Report: Blue Jays almost traded Ken Giles to Yankees for 3 prospects
The Toronto Blue Jays had a busy trade deadline, but apparently they just missed out on making a significant deal involving Ken Giles.
According to Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic, the team got very close to moving their star closer:
On the day of the trade deadline, the Yankees and Blue Jays made significant progress on a deal that would have sent reliever Ken Giles to New York, according to major-league sources. The Jays were set to receive three prospects, and informed the other clubs pursuing Giles they were going to be moving him elsewhere.
The trade, of course, never happened, and the Yankees backed off too late for the Jays to complete a deal with another club.
This development adds intrigue to a deadline that was full of it for the Blue Jays. After trades for Marcus Stroman and Aaron Sanchez failed to impress many in baseball circles, it’s worth wondering how a Giles deal would have fared in the court of public opinion.
Of course, without having an idea of the return (‘three prospects’ could be an amazing package or a dreadful one) there isn’t any meaningful speculation to be done here. It’s possible the Blue Jays missed out on an extremely advantageous deal. It’s also plausible that they dodged a bullet.
What might cause some eyebrow raising is the idea that they told other clubs Giles was on the move before a deal was signed and sealed. It seems like they may have cost themselves an opportunity by being overconfident in the probability of the Yankees deal.
However, to use that as the basis of overt criticism would be a bit of a stretch without more information. Perhaps the offers made by the other teams weren’t nearly worth trading Giles for. Perhaps the Yankees misled the Blue Jays about how done the deal was. Without further details, rendering a judgement seems premature.
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The good news for the Blue Jays is that whether they missed an opportunity by failing to move Giles or not, they will have the chance to do so either in the off-season or at the 2020 trade deadline. If they trade him at either of those times - and receive a solid return - this footnote will be relegated to the dustbin of history.
If Giles gets hurt or becomes ineffective, and they’re never able to extract anything of value for him, this trade to the Yankees that wasn’t will seem far more significant.
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