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Throwback Thursday: Looking at Blue Jays trades with Guardians since the start of the Ross Aktins era
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Photo credit: © Nick Turchiaro-Imagn Images
Ryley Delaney
Jun 26, 2025, 19:30 EDTUpdated: Jun 26, 2025, 21:02 EDT
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On Thursday, the Toronto Blue Jays defeated the Cleveland Guardians 6-0.
It’s a nice little victory for the team, as the Blue Jays’ president/CEO Mark Shapiro and general manager Ross Atkins both started their executive careers with the Guardians. Both Shapiro and Atkins joined the Blue Jays organization ahead of the 2016 season.
The two franchises have completed 34 trades since the Blue Jays joined Major League Baseball. Some notable trades before the turn of the millennium include Phil Nerko, Alfredo Griffin, and Bud Black.
Since the Atkins/Shapiro era started, the Blue Jays have made 11 trades with the Guardians. Let’s take a look at them in this edition of Throwback Thursday. If you missed last week’s Throwback Thursday, we looked at the Daulton Varsho trade.

The big trades

The Blue Jays made the postseason in 2016, falling to the Guardians in the American League Championship Series. This started a few seasons of sub .500 baseball, and led to the Jays being sellers at the 2017 trade deadline.
One of the trades they made was with the Guardians, as they sent reliever Joe Smith to Cleveland for prospects Thomas Pannone and Samad Taylor. Smith signed with the Blue Jays ahead of the 2017 season and had a 3.28 ERA and 2.32 FIP in 35.2 innings pitched, with a 35.4 K% and 6.9 BB%. It’s incredibly impressive because his fastball averaged under 90 mph with the Jays.
Pannone made his big league debut in 2018, making six starts in 12 appearances with a 4.19 ERA and 5.11 FIP in 43 innings pitched. He struggled in 2019, posting a 6.16 ERA and 5.16 FIP in 73 innings. He was designated for assignment in 2020, a season in which he didn’t pitch for the Jays at all. After two seasons in Korea, Pannone pitched for the Milwaukee Brewers in 2023, the organization he’s currently in.
As for Taylor, he never played for the Toronto Blue Jays and was eventually traded to the Kansas City Royals with Max Castillo for Whit Merrifled, who retired recently. Taylor has 83 big league plate appearances and is slashing .205/.272/.260 with no home runs.
The most notable trade between the two teams came a season later, when the Blue Jays sent an injured Josh Donaldson to the Guardians for a player to be named later. That PTBNL turned out to be Julian Merryweather, a rather unimpressive return for a player who won the American League MVP in 2015.
In his Blue Jays’ career, Merryweather had a 5.64 ERA and 4.36 FIP in 52.2 innings pitched, with a 21.8 K% and 7.4 BB% before being designated for assignment in early 2023. The flame-throwing righty picked up two saves at the start of the 2021 season, the best he ever looked as a Blue Jay.
The two other big trades the Jays made with the Guardians had ramifications for the 2025 Blue Jays. On Dec. 10, the Blue Jays traded Spencer Horwitz and prospect Nick Mitchell to the Guardians in exchange for Andres Gimenez and Nick Sandlin.
Mitchell was acquired with the pick the Jays received when Matt Chapman signed with the Giants. In 2025, he’s slashing .302/.403/.336 with no home runs in 139 plate appearances. Mitchell was the first of two 2024 draftees the Blue Jays have traded away, as they just traded Colby Martin a few days ago.
This was a three-team trade, as Horwitz was traded to the Pittsburgh Pirates shortly after. So far this season, the first baseman is slashing .256/.325/.359 with a home run in 129 plate appearances for a 90 wRC+. He had a tough start due to a wrist injury.
As for the Jays’ return, Gimenez started the season off hot, hitting three home runs in his first six games, but he cooled off dramatically. After Thursday’s game, he’s slashing .189/.272/.289 for a 63 wRC+, albeit with impressive defence at second base.
Sandlin missed a large chunk of this season and has a 2.53 ERA and 4.10 FIP in 10.2 innings, with a 26 K% and a 12 BB%. Not particularly great.
Just over a month after the Gimenez trade, the Jays made a second one with the Guardians. On January 17, the Jays sent cash or a player to be named later to take on Myles Straw’s contract, as well as $2 million in international free agent signing bonus pool money to sign Rōki Sasaki.
The Jays didn’t land Sasaki, but Straw has filled in well for Daulton Varsho, who has been injured for all but 24 games this season. In 148 plate appearances, Straw is slashing .272/.303/.346 with a home run and 14 RBIs for an 84 wRC+. He also has 9 Defensive Runs Saved and 5 Outs Above Average in 335.1 innings in the outfield. Who knows how the prospects signed with the additional bonus pool money will develop?

The small trades

Since August 3, 2016, the Blue Jays have been seven small trades between the two teams. That August trade in 2016 saw the Guardians purchase Colt Hynes from the Jays, with the pitcher just throwing 20 innings pitched in his big league career.
About six weeks before the Joe Smith trade, the Guardians purchased Jarrett Grube from the Blue Jays. He pitched even fewer innings than Hynes, giving up a home run in his two-thirds of an inning pitched.
In three consecutive months in 2018, the Jays and Guardians made three trades for two players who eventually became useful big league utility players. On April 21, the Guardians purchased Jon Berti from the Jays, with Berti finding his way back to the Jays on June 7.
Berti is still an active player in the big leagues, and for his career, he’s slashed .256/.333/.358 with 24 home runs in 1,714 plate appearances. The utility player had five good seasons with the Marlins from 2019 until 2023, before joining the New York Yankees in 2024 and the Chicago Cubs in 2025.
Between the game of hot potato with Berti trades, the Guardians sent Gio Urshela to the Jays for cash. Urshela didn’t find a lot of success with the Guardians or Jays, but he smashed 21 home runs with the Yankees in 2019 and became a regular for them for three seasons before he joined the Minnesota Twins in 2022. Since then, Urshela has been a below-average hitter.
After the Donaldson trade, the Jays took a three-and-a-half-year hiatus from trading with the Guardians. They eventually resumed relations, as the Jays sent Anthony Castro to the Guardians for Bradley Zimmer on April 8, 2022.
Zimmer had all the potential, but he could never just put it together. With the Jays in 2022, he slashed .101/.200/.213 with two home runs in 101 plate appearances. The outfielder had a brief tenure with the Phillies during the 2022 season before returning to the Jays. He hasn’t played in the big leagues since 2022 and is currently a free agent.
Castro is also a free agent, posting a 7.43 ERA and 8.44 FIP in 13.1 innings pitched with the Guardians in 2022. Like Zimmer, he hasn’t played in the big leagues since the 2022 season.
Early in the 2024 season, the Blue Jays designated Wes Parson for assignment and later traded him to the Guardians for $250,000 in international signing bonus pool money. Parsons pitched four scoreless innings with the Guardians but was designated for assignment and released. He is also a free agent.
Ryley Delaney is a Nation Network writer for Blue Jays Nation, Oilersnation, and FlamesNation. She can be followed on Twitter @Ryley__Delaney.

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