Columnist image

| Archive

CHICAGO — Ross Atkins’ most valuable trade chips were never pushed into the centre of the table.

But that doesn’t mean the Toronto Blue Jays struck out at Monday’s non-waiver trade deadline.

Still maintaining the goal of getting back into contention with a similar core group of players in 2018 — agree or disagree, that’s the plan — the Jays made a pair of trades that no one would call headline grabbers.

One addressed the present.

The other was with the future in mind.

Both, however, helped add much-needed organizational depth.

Leading into the deadline, left-handed starter Francisco Liriano and right-handed reliever Joe Smith looked like the most likely veterans to be dealt, and that’s exactly what happened.

Atkins shipped Liriano to the American League-leading, bullpen-needy Houston Astros for a player he had been eyeing for some time.

That player is not Nori Aoki, a 35-year-old veteran outfielder whose inclusion in the deal was mainly for salary offsetting purposes.

It’s 24-year-old Teoscar Hernandez, a right-handed hitting outfielder with a strong track record of minor league success, but one who didn’t have a clear path to playing time in Houston.

The key is he’s MLB-ready with a dash of power, a sprinkling of speed and some overdue defensive ability.

“Teoscar’s a guy that we’ve liked for a while,” said Atkins, whose war room was back in Toronto while his team was getting ready to face the rebuilding White Sox on the south side of Chicago. “He’s someone that we feel can make an impact in the short term and long term. If we had a need tomorrow, he could fill in immediately as an everyday major-league player and certainly moving forward will be an option for us.

“He’s a well-rounded player that runs well, throws well, gets on base, has some power, can play all three outfield positions. It’s extremely difficult to acquire talent that you can say all those things about that you will have five-plus years of control of and could potentially be someone that you can count on year in and year out.”

Atkins was also able to capitalize on Smith’s fine season, one that has him striking out a career high 12.87 batters per nine innings and carrying a 3.28 ERA and 2.31 FIP.

The Jays settled for a pair of Cleveland Indians prospects in return for the 33-year-old free-agent-to-be, including a left-handed starter Atkins is extremely familiar with in Thomas Pannone.

Atkins was the Tribe’s director of player development when the 6-foot, 195-pound southpaw was drafted in the ninth round back in 2013.

“He’s a great athlete,” Atkins said. “He was a position player and obviously someone that not just myself but this organization has history with. It just so happened that our professional scouts’ information inside our analytical department and our baseball operations staff, their thoughts and opinions aligned with the things that I had learned about him when I was in Cleveland.”

Pannone is far from the prototype teams look for, but Atkins noted he’s left handed, durable and his low-90s fastball, solid breaking ball and improving changeup have allowed him to post a 2.62 ERA in 14 starts at Double-A this season.

The Blue Jays also got 19-year-old middle infield prospect Samad Taylor, a 2016 10th-round pick who’s slashing .300/.328/.467 in Low-A this season.

Who did move was only one part of the story Monday.

Who didn’t was almost as interesting.

The fact Marco Estrada and Jose Bautista are still Blue Jays is a what-have-you-done-for-me-lately reminder.

While both could still be dealt during the August waiver trading period, the pair of impending free agents — Bautista has a mutual option that will surely be declined — still call Toronto home for now.

The market for Estrada, who came into Monday’s start against the White Sox in the midst of a terrible two-month stretch that has ballooned his ERA to 5.43, never really developed.

“It was seemingly a buyer’s market for pitching,” Atkins said. “There was a lot of relief pitching moved — a lot of right-handed relief pitching moved — and most of the starters weren’t moved until today. I think that created fewer opportunities for guys like Marco, but in the end we’re in the business of making this organization better and if a deal doesn’t present itself to do so, then we’re happy to keep Marco Estrada a Toronto Blue Jay and we’ll start thinking about not only how he impacts us now but how he could potentially impact us beyond 2017.”

Bautista, whose movability was hindered due to his 10-and-5 rights that allowed him to veto any potential trade, and his sub-.220 batting average weren’t in high demand.

“We kept him in the loop and talked about with him the potential of what could happen or could not happen, and nothing came to fruition where we had to say to Jose, ‘Is this something you would do or not do?’” Atkins said. “We did include him in the process of, not specific deals, but it was more out of respect for him as a person, as a human being and certainly what he’s accomplished as a member of this organization and what he’s meant to the Toronto Blue Jays.”

Bautista didn’t want to talk about his own situation after the deadline came and went, but he’s still not giving up on the idea the last-place Jays can make a shocking run to get back into wildcard contention over the next two months.

Atkins, meanwhile, just wants to stay afloat and give the fan base a reason to believe their plan of trying to reboot in 2018 is one to have faith in.

“We feel like we did accomplish the goal of maintaining a team that we feel can remain a relevant team in 2017, and we made our 2018 team better.”​

 

Notes

— Troy Tulowitzki now has a cast on his injured right ankle, according to John Gibbons. Gibbons has no idea if he’ll play again this season. Ross Atkins also has no idea.

— Here’s where the new additions will go: OF Teoscar Hernandez will head to Triple-A Buffalo; LHP Thomas Pannone will go to Double-A New Hampshire; 2B Samad Taylor is working through a passport issue and they’re undecided. He was at Low-A in Cleveland’s system.

— Atkins said they talked to all 29 MLB clubs and were engaged in serious discussions with 15 of them around the deadline.

— Atkins on whether there could be more action in August during the waiver trading period: “Injuries will occur, performance will change, and different opportunities will present themselves, for sure.”

— John Gibbons on Joe Smith and Francisco Liriano: “Shoot, Smith did a tremendous job for us this year. He had that shoulder issue earlier but that’s behind him and everybody’s seen over the years what a bullpen can do for you in the playoffs. That’s a good piece for them, and my understanding is Houston’s thinking about using Liriano as a bullpen piece, too. I think he can be dominant out of (the bullpen) and he did a nice job doing some of that for us last year.”

— Gibbons on OF Nori Aoki: “I haven’t seen a lot of him, but a pesky little player. Puts the bat on the ball, can run, do a lot of different things.”

— Gibbons on having five outfielders on the roster once Aoki arrives: “There will still be three regulars out there for the most part. You can guess on those.”

— In case you’re not good at guessing, he means Steve Pearce, Kevin Pillar and Jose Bautista, with Ezequiel Carrera and Aoki mixing in.​ Aoki is expected to arrive Tuesday.

— Gibbons hasn’t decided who will fill Liriano’s rotation spot. The best bet is Mike Bolsinger.

— Lefties J.P. Howell and Brett Oberholtzer arrived in Chicago to fill the vacant roster spots. Oberholtzer has a 4.48 ERA in 18 starts at Triple-A Buffalo, while Howell has been on the disabled list with a shoulder injury since June 5.

— Aaron Sanchez played catch Monday, according to Gibbons. No timeline for his return yet.

— RHP Bo Schultz threw for the first time since undergoing Tommy John surgery in late March. Schultz, who went to school at Northwestern, lives in Chicago.