Blue Jays Rumors: 3 players who won’t be on the roster by the trade deadline

Blue Jays who won’t survive the deadline: Alek Manoah

Toronto won’t get much for Alek Manoah if they trade him right now, but he’s been a downright disaster in 2023. Manoah isn’t arbitration-eligible until 2025, which makes his contract attractive to certain teams which believe they can fix him.

The Athletic’s Jim Bowden thinks a Manoah deal could be in the cards if Toronto gets the right offer: “The Blue Jays are focused on fixing the demoted Manoah, not trading him, but that doesn’t stop teams from targeting the 25-year-old. He’s not arbitration-eligible until 2025.”

Manoah, who is just one year removed from an AL All-Star appearance, 16 wins and a 2.24 ERA, has tripled that mark this season. In his last start against the Houston Astros, he recorded just one out, giving up seven hits and six earned runs.

Former Blue Jays pitcher Ricky Romero, who followed a similar trajectory to Manoah before he mysteriously bottomed out, has sympathy for the current Toronto ace:

"“I felt like I was letting them down if I went on the shelf, too. As time has gone on and the more I think about it, it probably wasn’t one of the smartest things to do. I should have probably taken a little bit more caution with it, and I didn’t. It’s not like the team was battling for a playoff spot or anything like that, so I should have been smarter. A little bit of stubbornness and knowing how mentally tough I was, and I am, I wanted to just fight through the season,” Romero said, per Jays Journal."

It’s early, but Manoah has shown some improvement during his developmental stint. The Jays, though, could be better off shipping him away now for whatever value he does have, rather than waiting to find out if he’s really made the necessary improvements to return to his 2022 form.