{"id":51483,"date":"2025-08-01T02:24:08","date_gmt":"2025-08-01T02:24:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/51483\/"},"modified":"2025-08-01T02:24:08","modified_gmt":"2025-08-01T02:24:08","slug":"surprise-contenders-the-blue-jays-go-all-in-with-deadline-deals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/51483\/","title":{"rendered":"Surprise contenders, the Blue Jays go all-in with deadline deals"},"content":{"rendered":"

Trade details: Toronto Blue Jays acquire RHP Shane Bieber from the Cleveland Guardians for RHP Khal Stephen<\/p>\n

Toronto Blue Jays acquire RHP Louie Varland and Ty France from the Minnesota Twins for OF Alan Roden and LHP Kendry Rojas<\/p>\n

The Blue Jays went for it, which their fans have been asking the front office to do for an age at this point, trading three of their top prospects<\/a> \u2014 albeit not their top two tradeable ones \u2014 to bring in two relievers, a bench bat and maybe a very good starter.<\/p>\n

Shane Bieber is the last player, currently on rehab assignment as he finishes his recovery from Tommy John surgery. He\u2019s throwing well in Double A so far, with his slider looking sharp and the fastball maybe a little less lively than before.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s nearly back, with four minor-league starts so far and the longest being a four-inning outing the other day for Akron, where he threw 59 pitches. He walked one in his second rehab start in the Arizona Complex League, and that\u2019s it so far, a 2.4 percent walk rate on the season.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know how much he\u2019ll be able to pitch. It seems unlikely that he\u2019ll be going 100-plus pitches in any games this year, although I am just speculating. I would expect him to be effective whenever he does pitch in the majors this year.<\/p>\n

Right-hander Louie Varland was homer-prone as a starter for the Twins, so they finally conceded and moved him to relief in September of last year. He\u2019s been dynamite this year, with a 2.02 ERA\/2.89 FIP in 49 innings, thanks to a 5.7 percent walk rate and just three homers allowed in that span.<\/p>\n

For comparison\u2019s sake, he allowed 16 homers in 68 innings in 2023, mostly coming as a starter. He\u2019s consistently in the upper 90s with a spike curveball that looks like it dies as it approaches the plate, generating whiffs and some ugly swings, too. With Varland and Seranthony Dom\u00ednguez, who was acquired on Wednesday<\/a>, they\u2019ve dramatically improved the right side of their bullpen, and Varland gives them another option for the highest-leverage spots.<\/p>\n

The Blue Jays also picked up Ty France, for some reason.<\/p>\n

The price for these deals and the Dom\u00ednguez one was significant, though, as they sent out three of their top five pitching prospects. I\u2019d have Trey Yesavage first for them, Johnny King second and a solid fourth outfielder in Alan Roden.<\/p>\n

Roden, who went to the Twins, didn\u2019t hit well in his brief MLB debut this year, but he went back to Triple A and raked again, with more walks than strikeouts and a huge platoon split. He hits right-handers well enough to be the strong side of a platoon in the majors or a good fourth outfielder.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Alan Roden has a solid floor as a good fourth outfielder. (Mark Blinch \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\n

Left-hander Kendry Rojas, who also headed to the Twins, just debuted in Triple A on Wednesday night and got hit around, but he\u2019d thrown well before that, including a four-start stretch in Double A where he struck out 30 and walked two in 18 2\/3 innings.<\/p>\n

His velocity is up again this year, 93-96 mph now, with life to it and a 55 (out of the 20-80 scouting scale) slider and solid-average changeup. He\u2019s probably a fourth starter if he stays healthy, which is a big question. Rojas has never topped 84 innings in a season and missed the first two months of this year with an oblique injury.<\/p>\n

Right-hander Khal Stephen went to Cleveland in the Bieber deal, a one-for-one swap. He\u2019s very polished, working with three pitches and at least 55 control, coming from a high slot that does make him north-south.<\/p>\n

He gets good spin on a slider that I think is an average or better pitch, but I\u2019ve had scouts and analysts grade it below that, and his changeup is at least average, as well. I don\u2019t think there\u2019s a ton of upside here, but he\u2019s almost certainly a big-league starter. He just went on the IL with a \u201cmild\u201d shoulder impingement.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s a decent chunk of prospect change for the Jays to give up. They did cash in on Juaron Watts-Brown breaking out to some extent this year to acquire Dom\u00ednguez, and I could certainly see the argument that neither Rojas nor Stephen is any sure thing given their IL stints this year.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s also in service of the Jays pushing not just to make the playoffs but to win the AL East and advance in October, which all of these pitching acquisitions should do, with Bieber being the key more than the others, if he\u2019s able.<\/p>\n

I think the Twins did well here, and the Guardians will probably make Stephen into some 0.5 percent walk rate god, but credit the Jays for trading some real prospects where it seems like every other non-Padres team wouldn\u2019t do so.<\/p>\n

(Top photo of Bieber: Godofredo A. V\u00e1squez \/ Associated Press)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Trade details: Toronto Blue Jays acquire RHP Shane Bieber from the Cleveland Guardians for RHP Khal Stephen Toronto…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":51484,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[2320,2326,363,99,364],"class_list":["post-51483","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-cleveland-guardians","tag-minnesota-twins","tag-mlb","tag-sports","tag-toronto-blue-jays"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51483","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51483"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51483\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/51484"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51483"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51483"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51483"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}