It was nearly 11 years ago that the Toronto Blue Jays left their prospect cupboard nearly bare after trading for one of the most coveted arms on the trade market. A Detroit Tigers ace was a pending free agent, and the Blue Jays pushed in all their chips to land left-hander David Price.

Could history repeat itself with two-time Cy Young-winner Tarik Skubal? With one of the worst records in the American League, the Tigers will surely be shopping the most in-demand pitcher on the market. The question is: which team is going to pay a king’s ransom to lay claim to Skubal?

The Blue Jays have perpetually needed starting pitchers since the first week of the season, and are a team that’s currently rolling with a three-man rotation. Their biggest need isn’t elite starting pitching; they simply need warm bodies to eat up innings.

As tempting as it may be to try to pull a Price 2.0 trade at this year’s trade deadline, for various reasons, the Blue Jays should steer clear of making a play for Skubal.

After trading away a lot of their assets at previous trade deadlines, the Blue Jays have finally made headway in rebuilding their farm system over the last few years. MLB Pipeline ranked Toronto as having the 15th-best system in the majors heading into 2026, which is miles ahead of where they’ve been in recent years.

The Tigers would not only be asking for quantity of prospects in return for Skubal, they’d want quality. Any trade proposal would likely involve either JoJo Parker or Arjun Nimmala, along with a pitching prospect like Johnny King or Gage Stanifer. Any Skubal trade would decimate the Blue Jays’ farm system in the short term.

There’s also no guarantee Skubal would stick around beyond the remainder of the 2026 season for whichever team may acquire him. It’s optimistic to think the Blue Jays can repeat what they did with José Berríos in 2021, trading for him at the deadline and locking him into a sizable contract extension. But any team has to be prepared to see Skubal walk away at the end of the year.

As dire as the starting rotation picture looks for the Blue Jays in the near term, they have reinforcements coming, as Dylan Cease, Max Scherzer, and Shane Bieber continue their rehab stints in Triple-A. Within a few weeks, the team should have one, if not two arms back in the fold coming into the tail end of the first half.

That’s not to say the Blue Jays wouldn’t benefit from some external additions to their rotation. In Detroit alone, Casey Mize is another free agent who should draw plenty of interest from teams like the Jays. Even after a brief stint on the IL, Mize hasn’t missed a beat, posting a 2.27 ERA in nine starts on the season.

One could argue the Blue Jays have bigger needs on the roster, namely a lack of offense. If the Blue Jays are going to pool their resources into one elite player, going after a position player — rather than a starting pitcher — might be the wiser play. Left and right field are two positions where the Blue Jays have the potential to make the most improvement.

Betting on the best players in the league is rarely a wrong move, but when a club is just barely hanging onto the periphery of contention, it’s a hard sell to make a play for an ace like Skubal. It would be one thing if the Blue Jays had a division lead, or were among the best teams in the league. But they’re doing everything in their power just to get to .500, let alone trying to make up ground on the New York Yankees or Tampa Bay Rays.

Making a trade for Skubal is a move that you make to help you win playoff series, and to help push you over the top. Depleting your farm system makes sense for teams that are running away with their divisions, like the Atlanta Braves, Milwaukee Brewers, and Los Angeles Dodgers.

Those teams would be justified sinking a good chunk of their prospect capital into an elite pitcher who could leapfrog to the front of their rotation and help them win postseason games.

At this rate, there’s a possibility the Blue Jays could go all-in on Skubal and not even make the postseason, which would be a doomsday scenario.

If Skubal doesn’t end up signing a contract extension before he hits free agency at the end of the year, the Blue Jays will surely have a seat at the negotiation table with Scott Boras as they attempt to persuade one of the best arms in the game to become a Blue Jay.

This regime has been aggressive in free agency dating all the way back to just before the 2020 campaign, when they signed Hyun-Jin Ryu. What came next was the Kevin Gausman contract, a deal for George Springer, a contract extension for Jose Berrios, and most recently, a franchise-record free agent deal for Cease.

The Blue Jays always seem to enjoy having that extra window of negotiation when they acquire rentals, as the strategy worked with Berrios in 2021. But also remember, Price never re-signed with the Blue Jays, even though he had a stellar second half of 2015.

You can adore the pitcher, but you can loathe what it would take to bring him into the organization. Suitors would have to move mountains in a potential pursuit of Skubal. It’s a price that’s arguably too steep for a flawed team like the Blue Jays.