MLB Trade Rumors: Toronto Blue Jays acquire Jose Berrios from Twins

The Toronto Blue Jays have been one of the undersung success stories during the 2021 season. Despite having to play home games in a minor league stadium and being removed from a chunk of their fan base while in a very tough division, they still find themselves with a winning record and have one of the more exciting young offenses in the league spearheaded by Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Bo Bichette.

Now, they are only a few games out of the AL wild card race, but trades at the deadline don’t have to ONLY impact this season. In fact, as they just demonstrated, some deals can be for players with some team control and not just rentals.

Jose Berrios has been often mentioned as a trade candidate as the Twins were surprisingly bad this year and seem like a team that needs to regroup to find a path forward. He is an exciting young pitcher to be sure, but he only has one year left on his contract and it seems as though the Twins decided that the return would be better if they cashed in on him now especially since the prospects for 2022 don’t look particularly promising either. It is hard to argue with that given how good the return was.

For the Blue Jays, they hope to make a run this year and next and that fits in nicely with how long they should have Berrios in the fold. The cost was real as they had to give up Austin Martin, who was a top five pick in the 2020 draft, and Simeon Woods-Richardson who is a highly regarded pitching prospect in his own right.