With a lot of teams failing to separate themselves from one another at this point in the season, this year’s trade deadline has the potential to be very intriguing. At 38-33 and in the second American League Wild Card spot, the Blue Jays look to be in position to add at the deadline later this summer. They’re a good baseball team that has room to be better, and they could reasonably add in any area on their team.

With that being said, I ranked which of the offense, bullpen, and starting rotation needs to be prioritized more than the rest.

Comparing a Blue Jays team to their 2015 season is getting pretty exhausting, but I can’t help but think that – like the ’15 team – a big splash should be in the starting rotation this year.

One could make the argument that perhaps this is a little premature; Max Scherzer appears to be one triple-A start and a morning-after thumbs up (pun fully intended) away from returning to Toronto’s rotation. Furthermore, Alek Manoah is continuing to rehab from his Tommy John surgery last year, but with a potential August return, the trade deadline will have already come and gone.

Toronto currently holds a 4.56 ERA from its starting pitching, which ranks 26th in Major League Baseball. That number is a tad skewed as they have had an assortment of arms fill in the fifth spot with Scherzer on the IL, whether it be Eric Lauer, Paxton Schultz, Easton Lucas, or a few others. Nonetheless, their ERA also take into account Bowden Francis’s 6.05 ERA, something that might ultimately force Toronto’s hand to take him out of the rotation.

José Berríos, Kevin Gausman, and Chris Bassitt have done a nice job spearheading the rotation with a 3.86 ERA between the three. However, the Blue Jays could benefit greatly from adding a bona fide ace to this staff. Sure, Scherzer and Manoah have had those roles previously in their career (the former more so than the latter), but coming off of respective injuries, is it completely fair to expect that from them?

Atlanta’s Chris Sale and Milwaukee’s Freddy Peralta would both be ideal candidates for this role, given that both of their respective teams may fall out of contention. Both are pending free agents, although Peralta has a club option following this year. Acquiring a pitcher of that calibre would raise the ceiling on this team, as well as be a difference maker if they advance into October once the games get bigger and the lights get brighter.

An underrated aspect of adding a high-level starter is the relief it can provide for the bullpen. Arms like Brendon Little and Jeff Hoffman are on track to have the largest workloads of their careers, and those could be amplified by the fact that their outings are typically in high-leverage situations.

This brings me back to my initial point. In 2015, Drew Hutchison, Mark Buehrle, R.A. Dickey, and Marco Estrada were good, but David Price took that rotation to a different level and raised the team’s ceiling. The same thing can be done this year.

This is an area that seemingly every team entertains, and Ross Atkins has been no exception. Like the rotation, the Blue Jays will have reinforcements coming soon in Nick Sandlin and Yimi García, and it helps even more that those two are high-leverage arms.

The Blue Jays have done a great job rebuilding their bullpen since the concussion of 2024. This year’s pen currently owns an ERA of 3.66, good for 11th in the majors. That is a massive improvement from ’24 when that team’s bullpen ranked 29th with an ERA of 4.82. Brendon Little and his 57.7 whiff percentage on his knuckle curve have been a big deal for this year’s group, and the team has also gotten impressive results from Yariel Rodríguez, Mason Fluharty, and Braydon Fisher. It’s a deep group when healthy, but there is no such thing as too much depth, especially when you consider the point I mentioned earlier about the workload of Little and others.

Although I think Jeff Hoffman’s 5.70 ERA isn’t completely indicative of how well he has pitched as this team’s closer, seven homers allowed over his last 18 appearances are a concern. I wouldn’t say “no” to another high-leverage arm for the back end of this bullpen. They might also look to add to their low-to-middle relief options with how Chad Green and Erik Swanson have pitched, although Swanson is still only six games into his season.

With the lack of slug that we have seen from the Blue Jays since their 2022 lineup, am I crazy to rank this here? After watching this weekend’s series in Philadelphia, maybe I am. But let’s not overreact.

The Blue Jays have picked things up after a poor month of April, and are now finding themselves around the middle of the pack in several offensive categories. A lot of that can be attributed to the bats at the bottom of the order, as well as great stretches of baseball from Alejandro Kirk and Addison Barger.

Another way to look at it is that the Blue Jays have the fifth-best record in the American League without Vladimir Guerrero Jr. playing his best baseball and Anthony Santander posting a -0.9 bWAR. Guerrero is currently sitting on a .274/.375/.414 slash line and has not hit a home run since May 29th against the Athletics. He’s got to give the team more at the top of the order.

Daulton Varsho and Santander will be acquisitions in their own sense once they return from their respective injuries. With eight home runs in just 24 games, Varsho had been an integral part of this team’s power surge before he got hurt. Santander, on the other hand, can expand this lineup if he can give them anything more than what he had been before he hit the IL. Hopefully, they both return in time for the team to decide on how much offense is necessary to acquire, if any.

With the team’s pursuit of Pete Alonso back in the winter, this team knew that, even after acquiring Santander, this batting order was one bat away. Whether it comes in the form of another cleanup option or someone to throw in the leadoff spot, the Blue Jays have options here. This doesn’t trail Priority #2 by much. Another road series or two with poor offensive output – 5.14 runs per game at home versus 3.39 on the road – could make this more of a priority than the bullpen.

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