{"id":21022,"date":"2025-07-24T17:20:09","date_gmt":"2025-07-24T17:20:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/21022\/"},"modified":"2025-07-24T17:20:09","modified_gmt":"2025-07-24T17:20:09","slug":"how-last-years-trade-deadline-is-helping-the-blue-jays-now","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/21022\/","title":{"rendered":"How last year\u2019s trade deadline is helping the Blue Jays now"},"content":{"rendered":"

TORONTO \u2014 Before Joey Loperfido left the Houston Astros following his trade to the Toronto Blue Jays<\/a> last summer, Kyle Tucker gave him a pair of batting gloves. Take them to George Springer, the star outfielder instructed his departing teammate, and use them to help break the ice in the new clubhouse. That was the plan until he arrived at Camden Yards as his new team was completing an eight-deals-in-five-days selloff.<\/p>\n

\u201cI remember walking in and I met KK (Kevin Kiermaier), I was meeting other people, and they were saying, ‘Oh, I’m traded, you don’t need to remember my name, don’t worry about it,\u2019\u201d Loperfido recalled. \u201cThere were like four lineup cards. People were walking in the door, out the door. It was hectic.\u201d<\/p>\n

A year later, the 26-year-old outfielder, acquired with infielder Will Wagner and right-hander Jake Bloss<\/a> for Yusei Kikuchi, is contributing to a Blue Jays team at the opposite end of the spectrum. At 60-42, they head into an intriguing four-game series at the Detroit Tigers (60-43) as contenders for best record in the American League, along with the Houston Astros (60-42), and they\u2019re working the market to buy, rather than sell, ahead of the July 31 trade deadline.<\/p>\n

Loperfido, with a home run and six RBIs in 11 games since being recalled when Andres Gimenez hit the injured list with a left ankle sprain, and Wagner, who had a pair of two-RBI games during a weekend sweep of the San Francisco Giants, have each chipped in to the greater-than-the-sum-of-the-parts flow carrying the club.<\/p>\n

Though Bloss underwent season-ending elbow surgery in May, the trio\u2019s addition, along with the other prospects acquired during that chaotic five-day stretch and the June 12 pickup of righty Braydon Fisher<\/a> from the Los Angeles Dodgers for Cavan Biggio, helped fortify the foundation\u2019s talent base.<\/p>\n

Fisher has already provided nearly a win of value in 28.1 innings over 28 appearances while Jonatan Clase<\/a>, who came over with minor-league catcher Jacob Sharp from the Mariners for Yimi Garcia, delivered important hits in victories May 11 at Seattle, May 22 versus the Padres, June 9 at St. Louis and June 24 at Cleveland during a 34-game sample.<\/p>\n

Together with some of the minor-leaguers acquired and other internal developments, the Blue Jays now have, in the words of a scout from a rival club, \u201ca lot more inventory\u201d they lacked a year ago to work with, be it for big-league help or use in trades.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s why, in reflecting on the team\u2019s haul a year later, manager John Schneider says the 2024 trade deadline \u201chas kind of played out as we had hoped.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you pivot last year and you bring in players that are pretty close and they had the opportunity to come play here, that helps to prepare for this year,\u201d Schneider continued. \u201cThat’s kind of how we planned it, in a year where it didn’t go the way we wanted it to here. So getting them experience, playing every day in the minor leagues, helped them a lot after having exposure here. That was our goal. It’s no secret. It was what can help right now, meaning in the next 12 months, so it’s nice to see it unfold.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"WatchWatch Blue Jays vs. Tigers on Sportsnet<\/p>\n

The Toronto Blue Jays and Detroit Tigers are set to go head-to-head in a pivotal series to establish dominance in the American League. Catch Game 1 of the four-game set on Thursday at 6 p.m. ET \/ 3 p.m. PT on Sportsnet and Sportsnet+<\/p>\n

Broadcast schedule<\/a><\/p>\n

How much more opportunity Loperfido and Wagner get in their current stints is uncertain, as Daulton Varsho is bound for triple-A Buffalo to continue his rehab work, with a return from the injured list possible early next week. Gimenez, meanwhile, hit on the field Wednesday for the first time since spraining the ankle, felt good afterwards and was due to begin running Thursday.<\/p>\n

Whatever happens, Loperfido, selected in the seventh round out of Duke, and Wagner, picked in the 18th round out of Liberty University, continue to walk the same path since the Astros took them in the 2021 draft.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s funny because we played against each other a lot in college, too, so I already knew of Joey and then we got drafted together, so we just got closer with our friendship throughout that,\u201d said Wagner. \u201cGoing through all these levels together and seeing the ups and downs and how we’ve overcome them, it’s been pretty cool.\u201d<\/p>\n

A sentiment echoed by Loperfido.<\/p>\n

\u201cI said to Will the other day that we’re coming up on our five-year anniversary of playing together,\u201d he relayed. \u201cTo see him having the clutch hits he’s had the past week, it’s awesome. He flexed at the dugout the other day and I said to Davis (Schneider), \u2018I don’t think I’ve ever seen Will get that hyped up after a double.’<\/p>\n

\u201cFor myself, coming over last year and not putting my best foot forward play-wise at the end of the year, to be able to just come in now, we’re in a good spot, the team’s winning and I’m contributing and helping us do that, it’s all I’ve ever wanted to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

That opportunity was borne out of the deadline a year ago, when Loperfido was up with the Astros and Wagner was enjoying an off-day for triple-A Sugar Land.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was crazy because I didn’t think I had a chance to get traded,\u201d said Wagner. \u201cI never heard one rumour about me. I was playing video games at the time and the guy I was playing with, Shay Whitcomb (now up with the Astros), thought he was going to get traded over me. It was definitely like a shock, but it was a good experience for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Blue Jays\u2019 rebound has been an ever better one.<\/p>\n

When Wagner debuted last Aug. 12 at the Los Angeles Angels, an electric three-hit effort<\/a>, \u201cit didn’t feel like a rebuild at all,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt felt like we had the pieces we wanted, it was just more about, let’s see how the last month and a half of the season goes, and let’s transfer that over the next season,\u201d Wagner continued. \u201cYou could just tell in spring training these guys knew that we were way better than last year. You always want to be part of something like this.\u201d<\/p>\n

Loperfido, who played his first game with the Blue Jays the day after the deadline, going 1-for-5 against the Orioles, wasn\u2019t sure what to expect when he initially arrived, but \u201cI knew I was going to play.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI remember the dynamic with a lot of the young guys that had gotten there, me, Wags eventually, you were just getting a lot of run,\u201d Loperfido continued. \u201cAt that point they were trying to kind of see what they had with everybody they had gotten. (This season) it\u2019s totally different. And to be honest with you, I put more pressure on myself last year when we were X-however-many games out of first place and not really competing, than I am right now.<\/p>\n

\u201cRight now, it’s all hands on deck. You’re going to do whatever you’re asked to do to help the team win a game that night, whatever it is. And to me, that’s less pressure than like, hey, you got two months to show us what you’re made of and we’ll assess at the end of the season. And it’s a lot more fun here. The situation that the team’s in, the series here against the Yankees, you don’t really have the time and energy to think about your own mechanics or you know how you might feel at the plate. You’re in that compete mode every night trying to win, which I think is an easier way to play and you end up playing a little bit better.\u201d<\/p>\n

One year after a gutting deadline, the same applies to the Blue Jays all around.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TORONTO \u2014 Before Joey Loperfido left the Houston Astros following his trade to the Toronto Blue Jays last…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":21023,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[49,48,462,82],"class_list":["post-21022","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21022","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21022"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21022\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21023"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21022"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21022"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21022"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}