Blue Jays can treat Mitch White as a cautionary tale with trade deadline approaching
Acquiring Mitch White at the 2022 trade deadline made some sense at the time, but it hasn't worked out and the Blue Jays can learn from their mistake.
Mitch White has been with the Toronto Blue Jays for less than a year, but it already seems clear the team made a mistake in trading for him.
White has a 7.43 ERA in 53.1 innings in Toronto, working as a starter and long reliever. There have been 216 pitchers who've logged at least 50 innings with the Blue Jays in their history, and that number ranks 212th.
Meanwhile, the biggest prospect the Blue Jays moved to acquire him, Nick Frasso, is running a 12.26 K/9 at Double-A and made a cameo on Baseball America's midseason top 100 prospect list. To be fair to Toronto, it acquired a prospect in the deal — infielder Alex De Jesus — who is having a fine season at High-A (116 wRC+), but he's repeating the level and striking out at a troubling clip (25.5%).
There's a chance De Jesus pans out, but he's not in Frasso's class, and for now it looks like the Blue Jays traded a top prospect for a guy whose time with the team will run out shortly if he can't make a complete 180.
While it's fair to criticize the Blue Jays for the way this deal is looking, it's also true that if you make enough deals, a few of them will be duds. Even the best front offices miss here and there, so pointing out that Toronto made a bad deal in 2022 is far from revelatory.
At the time, Frasso didn't look like the prospect he is today, and most criticism surrounding the deal was about the Blue Jays' inability to develop a back-of-the-roster swingman like White internally.
That doesn't mean there isn't anything for the Blue Jays to learn from the White trade as the 2023 trade deadline approaches.
When Toronto targeted White, the team prioritized the term that came with the player. No one believed the right-hander was a star, but he was perceived to have value because he was still making the MLB minimum and wasn't going to be arbitration eligible until 2025 or a free agent until 2028.
Even if White didn't make a profound contribution in any individual season, the theory was that he could serve as a cost-controlled floor raiser for the team's pitching staff for years to come. That outcome is still theoretically in play, but it doesn't look likely at this point.
It makes sense to acquire players with term — even at a higher price point — as a trade-deadline buyer in part because the MLB playoffs have so much randomness associated with them that selling the farm for a single bite at the apple can be tough to stomach. On the other hand, when you're acquiring a player with term, you're projecting value out into the future, which is not an easy task.
Back in 2019, Blue Jays GM Ross Atkins rather infamously stated that he'd acquired 42 years of team control with a series of teardown trades. The problem with that statement is the young players have to be productive enough to provide value year after year.
Here's a summary of the guys who were supposed to give the Blue Jays those 42 years, and what happened with them:
Curtis Taylor and Edisson Gonzalez (Acquired for Eric Sogard) — Taylor was lost in the minor-league Rule 5 Draft and Gonzalez was released
Anthony Kay and Simeon Woods Richardson (Acquired for Marcus Stroman) — Kay was waived after pitching 70.2 innings with the Blue Jays over four years with a 5.48 ERA. Woods Richardson was part of the José Berríos deal.
Thomas Hatch (Acquired for David Phelps)— Has pitched 44.1 innings of 5.28 ERA ball over four seasons (0.0 fWAR)
Kyle Johnston (Acquired for Daniel Hudson) — Released by the Blue Jays in 2023, currently pitching in the Colorado Rockies organization.
Derek Fisher (Acquired for Aaron Sanchez, Joe Biagini and Cal Stevenson) — Hit .177/.295/.395 in 146 plate appearance with the Blue Jays over two seasons. Traded for minor-league LHP Paxton Schultz prior to the 2021 season.
The context for these deals is different than the White trade, as the Blue Jays were rebuilding and outside of Fisher all the players listed above were prospects. Prospects don't always hit. The example just goes to show the value of accumulating term can be completely theoretical.
It's too early to render a verdict on the Daulton Varsho trade, but there's a chance it was another example of the Blue Jays being seduced by team control when a more impactful player with lesser term might've been a better fit. Top prospect Gabriel Moreno was a rare trade chip, and if Varsho doesn't pan out, the team will be left wondering if getting a more established producer for a couple of years would've been better than snagging the defensively-gifted outfielder for four.
To the Blue Jays front office's credit, it's not as if they've demonstrated a pathological drive to only acquire players with team control for their playoff pushes.
They've also had success with rentals like Robbie Ray and Taijuan Walker and bolstered their bullpen with a mixed bag of temporary additions including Joaquin Benoit, Scott Feldman, Brand Hand and Joakim Soria. Rental position players acquired by the regime include B.J. Upton, Jonathan Villar, and Corey Dickerson. Those players generally haven't performed well, but Toronto hasn't been averse to bringing them in.
When the 2023 deadline approaches, it will be tempting for the team to lock in on players with term as it's worth questioning if this iteration of the Blue Jays is worth going all-in on. That impulse could end up being the right one in theory if this squad doesn't prove worthy of a hefty investment, but it could also prompt the team to have to pay a premium for seasons that may not provide much value to the franchise.
The current Blue Jays bullpen has a walking reminder that years of control are only as useful as the player they're attached to.
