Opinion | Deep thoughts on the Blue Jays and the MLB trade deadline

With Tuesday’s 6 p.m. trade deadline rapidly approaching, the talk around the Blue Jays has been centred on fortifying their bullpen, and with good reason.

Even though Saturday’s 5-3 win over the Tigers maintained the Jays’ hold on the top wild-card spot and the third-best record in the American League, the relief corps hasn’t been a bright spot.

Despite a very strong last couple of weeks, the Jays’ 3.91 ERA among relievers is dead middle of the pack in the major leagues, and they sit 25th out of the 30 teams with 52 home runs allowed as a group.

While there are few, if any, game changers available on the relief market, another question has crept up recently.

Centre-fielder George Springer aggravated his sore right elbow on Thursday, and it appears the injury is something he’s going to have to manage for a while. Right-hander Alek Manoah was hit on the elbow by a comebacker Friday and, while X-rays were negative, he’s not a sure thing to make his next start. Saturday, disaster was narrowly averted when a 97-m.p.h. fastball by Derek Law hit Vladimir Guerrero Jr. on the protective guard covering his left hand and not a few inches lower on the wrist.

As we head into the stretch run, with not much time left to add reinforcements, it’s fair to paraphrase the Bee Gees and ask: Just how deep is the Jays’ depth?

“We like our roster,” interim manager John Schneider said after Saturday’s victory pushed the Jays to 56-45 on the season, “and I think that when you’re functioning properly you’re utilizing everybody.

“Right now we feel good, and we feel good collectively as a whole with whatever additions that may come in any shape. But you can’t say enough about Tap(ia), Bigg(io), whoever it may be. I think everyone right now is doing what we expected of them.”

Raimel Tapia and Cavan Biggio, of course, are the Jays’ depth: two players who aren’t necessarily in the starting lineup when everyone is healthy and Alejandro Kirk is DHing, but could be regulars on most other teams in the big leagues.

Tapia is a solid corner outfielder who plays a passable centre field, while Biggio can play just about anywhere.

“Tapia is approaching, like, a .290 batting average (.284 after going 0-for-3),” Saturday starter Ross Stripling said after watching the Jays come from behind to win. “Cavan, I feel like, has probably close to a .900 OPS since he’s been back from COVID early in the year (he did for a while, but now it’s down to .784).

“They’re two really good lefties that you can bring up. (Bradley) Zimmer, obviously we’ve seen him plug into centre field and just make amazing play after amazing play, so you feel good about our depth, for sure.”

Do you feel a “but” coming? I feel a “but” coming.

“But,” added Stripling, “you can always have more depth. You can always have more pitching. You can always have a power bat off the bench that you can use at a good time for a matchup.

“We feel really good about the team that we have and the depth that we have and competing with anyone around the league, but you can always get better and you can always have more depth.”

The righty knows of what he speaks. This is Stripling’s seventh year in the big leagues and he has never been on a team that has played even one regular-season game after being eliminated from the playoffs. He spent his first 4 1/2 seasons with the Los Angeles Dodgers, winning the division every one of those years and going to the World Series twice.

Those Dodgers had the deepest depth of pretty much any big-league team ever.

“We’d break spring training with, like, 10 (starting pitchers) sometimes,” said Stripling. “That’s how I ended up with the back and forth (from the rotation to the bullpen) a lot. One year I was looking at … (Brandon) McCarthy, (Scott) Kazmir, (Clayton) Kershaw — you know, one after the other — and it’s just like, ‘What am I doing here?’ So, you can always have more pitching because come the dog days of summer it gets tested, and we’re getting to that point for sure.”

Saturday afternoon, the Tampa Bay Rays — two games behind the Jays in the wild-card standings — picked up outfielder David Peralta from the Arizona Diamondbacks to help cover for injuries to Wander Franco and Harold Ramirez. The Phillies added infield depth in Edmundo Sosa from the Cardinals, and the Dodgers bolstered an already deep bullpen by picking up Chris Martin from the Cubs.

Moves that don’t plug players into starting roles, but help a lot in the “just in case” department.

Given the recent close calls by Guerrero, Manoah and Springer, the Jays would do well to make a couple of similar moves themselves.

Mike Wilner is a Toronto-based baseball columnist for the Star and host of the baseball podcast “Deep Left Field.” Follow him on Twitter: @wilnerness

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