The Toronto Blue Jays make a shocking trade of popular players just before the holidays.
The Toronto Blue Jays made a shocking trade before the Christmas holiday weekend.
The Blue Jays have reached an agreement with the Arizona Diamondbacks to acquire Daulton Varsho in exchange for Lourdes Gurriel Jr. and top prospect Gabriel Moreno, according to Jeff Passan of ESPN.
Varsho, 26, batted.235 with 27 home runs and 74 RBIs in 531 at-bats across 151 games. He has a career.234 batting average spanning parts of three seasons with the Diamondbacks. He was originally selected in the second round of the 2017 MLB June Amateur Draft out of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
Baseball-Reference estimates his career value at 6.7 Wins Above Replacement.
Moreno, 22, has 22 hits in 69 at-bats for the Jays this season. Baseball America named the catcher as Major League Baseball’s top prospect in July.
According to Jon Heyman of the New York Post, outfielder Lourdes Gurriel Jr. is also headed to Arizona as part of the deal.
Gurriel spent five years with the Blue Jays. He batted.291 in 2022 but only hit five home runs in 121 games.
READ MORE: The Blue Jays were left stunned and heartbroken as the playoffs continued without them.
TORONTO – The stadium was as quiet as it had been throughout the season.
The fans at Rogers Centre were traumatized. First and foremost, the Toronto Blue Jays had just seen a seven-run lead vanish in Game 2 of the American League Wild Card series. However, the Seattle Mariners’ game-tying, three-run double had other disastrous consequences.
George Springer and Bo Bichette were both down on the ground, hunched over in pain. Bichette curled into a ball and held his hands over his head, while Springer lay flat on his back, motionless. Bichette eventually rose to his feet as the medical cart arrived for Springer.
The collision was an afterthought for both defenders as they raced in opposite directions – Bichette to center and Springer to the infield – to catch a shallow fly ball. As the ball dropped and the bases cleared, Bichette nicked a diving Springer in the neck, knocking both to the ground.
“Reliving it and mapping it out,” said manager John Schneider. “I think the play in the eighth inning that fell in center probably changed the momentum, for sure.”
