Ross Atkins fails to reel in a big fish, leading to disappointing trade dud-line

Teoscar Hernández. Lane Thomas. Brent Rooker. Tim Anderson. Tyler O'Neill. The list goes on and on when it comes to position players the Toronto Blue Jays were pursuing to an extent at this year's trade deadline. In the end, the team came away with one positon player: Paul DeJong.

While DeJong has his positive qualities, he was not going to be in the Jays' plans prior to Bo Bichette's injury, which leads us to believe that his trade was more of a reactionary one than anything else.

Hernández was firmly on the Blue Jays' radar, too. According to MLB insider Héctor Gómez, the Jays were actually seen as the front runners to land him at one point, which makes the lack of a move sting that much more. To the surprise of many, the former Blue Jay was not even moved at all despite there being multiple teams actively targeting him. Bringing someone like Hernández aboard would've made all the difference in the world for the Jays.

While the deadline was far from a complete flop by Ross Atkins and Co., it just feels like there were one or even two more moves to be made. As the clock ticked down and names continued to come off the board, I can't be the only one who was anxiously waiting to see the "The Toronto Blue Jays are in agreement with _____ to acquire ______" post on Twitter from your favorite beat writer.

Down on the farm, the Jays didn't exactly have a plethora of blue chip prospects to entice selling clubs. Middle infielders like Otto Lopez, Addison Barger, Ernie Clement and Leo Jimenez all made sense to certain degrees as potential trade chips. The high minors are filled to the brim with players that meet these profiles, so why in the world didn't one of them get moved to acquire a "big fish"? This could mean one of two things. Either the Blue Jays are valuing their players way too high, or other teams just don't see these youngsters as anything noteworthy.

On the pitching side of things, sources said that both Zach Thompson and Hagen Danner drew interest "from multiple clubs" prior to the deadline. While there aren't many intriguing pitchers in the minors outside of this pair, it was also a surprise to see both of them stay where they are. Especially seeing as how, "I wouldn't be at all surprised to see him moved by the deadline", was one of the lines I received from a source. This doesn't mean that Thompson and/or Danner didn't garner interest, but it's good to know that some of these minor leaguers were intriguing to other teams and could've been used in a deal.

The fact that just one position player was brought aboard is highly likely to come back to sting the Blue Jays in the not-so-distant future. The club certainly has what it takes to make a postseason run as is, but the fact that no true difference maker was brought aboard is a bit concerning. For what it's worth, Trey Mancini was designated for assignment by the Chicago Cubs on deadline day and he would be a nice fit as a right-handed lefty masher that Jordan Luplow could not be for the Jays.