As the Blue Jays looked to bolster their roster for a postseason push, Toronto made multiple trades with the Cardinals to add depth to their bullpen. They also swung a trade to bolster their infield depth, acquiring Paul DeJong in exchange for a prospect, Matt Svanson, who is not currently ranked on MLB Pipeline’s updated rankings of the team’s top 30 prospects.
Regardless of where Svanson is ranked in the system, a Saturday roster move by the Blue Jays indicates that the Cardinals have already won the trade. The Blue Jays announced that they reinstated All-Star shortstop Bo Bichette from the injured list and designated DeJong for assignment.
ROSTER MOVES:
🔹 SS Bo Bichette reinstated from 10-day IL and will be active tonight
🔹 INF Paul DeJong designated for assignment pic.twitter.com/2ixGjbGyPS
— Toronto Blue Jays (@BlueJays) August 19, 2023
And while that move may come as a surprise, DeJong’s short tenure in Toronto has been nothing short of miserable. A quick look at his baseball-reference page shows that the Blue Jays were waiting for his bat to come around, and albeit with a small sample size, it never did.
In 44 plate appearances (13) games, DeJong is slashing .068/.068/.068 with just three hits. He owns a .136 OPS and has a negative OPS+. Those numbers are impossibly bad. It’s not like he was lighting up the place in St. Louis, where he owned a .233/.297.412 slash line in 81 games, but it’s a far cry from his first-half numbers, in which he produced 13 home runs, 33 RBIs and an OPS of .710.
Whether a team takes a gamble or DeJong or he ends back up in St. Louis remains to be seen, but we can consider this a loss for the Blue Jays without having to worry about prematurely grading deadline deals. DeJong has been unable to return to his 2019 All-Star form, but perhaps he still has something left in the tank, though he didn’t show that north of the border.
