Trade Deadline Not So Great Expectations

Blue Jays have modest goal to move expiring contracts

The MLB trade deadline arrives on Monday at 6:00 p.m. (Eastern). The earth will not shake in Toronto. The Blue Jays are most likely to be limited sellers, not of the future, but of their immediate past. Expiring contracts of pending free agents are, all, certainly available, but, in return, the quality of the prospects Jays fans can expect to see is dependent on the amount of salary the Jays are willing to eat in any transaction. If the Jays agree to pay all, or most, of the ’26 balance, the player return will improve.

In 2024 at the trade deadline, the Jays traded eight veteran players and received 13 prospects in return, none of whom contributed significantly in 2025 to the World Series run, even given that fact, the Jays went from 74 to 94 wins. The Jays know they cannot sell a rebuild to their fans, so what happens now is setting up what they can do in the off-season to get back to contending. An empty upper deck and bad TV and streaming numbers are unacceptable to ownership. Just win, baby.

With that in mind, if all such Jays deals were made by deadline day, these are the approximate amounts remaining on the contracts of the pending free agents. OF/DH George Springer $6.7M … SP Kevin Gausman $6.8M … SP Shane Bieber $4.8M … OF Daulton Varsho $3.2M … SP Max Scherzer $0.9M … SP Patrick Corbin $0.3M.

Certainly, there are others with value.

Many fans cannot forgive RP Jeff Hoffman for the way World Series Game 7 ended and the first half of this season unfolded. He has tremendous stuff and is on a dominant roll, that would be attractive to a contender. He has $3.3M remaining this year and a ’27 closer-level contract in place for a reasonable $11M. Hoffman’s is a fascinating possibility since he has already been replaced as the Jays’ ninth inning man by Louis Varland.

In addition, OF Myles Straw has $2.7M remaining in 2026, but has club-friendly options for 2027-28, totaling $16.5M. That seems like good value and, perhaps, they would be wise to keep him. OF Jesus Sanchez has $2.0M left in ’26 and is eligible for arbitration at the end of the season but could easily be non-tendered. He has proven to be a twitchy, smiling fourth outfielder with bad internal GPS when it comes to the best routes to flyballs.

Then comes the elephant in the room. What do you do with a problem like Berrios? The invisible man of 2026, Jose Berrios was at spring training attempting to come back, both from injury and also his perceived abandonment of the team when he was left off 2025 post-season rosters. He is owed $5.4M in the final year of what had once been a brilliant signing by the Jays following his acquisition from the Twins.

But now, with an uncertain future on the field, the classy 32-year-old Puerto Rican is dangerously (for the Jays) armed with player options of $24M for each of 2027-28. In the current climate of labour issues, he is likely to opt-in for 2027 and try to re-establish his credentials at which point he can decide on 2028. But what does he have left? His name has not been mentioned, essentially, since Opening Day. They would love him to opt out. Perhaps they are trying to piss him off to the point he wants a fresh start elsewhere.

Who else on the Jays might be a trade target?

For me, the contract that the Jays should be pushing to other teams is SS Andres Gimenez. When they acquired him from the Guardians, prior to the World Series season, he was a Gold Glove second-baseman who was locked in through 2029, plus an option. Bo Bichette was at short, with Ernie Clement at third base. He was invaluable in October, shifting to short for an injured Bichette and contributing strongly to the World Series run.

But now, with Bo’s departure to the Mets, with the signing of Japanese rookie 3B Kaz Okamoto and with Clement’s versatility and popularity with the fanbase, how much do the Jays really need Gimenez as a well-paid, middle-of-the-defensive-pack shortstop? Consider that two of the Jays top prospects are shortstops – JoJo Parker and Arjun Nimmala. They are each a couple of years away from helping at the major-league level, but if Gimenez moved on, Clement would move to shortstop and a veteran Bisons prospect like Josh Kasevich could step in a second base in the final two months of a lost season.

The spectre over the Jays of the Competitive Balance Tax (CBT)

Even with potential movement at the deadline of those aforementioned expiring contracts of pending free agents, the Jays remain stuck in the upper echelon of Competitive Balance Tax penalties. What had previously been popularly known as the Luxury Tax was changed by some high-forehead MLB official to soften the concept. But it’s like the change to “Sanitation Engineer” replacing the age-old “Garbageman”. The CBT is an industry-imposed penalty for overspending meant to act like a salary cap. Neither owners nor players are fans of the concept. But for now, it will penalize heavily the ’26 Jays.

In any case, using projected numbers from the reliable website, Cot’s Baseball Contracts, the research staff lists the Blue Jays’ pre-deadline CBT payroll at $321.7M, which ranks fourth among 30 in MLB. Of the three teams with higher CBT payrolls, the Dodgers (1) and the Yankees (3) are headed to the post-season and are likely to make up for their penalties with any sort of a playoff run. Meanwhile the Jays and Mets (2) are forced to eat it, at least for this year.

The way the Competitive Balance Tax (nee Luxury Tax) works is this. The penalty baseline as per the current Collective Bargaining Agreement is $244M. Under that, teams pay no tax. A second tier begins at $264M, then $284M with the final level starting at $304M. The Jays last season finished at $286M and were penalized.

There are various penalties for your year-end totals that include fines, plus implications in the amateur draft and to international signing pools.

In real life, you can drown in your bathtub or drown in the Mariana Trench. The result is the same. In 2025, the Jays found themselves in the second circle of CBT hell but, no matter. They made that penalty amount back, and more, by advancing to the World Series. This year, with no playoff in sight and with only about $35M maximum capable of being pared from their $321.7M CBT payroll, they are spiralling towards the bottom of that Pacific trench.

If the Jays are unable to shed any payroll at this deadline, the penalty for being at their current level would be approx. $28M, as consecutive offenders. If the Jays can pare $19M or more off their current total salary, they would save an additional $10.6M.

The listed penalties for the ’26 Jays under the current CBT agreement include, as happened earlier this month, the team’s top draft pick being pushed back 10 spots, unless it is a Top 6 pick and then the penalty applies to the next highest pick. Somehow this smacks of an invitation to tanking.

Of course, all that mathematical manipulation may change once the next CBA goes into effect. Hopefully for Rogers ownership, they had put some of those huge October profits from last year into a separate account, because that rainy day has arrived.