Blue Jays trade Reese McGuire to the White Sox for catcher Zack Collins

The Reese McGuire era is over.

According to Jeff Passan, the Blue Jays have dealt McGuire to the Chicago White Sox in exchange for Zack Collins, who’s also a catcher.

At a glance, these seem like very similar players. Both McGuire and Collins are catchers who hit left-handed and don’t provide much offensively. McGuire slashed a .253/.310/.343 line with the Blue Jays last season while Collins slashed a .210/.330/.338 line with the White Sox, though, based on FanGraphs defensive WAR numbers, it seems McGuire is the better defender.

The key difference between the two players is that Collins can be optioned, whereas McGuire would have to go through waivers. The Blue Jays managed to sneak McGuire through waivers last spring after his horrendous 2020 season, but since he was solid in 2021, there’s no doubt that somebody would snag him if they tried to send him down again.

Based on this move, it seems the Blue Jays didn’t want to roll with three catchers, and getting another backup catcher in return for McGuire is better than losing him for nothing. Maybe the team expects that Gabriel Moreno isn’t far away from a call-up. Or, hell, maybe they just wanted to move on from McGuire. Who knows!

I would guess it’s about not carrying three catchers, as the team would rather use the spot on another arm or a player who offers more versatility, such as Gosuke Katoh.