

• Seattle Mariners - Teoscar Hernández

Speaking of Mariners rentals, wouldn't this be something? The crazy thing is that such a move to bring Teoscar back to Toronto is far from impossible. After all, he was an immensely popular figure on the club and he still has some pretty impressive thump in his bat. So far this year, the 30-year-old has clubbed 15 home runs in 80 games, driving in 46 runs while scoring 36 of his own. While he leads the majors in strikeouts with 108, he also has a respectable .749 OPS and a 110 OPS+ to go along with it. His expiring contract means that the Mariners could look to flip him for something of value, so who knows?

• Oakland Athletics - Paul Blackburn

These poor, poor Oakland A's. Despite the fact that they've won some recent series against the Brewers, Rays and Pirates, this is still a club that is going absolutely nowhere (except maybe Las Vegas). To make matters even worse, the team has very little in the way of truly tradeable assets. Could they flip some of their aging rookies who are suddenly emerging as power bats like Ryan Noda and Brent Rooker? Sure, but the Blue Jays may be more interested in some of their pitching. Young left-hander JP Sears is an intriguing option, but he's been pitching well this year and is under team control until the conclusion of the 2028 season, so he will not come cheap. 29-year-old Paul Blackburn is a name to watch, though. He, too, is under team control through 2025, but he's been a fairly solid pitcher for the past two years and could give the Blue Jays a bit of depth as either a starter or reliever.