9 months removed from World Series Game 7, the Toronto Blue Jays need to sell at the deadline
WASHINGTON — When the ball left Bo Bichette's bat, nothing felt more forever than the Toronto Blue Jays.
World Series Game 7. Packed house. Closed dome. Everything on the line. Bichette, playing on one good leg, clocked one deep to send the place into joyous anarchy. As that white speck ricochetted into a delirious throng, the greatest baseball player on Earth, one Shohei Ohtani, folded over in total exhaustion, defeated. The man of the moment circled the bases under an umbrella of noise, and it all seemed like the beginning of something.
Nine months later, those Toronto Blue Jays — who, yes, were upended by the Los Angeles Dodgers in dramatic, soul-snatching fashion in that Game 7 — feel a universe away.
With less than a week until the MLB trade deadline, the 2026 club is fighting for its future. Five games and six teams stand between Toronto and the third AL wild-card spot. At 49-58 entering play Tuesday, they are an unfathomable nine games under .500. Among American League outfits, only the Royals, Athletics and Angels have lower playoff odds than the Jays' 7.8%.
Despite an emphatic offseason, things have gone about as sideways as possible in Toronto. Megastar Vladimir Guerrero Jr. has wallowed through the worst year of his career, clobbering just six long balls, none of which have come at Rogers Centre. The rest of the lineup hasn't fared much better. Age came for George Springer. Injuries came for Addison Barger. Regression came for Daulton Varsho. The Mets and their mountains of money came for Bo Bichette. The result is an offense that ranks dead last in runs per game, on-base percentage and isolated slugging, despite the best efforts of Ernie Clement and Kazuma Okamoto.
This is all a long-winded way of saying: The Blue Jays should sell.
They certainly have the pieces to do so. Veteran hurlers Kevin Gausman and Shane Bieber are impending free agents who could start playoff games elsewhere. Springer and Varsho will also hit the market at season's end. Given the dearth of right-handed power (Springer) and center fielders (Varsho) on the trade block, both could fetch worthwhile returns.
That's not to say Toronto should embark on a full teardown. The 2027 season (should it happen) still looks promising. Dylan Cease has proven himself to be a legitimate ace. Guerrero can't be this bad again. Hopefully Barger and out-for-2026 righty arm Cody Ponce come back healthy. Maybe the Jays will even get something from the long-forgotten-about Anthony Santander. Plus, Toronto has just south of 100 million American dollars coming off the books this winter. That added spending power, regardless of whatever economic system governs baseball next season, should allow the Jays to once again make some noise in free agency.
Still, there are doubts around the industry about the vitality of this organization. Some insiders see the 2025 Jays as a blip, not a harbinger. That was true even at the time. Theirs is a shoddy farm system and a player-development apparatus with a substandard track record of making players better. Even if Guerrero returns to form, it's unclear whether the Jays have another All-Star position player anywhere in the organization.
That's part of why opting to stay the course in 2026 would be a disservice to the 2027 team, even if it's unlikely that Toronto can acquire game-changing talent in returns this week. At this point, anything to reinforce organizational depth would be helpful.
The current club, to its credit, has not yet waved the white flag. Toronto won a close one Monday against the upstart Washington Nationals. Birthday boy Max Scherzer was sufficient enough to begin his 42nd trip around the sun. The offense did just enough. The Jays' above-average pen carried things the rest of the way.
Crucially, the Blue Jays didn't look like a defeated team. Guerrero was running the bases with abandon, diving headlong on multiple occasions. Closer Louis Varland blew triple-digit heat past Luis García Jr. to secure a one-run victory. Postgame, players were upbeat and jovial in the clubhouse. They and skipper John Schneider are maintaining the clichéd-yet-appropriate position of "controlling what they can control."
"It's a week away, and a lot can happen." Schneider said pregame. "It's like, how do you beat a really good young team? And that's it. ... For me, it's Groundhog Day."
Yet as Schneider spoke to reporters in his office in the Nationals Park visitors clubhouse, a reminder of his team's precipitous position flickered in the background. Just over his right shoulder, a TV tuned to MLB Network ran a segment debating whether the Blue Jays should be sellers.
This is life at the deadline: Coaches and players doing whatever possible to compartmentalize the uncomfortable while executives upstairs remove the emotion from the proceedings.
Perhaps things will change between now and pencils down at 6 p.m. ET Monday. Maybe the Jays will get hot and propel themselves back up the standings. There is time, albeit precious little, to change the narrative of this season.
But the likeliest scenario involves unreasonable playoff odds. So hopefully the powers that be, general manager Ross Atkins and his staff, adopt a realistic approach to this trade season and sell off their rentals. That's the most realistic path to getting the Canadian thunderdome jumping again.
