With popular centre fielder Daulton Varsho merely wandering down the tunnel to the home clubhouse to join his new teammates for the first time, with Kevin Gausman and Jeff Hoffman exiting the building, right after the trade deadline expired, the remaining Blue Jays, took a collective deep breath, strapped it on and went out to beat the first-place Astros 3-1 moving to seven games under .500, with overly optimistic fans now wondering “so you’re saying there’s a chance.”
The American League may, in fact, suck more than do the Blue Jays, in 2026, so the conundrum was there for GM Ross Atkins of what to do at the deadline. Should they be buyers or sellers? In a decision worthy of Solomon, he decided to do a little of both.
Sitting an uncomfortable eight games below .500 as deadline day dawned in Texas, the Jays, counterintuitively, found themselves less than a half-dozen games out of the final wildcard spot, but with a half dozen teams in the way. The playoff odds by those annoying gambling sites were down to single-digits.
Following up, with all that info in mind, Atkins and the Jays effected five trades on the final day of MLB roster building, acquiring nine players highlighted by two starters RH Jose Soriano from the Angels and RH Spencer Arrighetti from the Astros. In return, the Jays dispatched seven players of their own.
The three biggest names Atkins traded away were RH Kevin Gausman, CF Daulton Varsho and RH Jeff Hoffman. The previous day, Atkins had secured starter Jameson Taillon from the Cubs for cash or a player to be named later.
JAYS TRADES: 1 – Taillon from Cubs for PTBNL or cash … 2 – RH Gausman to Cubs for two prospects, OF Brett Bateman and IF Ty Southisene … 3 - RH Soriano from Angels for SS Arjun Nimmala, OF Eddie Micheletti and RH Angel Rivero … 4 – IF Josh Smith and RH Josh Stephan from Rangers for LH Adam Macko … 5 – CF Varsho to Astros for RH Arrighetti … 6 – RH Jeff Hoffman to Twins for LH Dasan Hill, RH John Klein and 2B-LF Dameury Pena.
Other possibilities to be traded but not traded from Toronto, prior to the deadline, were expiring contracts of OF George Springer and RH Shane Bieber, plus OF Jesus Sanchez, with one year of arbitration remaining. There was really no market for RH Max Scherzer or LH Patrick Corbin. Springer had teams show interest, but he had a full no-trade clause, and the suspicion is that he exercised it.
WHAT IT MEANS FOR THIS YEAR: The Blue Jays are not a better baseball team now than they were on Sunday. To make the playoffs would be a long and grinding road. They lost a reliable veteran starter in Gausman. They lost a talented setup man in Hoffman, who is likely to earn the Twins closer role. They lost a Gold Glove centre fielder in Varsho. The talented Soriano replaces Gausman, but Taillon and Arrighetti are not October-type starting arms, although they can help keep the ’26 Jays competitive.
Here’s the bottom line of why this did not become a rebuild. When the Jays and president Mark Shapiro transformed the Rogers Centre into the pleasure palace it has become, with restaurants, private clubs, standing bars and family areas around every corner and then advanced to the World Series, jamming 41,000+ every night, they were locked-in, never to try and present a rebuild situation to Blue Jays Nation. They must always try to win, must always spend money on payroll, must always sell hope and a competitive 26-man roster for the sake of attendance and the millions of streamers and viewers.
To get themselves back into a legitimate hunt for a spot on the October dance floor this year, the Jays need to find a hot streak comprised of at least 15 wins in 20 games. Through 113 games, manager John Schneider’s group has not shown any glimmer of that hope.
WHAT IT MEANS FOR NEXT YEAR: The Jays now have a head start on what they needed to do in the upcoming off-season, a process that could, of course, be disrupted by upcoming labour negotiations. With the simple acquisition of Soriano from the Angels, it has lent clarity to the potential starting rotation for 2027. That’s a great place to start.
Recall, the Jays entered 2026 spring training with an over-abundance of names for the five-man rotation, but perhaps loyalty and running back World Series contributors had not been the best answer. Back in February/March in Dunedin, they had boasted Gausman, Trey Yesavage, Jose Berrios bouncing back from a mystery injury and left off the playoff rosters, Bieber via a player option that he chose to pick up, Eric Lauer and Max Scherzer.
That’s not all. During the off-season, Atkins added Dylan Cease and Cody Ponce, coming off the best pitching season in Korean baseball history. That’s eight legitimate candidates. The eight somehow became three or four for most of the summer. With Gausman and Lauer traded; with Bieber and Scherzer soon to become free agents and with Berrios owning a pair of $24M player options, a settled 2027 rotation seemed far, far away.
Then came Monday’s surprise acquisition of Soriano from the Angels, one of the most sought after starting pitchers on the market and chased by many contenders. But the Jays, with the Dominican righthander under club control through 2028, won the day by agreeing to include one of Toronto’s top two prospects, shortstop Arjun Nimmala to seal the deal. It’s the same type of trade they made back in 2021 when they snagged Berrios from the Twins by including 2020 fifth overall pick, Austin Martin along with RH Simeon Woods-Richardson. In this case, losing Nimmala is a controlled gamble, with 19-year-old shortstop JoJo Parker seeming to have passed the 20-year-old Nimmala on the depth chart.
From a position of uncertainty, the Jays 2027 starting rotation has taken form: RH Dylan Cease; RH Jose Soriano; RH Trey Yesavage; RH Cody Ponce; RH Spencer Arrighetti. That does not include Berrios or any possible free agent signing or trade the Jays may make.
COMPETITIVE BALANCE TAX: One of the goals for Atkins at the deadline was to shed enough salary, mostly via expiring contracts to drop at least one tier in what is commonly known as baseball’s Luxury Tax, which acts as a soft salary cap.
The Jays entered the day with an estimated total payroll under a convoluted CBT formula of $321.7M. The penalty levels for the tax begin at $244M with the highest tax charged to any team over $304M. If they had been able to trade all the expiring contracts they could have reduced payroll by $33M.
Atkins summarized why it seemed like adding pitching was his priority at the deadline. “Talent is going to trump all,” he said as the Jays prepared for the final 49 games in what realistically seems like a lost season. Don’t call it a rebuild.
Gee, the starting rotation for the rest of the year would have looked pretty good if they'd kept Gausman. Oh yeah, the offence...