Jays begin process of remixing outfield for 2023

TORONTO — Pitching is the focus for the Toronto Blue Jays front office this winter, but diversifying a lineup full of right-handed hitters with similar approaches checks in as a close second.

That process began in earnest this week, as the Jays quickly started retooling their outfield mix for 2023 by trading Teoscar Hernandez to the Seattle Mariners on Wednesday and DFA’ing Raimel Tapia and Bradley Zimmer ahead of the Rule 5 roster protection deadline Tuesday night.

The flurry of outfield moves saves the Jays about $19 million for this coming season, while also adding some bullpen help in right-handed reliever Erik Swanson, the key piece in the return for Hernandez.

The Jays also get left-handed pitching prospect Adam Macko, an Alberta high schooler with a mid-90s fastball, a good breaker and some big-time upside if things click with the command in the future as he heads into the upper minors.

That aforementioned $19 million isn’t going into the Rogers piggybank. It’s going to be repurposed, and in addition to more pitching help the Jays are now in need of an outfielder, ideally one who hits from the left side and brings an element of on-base and defence to the mix.

Outside of the long-awaited catching surplus trade, Hernandez’s middle-of-the-order bat was clearly going to fetch the biggest return this winter but his projected $14.1 million price tag — per MLB Trade Rumors’ fantastic yearly projections — in his final year of arbitration was going to factor in.

On the surface, it may seem like an underwhelming return for a brand name Silver Slugger Award winner like Hernandez, but with extension talks going nowhere last year and not being revisited, the Jays decided to use him as a trade chip to improve themselves elsewhere.

If Swanson is able to replicate his 2022 campaign, he’ll add a cost-effective high-leverage arm to the back end of manager John Schneider’s bullpen.

Swanson’s blood-red Statcast page — red is good, blue is bad — shows just how effective he was in his 57 appearances for the M’s last year, posting a 1.68 ERA and possessing three pitches that get swing-and-miss, an attribute the Jays have been seeking in the late innings to pair with closer Jordan Romano.

This is just the first domino to fall.

It leaves Lourdes Gurriel Jr., who has also come up in trade talks and is scheduled to make a cost-effective $5.4 million in the final season of the $22-million pact he signed out of Cuba in November of 2016, as the everyday option in left field, alongside George Springer, who is a bit of a curious case entering his third season of a six-year deal.

Ideally, the Jays would love to give the now-33-year-old Springer, who underwent elbow surgery to remove bone spurs at the end of the season, even more time in right field in 2023, but that means finding someone capable of handling centre field defensively, while providing much, much more offensively than Zimmer and Tapia did this year.

Tapia had his moments in 2022, but the numbers underwhelmed. His 90 wRC+ was below league average and his .292 on-base percentage didn’t cut it.

The list of everyday centre fielders on the free agent market with impact begins and ends with Brandon Nimmo, but he’s going to cost a pretty penny, perhaps in the range of Springer’s $25 million per year.

That chase, if it comes to fruition, became much more realistic after shedding Hernandez’s salary, but there’s no shortage of potential Hernandez replacements, both on the free agent and trade markets.

Bryan Reynolds, Max Kepler, Jesse Winker, Ian Happ, Jake McCarthy, Alek Thomas, Lars Nootbaar, Mike Yastrzemski and maybe even a reclamation project like Cody Bellinger are potential trade targets of differing values to keep an eye on.

Michael Conforto, Andrew Benintendi, and Michael Brantley are free agents who would fit.

It’s an off-season with many different dominos for the Jays front office to sift through.

Opportunities and alternatives, as GM Ross Atkins would say. 

The reason the Jays cut Tapia and Zimmer loose a couple days early — the non-tender deadline falls on Friday and names like Trevor Richards and Trent Thornton could still be jettisoned — was that they had a quartet of intriguing prospects needing 40-man roster spots.

Infielders Orelvis Martinez and Addison Barger were easy adds, as was electric right-hander Yosver Zulueta, who is expected to begin the year in the Triple-A Buffalo rotation.

The Jays also decided to add first baseman Spencer Horwitz, a left-handed stick who slashed .275/.391/.452 with 12 homers across two levels at Double-A and Triple-A this season.

Barger, who also hits from the left side, Horwitz and Zulueta could all play important depth roles in 2023, while Martinez is a high-end prospect with massive power who needs to smooth out some swing-and-miss issues in the upper minors next summer before becoming a realistic option.

With the level of talent he possesses, that click could come at any point.

There’s also a chance he’s used as a trade chip this winter if Atkins decides the prices on the free-agent market are too rich for the blood of a club with somewhat limited resources to spend after a couple years of big splashes.

While predicting the annual Rule 5 process is mostly futile, the most intriguing names the Jays left unprotected include 20-year-old outfielder Gabriel Martinez, who is coming off a breakout season in A-ball, and Triple-A relievers Adrian Hernandez and Jackson Rees, both of whom barely get up over 90-mph with the fastball but possess elite secondary pitches that could potentially help a team in the middle innings right out of the gate.

Bullpen arms and up-the-middle athletes with speed and good gloves who can languish on a big-league club’s bench all season in a situation role are the most common profiles selected, but once in a while a rebuilding team will take a chance on a Martinez type just to see how it goes, even if the odds are against it working out.

After a one-year hiatus, the Rule 5 draft goes Dec. 7 this year on the final day of the Winter Meetings in San Diego.