The Toronto Blue Jays made the signing of Kevin Kiermaier to a one-year, $9 million contract official on Thursday morning…

With the addition of Kiermaier, the Blue Jays now have a full 40-man roster. So that means that they’ll need to remove somebody before officially signing starting pitcher Chris Bassitt, who agreed to a three-year, $63 million deal earlier in the week.

The most simple path forward would simply be designating a fringe roster player for assignment to open a spot on the 40-man. Some of the names who stand out here are Thomas Hatch and Anthony Kay, a pair of pitchers in their mid-20s acquired through trades during the team’s rebuilding years who haven’t been able to establish themselves as effective big-league arms.

But we could also see the Blue Jays make a roster-clearing trade, such as they did back in January of 2021. Shortly after adding George Springer, Marcus Semien, Kirby Yates, and Tyler Chatwood in free agency, the Blue Jays dealt two fringe roster arms, Sean Reid-Foley and Yennsy Diaz, along with prospect Josh Winckowski to the New York Mets for Steven Matz.

The Mets might actually wind up being the trade partner again for the Blue Jays in a roster-clearing move. They’re at 39 players right now and there’s talk that they’re looking to move starting pitcher Carlos Carrasco.

Maybe we’ll see another version of the Matz deal, with two 40-man names and a prospect going to New York and Carrasco, a name that Mark Shapiro and Ross Atkins know from their Cleveland days, coming back to Toronto.