TORONTO – With about 45 minutes remaining before Thursday’s 6 p.m. ET trade deadline, the Blue Jays started making real progress on a late trade with the Minnesota Twins. After a couple years of eyeing Louis Varland from afar, the Blue Jays were finally closing in on a deal that would send him and right-handed hitting utility player Ty France to Toronto for outfielder Alan Roden and pitching prospect Kendry Rojas.
With that deal, a busy deadline came to an end for the Blue Jays, who acquired reliever Seranthony Dominguez from the Orioles Tuesday and added rehabbing right-hander Shane Bieber from the Cleveland Guardians Thursday morning.
“We’re really excited,” said GM Ross Atkins. “We feel that we were very aggressive at the deadline and were able to accomplish our goals and make the team better.”
The three trades bolster the Blue Jays’ bullpen, add considerable intrigue to their starting rotation and deepen their position player group while costing the farm system Roden as well as three promising young pitchers: Rojas plus Khal Stephen, who went to Cleveland for Bieber, and Juaron Watts-Brown, who went to Baltimore for Dominguez.
“We were focused on run prevention and adding to our pitching,” Atkins said. “We feel like we accomplished that goal. We were hoping to add to our offence as well, which we were able to do without subtracting from too many pieces that are already impacting our major-league environment. So that’s a very good outcome.”
In a smaller trade, the Blue Jays also acquired double-A catcher Brandon Valenzuela for Will Wagner in a deal that sends Wagner to the ever-intriguing Padres, frees up a 40-man roster spot in Toronto and adds catching depth at a time that Alejandro Kirk is sidelined on the seven-day concussion injured list.
Valenzuela will report to triple-A, while Varland and France are expected to be in Toronto and on the roster Friday when the Blue Jays open a series against the Royals. Bieber won’t be on the active roster yet, but he’s also expected at Rogers Centre, where he’ll map out the next step in his ongoing Tommy John rehabilitation.
The 30-year-old Bieber’s at least a couple weeks away from making his 2025 debut, which is fine considering the Blue Jays presently have a strong five-man rotation rolling as well as it has all season. But if and when Bieber does return, he’s the kind of pitcher any team would want starting a playoff game with a lifetime 3.22 ERA and five times as many walks at the MLB level.
“The guy has been elite,” Atkins said. “He’s been the best pitcher in the game at certain points. That was important to us on raising the potential, raising the bar.”
Merrill Kelly, Mike Soroka, Steven Matz and Zack Littell were also traded at the 2025 deadline, but Bieber likely has the greatest upside of any starting pitcher traded MLB-wide, as the likes of Sandy Alcantara, Edward Cabrera and Zac Gallen stayed put.
As always, it’ll take months to determine whether the moves work as intended, but this deadline fits the pattern established by team president Mark Shapiro and GM Ross Atkins. They’ve been busy every time they’ve been in position to buy, with at least three trades completed and at least three pitchers acquired in each of those seasons. This time was no exception.
With a 2.02 ERA and 47 strikeouts compared to just 13 walks in 49 innings with the Twins, Varland is in the midst of a career-best season.
Dominguez has already made an impact with two scoreless innings against his former team and Varland should soon join him in a revamped bullpen. It appears that Varland, a 27-year-old who’s still five and a half years away from free agency, could join Dominguez, Yariel Rodriguez and Brendon Little in setting up for closer Jeff Hoffman.
“We were very aggressive in trying to acquire him,” Atkins said. “He has been very effective this year as a reliever, has as good of a fastball as you can find and as good of a curveball as you can find with a very effective cutter. He can sink it. He is extremely aggressive. He's coming after you. And that's attractive to us. So immediately impacts our bullpen in a significant way.”
Interestingly, it’s possible the Blue Jays will stretch Varland out as a starting pitcher in the future, though that’s not under discussion for 2025.
As for France, the 2022 all-star is having a down year at the plate with six home runs and a .678 OPS in 101 games with the Twins. A right-handed hitter, he has two home runs and a .680 OPS against left-handed pitching this season, down from his career mark of .744.
“A good offensive player that’ll get significant playing time against left-handed pitching,” Atkins said. “And we’re not going to limit him to that. He can obviously cover us well at first base and has some versatility beyond that.”
As usual, the Blue Jays checked on a wide range of prominent players ahead of the deadline, exploring possible fits for the likes of Joe Ryan, Ryan Helsley, Steven Kwan, MacKenzie Gore and many others.
In the end, a Blue Jays pitching staff that needed help still got much stronger, with a welcome infusion of swing-and-miss stuff. With Dominguez, Bieber, Varland and France in place, the Blue Jays are a better team now than they were three days ago. How much better likely depends on Bieber, easily the highest-upside play among the four.
