The trade<\/p>\n
Blue Jays get: OF Brett Bateman, INF Ty Southisene<\/p>\n
Cubs get: RHP Kevin Gausman<\/p>\n
Kevin Gausman is the same guy he used to be, and that\u2019s worth more than this<\/p>\n
Blue Jays: C
Cubs: A-<\/p>\n
Maybe I\u2019m just a sucker for a battle-scarred veteran pitcher, but I dig this trade a lot for the Cubs. The underlying numbers suggest Gausman is pretty similar to the pitcher he\u2019s been the past three seasons \u2014 3.51 FIP this year compared to a 3.41 FIP last year, with a similar strikeout-to-walk ratio. He still has an elite fastball. And he demonstrated his mettle during Toronto\u2019s run to the World Series last year.<\/p>\n
Gausman does not qualify as an ace, but the Cubs should feel comfortable handing him the baseball in Game 1 of a postseason series. To secure him, they gave up a couple of position players with scant power. Feels like a nice win for Chicago. (If Gausman ends up giving up four dingers in an NLDS game, please send all your angry emails to Jon Greenberg.) \u2014 Andy McCullough<\/p>\n
A pair of players with little-to-no power are an underwhelming return for Toronto<\/p>\n
Blue Jays: C-
Cubs: A<\/p>\n
As nice as it would have been to see Kevin Gausman stay in Toronto, the city where he cemented himself as a No. 1 starter and sneaky Cy Young candidate, it seemed he and the club were prepared to turn the page. They did all they had set out to do together except win a World Series. And, boy, they came close.<\/p>\n
But is this really all the Jays could get?<\/p>\n
Listen, I know Gausman is not in peak form. He had a recent stretch in which he had a 7.27 ERA across seven starts, and the Jays lost all seven games. But this is still a pitcher I\u2019d happily hand the ball to for a postseason start. There had to have been several contenders talking to the Blue Jays brass in recent days. This return feels mighty light.<\/p>\n
Bateman, 24, is an outfielder with speed and a knack for getting on base, but he has just six homers in 1,370 plate appearances in the minors. It\u2019s below-average contact quality with a penchant for drilling the ball into the ground. He\u2019s slashing .312\/.431\/.422 this season at Triple-A Iowa with 20 steals, nearly as many walks (60) as strikeouts (65). But, again, almost no power: three homers in 81 games. That profile only plays if he can truly play center field in the big leagues.<\/p>\n
Southisene, a fourth-round pick out of high school in 2024, has even less power: zero homers in 706 pro plate appearances. He, too, is having a nice year on paper \u2014 .311\/.431\/.381 across Low A and High A \u2014 but has just seven extra-base hits. He started the year ranked as the No. 19 prospect in the Cubs farm system by The Athletic\u2019s Keith Law<\/a>. At 5-foot-7 and 170 pounds, Southisene probably winds up at second base. He doesn\u2019t project as a regular.\u2028It\u2019s not nothing, but you\u2019d want more for a starter with Gausman\u2019s track record.\u00a0\u2014 Stephen J. Nesbitt<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The trade Blue Jays get: OF Brett Bateman, INF Ty Southisene Cubs get: RHP Kevin Gausman Kevin Gausman…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":841278,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[558],"tags":[64,63,5158,591,85,5161],"class_list":["post-841277","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-chicago-cubs","tag-mlb","tag-sports","tag-toronto-blue-jays"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/841277","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=841277"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/841277\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/841278"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=841277"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=841277"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=841277"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}