Trade Target Prospects: Toronto Blue Jays

As the non-waiver trade deadline approaches next month, several prospects are going to change organizations thanks to so many teams being in the hunt for playoff spots and looking to upgrade their major league rosters.

One of these teams is the Toronto Blue Jays, currently in first place in the AL East and looking to shore up several spots while they’re still in command of a coveted playoff position. The Blue Jays are actively looking for (at least) another starting pitcher and an infielder to play second or third base and they have several prospects who have been connected to trades.

A lot of people are following the Blue Jays’ interest in Jeff Samardzija who the Jays were rumored to be making a play for over the offseason. The price tag back then was a star-studded package that included the Jays’ top two prospects: Marcus Stroman and Aaron Sanchez. Stroman is probably off the table now that he’s filling a starting role on the big league team (why would the team deal a current starter to get a starter to replace him when they need more starters?) but Sanchez’s name is still circulating.

Sanchez, the Jays’ consensus #1 prospect, has had an up-and-down year, combining occasional brilliance with control issues. While his stuff remains as good as just about any minor league prospect, Sanchez’s walk rate has been pretty bad this year: 5.5 BB/9 in Double-A New Hampshire and is currently at 8.1 BB/9 in his three appearances so far for Triple-A Buffalo.

According to Jon Paul Morosi of Fox Sports, Sanchez is definitely still a target of the Cubs; he mentions that Samardzija would be available to the Blue Jays if they offered Sanchez, lefty Daniel Norris and center fielder Dalton Pompey (both Norris and Pompey were just named to the MLB Futures Game).

Norris struggled throughout his first season and a half of professional baseball but adjustments he had been working on clicked about half-way through last season in Class-A Lansing and the former second round pick (2011) who just turned 21 has been dominating his opposition, both at the High-A level in Dunedin and since moving up to the Double-A Eastern League just a couple of weeks ago.

When I saw Norris (last August and in March during spring training), he was locating his 94-mph fastball and his two plus offspeed pitches better than he ever had before, finally demonstrating the control to go along with his stuff. Norris is showing the stuff with some tremendous strikeout totals – 10.3 K/9 in 66 1/3 Florida State League innings and 19 strikeouts in 11 1/3 innings in Double-A already.

If you’ve been a reader here, you’ll know about Dalton Pompey, the Toronto-born, speedy, Gold-Glove center fielder. Pompey is only 21 but missed a great deal of time thanks to an injury in 2012. While that might have slowed down some players’ development, it seems like it’s been a blip on the radar as Pompey has had a tremendous first half in Dunedin, hitting .319/.397/.471 with an incredible 29 stolen bases in 31 attempts. Pompey has just been called up to Double-A and will get to showcase his skills at a higher level.

Most people are thinking that the Blue Jays would be out of their minds to give up that kind of package for Jeff Sarmadzija. Indeed, Jon Heyman at CBS Sports believes that trade has “zero chance” to succeed. Heyman thinks that the Blue Jays will look for an inning-eating, lower-tier rental for a starter — someone like Jason Hammel — who the Blue Jays wouldn’t have to gut their farm to get.

Some other names that could come up in trade talks include shortstops Dawel Lugo and/or Franklin Barreto. While neither is a premium defender, both are showing the ability to hit well above their age level. Lugo is 19 and in the Midwest League while Barreto is only 18 and tearing up the Northwest League. The Jays also have two other Latin-American shortstops a the two levels below them with 18 year old Richard Urena in Rookie-League Bluefield and 17 year old Yeltsin Gudino in the Gulf Coast League.

The Blue Jays also have several young pitchers who have had mixed success this season at the full-season level. Alberto Tirado and Jairo Labourt were demoted to Short-Season-A Vancouver after struggling with their control in Lansing and Chase De Jong is a guy that the organization is really high on who has shown flashes of brilliance this year while taking a few lumps against better competition than he’s ever seen.

Where things get complicated is the fact that the Blue Jays are looking for an infielder as well as a starting pitcher. While the Blue Jays would rather hold on to their top tier prospects, especially after trading so many of them a year and a half ago, they find themselves in a position that they haven’t really been in for over 20 years: first place as the calendar turns toward July. In order to get a deal done to improve the big league roster, they’re going to have to deal from the farm.