It was an exciting 30-minute span for the Blue Jays at MLB’s Winter Meetings. They had a chance to secure the number one pick in the draft but dropped to eighth. Shortly thereafter, Max Fried signed with the New York Yankees. And then the Blue Jays pulled the trigger on their first trade of the offseason.

The deal has the Blue Jays acquiring second basemen Andrés Giménez and reliever Nick Sandlin for first baseman Spencer Horwitz and prospect Nick Mitchell. You’ve gotta give to get, and the Blue Jays gave up a piece of their core from 2024 for a new piece of their core for 2025 and beyond.

Giménez is the headliner in the deal, who is under team control through 2029 with a club option for 2030. He’s entering the third year of his seven-year contract worth $106.5 million. The 26-year-old is a three-time Gold Glover and one of the best defensive second basemen in the game.

Giménez had a breakout 2022 campaign where he posted a .252/.298/.340 slash line with a 141 OPS+ in 146 games with the Guardians. But his offensive numbers have tailed off the last two years, and Giménez posted a 96 OPS+ in 2023 and an 82 OPS+ in 2024. He’s two years removed from a 6.1 fWAR season, so it’s easy to see why the Blue Jays were so high on him. Even if his bat has dipped, he’s still an elite defender and plays into Toronto’s M.O. these last few years of investing in run prevention, but with the potential for some offensive upside with Giménez.

From a front-office standpoint, it’s great that he’s contract-controlled for the next five seasons, but in two years, Giménez’s salary jumps to $23 million per season, which is a lot for a player for whom the bulk of his value lies in his defence. It was a Guardians-esque (or a Rays-esque) move to move off the rest of a contract before it got too costly, but the Blue Jays can afford to take this contract on with a bevy of deals coming off the books over the next few seasons.

Last season with the Guardians, Giménez hit predominantly as their number two hitter, but he fits in better as a five, six or seven-hole hitter on this Blue Jays team. He’ll likely see at-bats at the top of the lineup at some point, but his on-base percentage isn’t high enough to warrant those extra plate appearances. Getting a premium defender may also be a contingency plan for the potential exit of Bo Bichette next season, as Giménez has experience fielding shortstop as well. But the bulk of his experience over his five-year career has been at second base, so it stands to reason he’ll stay there for the foreseeable future.

Horwitz is the noteworthy player going back to the Guardians, who was a big contributor for the Blue Jays from early June onwards. Aside from Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Horwitz was the only Blue Jays regular to post an OPS+ of 100 or better in 2024.

As nice of a player as Horwitz was, I don’t think a competitive Blue Jays team should be heartbroken about losing Horwitz to the Guardians. The 27-year-old was blocked at his native position of first base, and the Blue Jays experimented with Horwitz at second base but moved him off that position given the glut of infield talent and his underwhelming fielding ability.

Without a clear path to everyday playing time at a single position, it felt like Horwitz had reached his ceiling with the Blue Jays and the organization was spinning their wheels trying to best maximize his production on the field. Horwitz flip-flopped between the DH spot in the final two months of the season but a strong Blue Jays team should not have Horwitz as their primary option at designated hitter. Toronto had a glut of middle infielders, and they were bound to package some of them together to fill other holes on the roster.

Instead of trying to shoehorn the likes of Horwitz, Will Wagner and David Schneider into one position, the Blue Jays can lean on Giménez to do the heavy lifting at the keystone in 2025. Second base was the biggest position of turnover for the Blue Jays with six players starting 19 or more games in 2024.

It turns out they packaged one infielder to get another one in return, but Giménez is a little more established, plays premium defense, and is a plus baserunner. In a vacuum, this doesn’t look like a good trade for the Blue Jays, but they have umpteen needs to address and this was the first of ideally more transactions to come.

This also opens up a path for the Blue Jays to sign or trade for a more traditional DH rather than rotate in the rest of their depth players. So long as the organization sets its sights higher than Justin Turner from last winter, options like Joc Pederson, Jesse Winker, and if they want to set their sights higher, Christian Walker or Pete Alonso would all be great DH choices.

If Ross Atkins doesn’t acquire another bat or two and the Giménez trade ends up being the only position player or bat addition of the offseason, it will be another underwhelming offseason for the Blue Jays. But the winter is young and they still have time to remedy that situation.

There’s a path toward Giménez becoming a league-average hitter again, and combined with his elite glove and plus baserunning, he can be a valuable player for the Blue Jays. He’s an effective complementary piece, but Toronto still needs to add some headliners to their starting lineup if they want any chance at returning to the postseason in 2025.