Will Blue Jays Reconsider Selling Off After Tarik Skubal Trade?
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Late Saturday night, the Detroit Tigers traded Tarik Skubal to the Los Angeles Dodgers for a half-eaten banana, a broken crayon, and a can of Spam.
Ok, in actuality, the Tigers received River Ryan, who will turn 28 this month, is coming off Tommy John surgery and has a 4.46 ERA in Triple-A, the Dodgers No. 5 prospect in Zyhir Hope and their No. 17 prospect in Brady Smith.
To be fair to Detroit, the Dodgers' farm system is so deep that Hope is MLB Pipeline's No. 25 prospect and has 23 home runs this year at Double-A Tulsa. The Tigers better hope he pans out.
Ryan, despite the Tommy John surgery, is still the 68th-ranked prospect in baseball according to MLB Pipeline. Pipeline projects a 2029 ETA for Smith to make the Majors, and with a 7.71 ERA in his first two starts in High-A, it is far from certain he makes it at all.
The No. 25 and No. 68 prospects in baseball have been a crapshoot at best. Of the 10 prospects ranked 25th and 68th by MLB Pipeline from 2021-2025, Andy Pages is the only one with a WAR above 1.0 this season.
Year | #25 Prospect | # 68 Prospect |
|---|---|---|
2026 | Zyhir Hope | River Ryan |
2025 | Chase Dollander | Christian Moore |
2024 | Jackson Jobe | Jacob Wilson |
2023 | Ezequial Tovar | Adael Amador |
2022 | Kahlil Watson | Andy Pages |
2021 | Matt Manning | Heston Kjerstad |
There are three primary implications of this trade for the Toronto Blue Jays that lead to one huge question.
How Tarik Skubal Trade Impacts Blue Jays
The market for rental pitchers is pretty weak. If the reigning two-time Cy Young winner only fetches this return, Kevin Gausman, Shane Bieber, and Max Scherzer are unlikely to bring much back to Toronto. Gausman would clearly prefer to stay in Toronto, and his manager and teammates greatly appreciate him, but he understands the reality of baseball as a business.
Detroit is one game ahead of Toronto in the Wild Card race and is clearly selling. Skubal is already gone, with Casey Mize likely to follow after the Tigers scratched him from his Friday start.
The consensus early reaction across baseball to the Skubal trade is that his going to Los Angeles only increases the odds of a lockout next season.
A lockout would mean any prospects the Blue Jays would receive in return for their rental pitchers would likely debut even further in the future, which decreases their value. Making the playoffs would also leave a better taste in Toronto fans' mouths if there were to be a lockout next year, which would undoubtedly sour fans on baseball in general.
Heading into the weekend, Toronto was 5.5 games back in the Wild Card race. They looked like clear sellers.
Two days later, they are just 3.5 games back. One of the teams ahead of them is selling. The returns for rental pitchers are not high.
The Blue Jays have not yet sold any of their players. George Springer has indicated he has no plans to play anywhere else, and he can veto any trade as a 10/5 player (10 years of MLB service time, five years with the same team).
The huge question this all raises is whether Toronto will reconsider selling?
Might they even buy?
Things are about to get very interesting.
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Adam Steinmetz writes about the Toronto Blue Jays for On SI. Adam is also the editor and publisher of the Boston Sunday Sports Section, a weekly digital publication covering the Patriots, Red Sox, Celtics, and Bruins. A two-time winner of the Best Collegiate Sports Writer award in Philadelphia, he began his career with freelance work for The Philadelphia Daily News and The Palm Beach Post before building a successful career outside of journalism. He returned to sports writing last year, contributing to Pitcher List—including coverage of the Toronto Blue Jays—before launching Authorenticity on Substack, where he explores the human stories within baseball. The Boston Sunday Sports Section is his most ambitious project — the thinking fan’s modern Sunday Sports Section focused on the Patriots, Red Sox, Celtics, and Bruins.