Blue Jays Deadline Target David Bednar Gets Trade by Pirates to Yankees
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Hopefully the Toronto Blue Jays are fine with the pitching additions they’ve made so far, as the deadline market is quickly shrinking with another top target getting taken off the board.
ESPN’s Jeff Passan broke the news on Thursday that the New York Yankees would be acquiring Pittsburgh Pirates closer David Bednar.
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Bednar joins Mason Miller, Ryan Helsley and Jhoan Duran among the elite relievers who have been moved at this year’s trade deadline. The market price for top-end bullpen arms is already sky high and that should continue with the options starting to dwindle.
The good news for the Blue Jays is that, if they did want to bring in another arm, the competition is also lessening.
Reports are that the Yankees and Texas Rangers were the finalists for Bednar, per Jon Heyman of New York Post, so Toronto had already been out on this one for a while.
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Bednar has a 0.39 ERA over his last 23.1 innings of work as he has returned to his elite production after basically a season and a half of struggling. He would have been a nice addition to the Blue Jays bullpen, but that’s not how it ended up playing out.
Toronto has already made two pitching trades so far at the deadline, so they might be done.
They added Seranthony Dominguez from the Baltimore Orioles to the bullpen and then traded for Cleveland Guardians starter Shane Bieber as an option for the starting rotation.
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Dominguez is a fine addition in his own right, but another top arm would push this to one of the best bullpens in baseball.
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