Blue Jays Mailbag: Deep Rebuild Doesn’t Make Sense with Guerrero Looming

The offseason is in full swing, or, at least, it should be. Not a lot has happened yet, and so as we return to our weekly Blue Jays mailbag, we find a lot of questions still lingering from two months ago—presumably waiting, like we all are, to see first what happens with Giancarlo Stanton and Shohei Otani!

But there are new questions to be asked and answered, too! So let’s dive in!

If you have a Blue Jays question you’d like me to tackle for next week, be sure to send it to stoeten@gmail.com. As always, I have not read any of Griff’s answers.

I think the better question—as it always is when discussing trades—is what the Blue Jays can realistically offer the Pirates for Josh Harrison? I’m not sure why the Pirates, or the Reds, would be rushing to offload talented players for players who aren’t going to help them in the near term. The other guys, free agents Dyson and Cain, and the Marlins’ Gordon, are maybe different stories, but still, I really don’t see it. Dyson doesn’t hit nearly enough, Cain will surely want too many years, and they both play the position best suited to Kevin Pillar, Anthony Alford, Dalton Pompey, and probably Teoscar Hernandez, too.

I think the Jays are better off looking for someone like Gordon, and he certainly would make some sense here—he or Devon Travis could factor into the outfield mix when both are healthy, and having a high-contact, speedy player like Gordon at the top of the lineup would certainly be nice. But a lot of teams could use a guy like that, and there are some similar options out there for that sort of a role, so I’d certainly bet the field.