Toronto Blue Jays: Grading their trade deadline moves
J.A. Happ
The deal:
It was going to happen eventually with interest starting to build for J.A. Happ ever since the Blue Jays season started going off the rails. The New York Yankees seemed like the ideal trading partner especially with the wealth of prospects they have stashed away.
Unfortunately, the Blue Jays weren’t able to get a big name young player in return for one of the top rental starters on the market and that comes more with what the supply was around the league. Not many teams are trading top prospects for two months of a starter who has had his ups and downs this season.
What they did receive in return are two players that are major league ready especially Brandon Drury who has already been inserted into the lineup and will likely see a lot of playing time in the final stretch of the season.
The Blue Jays like how Drury can move around the infield although they will likely play him at third base and second base. If Donaldson does return, the expectation would be to have Drury play at second and be moved back if Donaldson is moved.
After that, it’s a guess on what Drury’s role is going to be but the fact that he can move around the diamond provides the Blue Jays flexibility and an upgrade from some of the players currently on the team right now.
McKinney is a player who has bounced around from team-to-team waiting for his chance to get some time in the big leagues on a more permanent basis. The Blue Jays are probably one of the few that can offer that right now especially with Kevin Pillar out of action and Curtis Granderson the next that they’ll try to move at the waiver deadline.
"“It’s rare to find a player that has, across the board, average or slightly above-average tools,” Atkins said of McKinney to the Toronto Star. “Obviously it’s exceptional to find the player that’s above average with every tool — that being the hit tool, the run tool, the throw, the defence, approach. With McKinney, we feel that he has all of those, at least at an average major-league level, and that’s unique.”"
Both players don’t just do one thing well which is probably why the Blue Jays covet them and wanted them included in this deal. Whether they can prove to be valuable commodities remains to be seen but at this point the Blue Jays can afford to give them a chance.