Berrios to the Jays, per reports

MLB Trade Rumors: The Toronto Blue Jays are acquiring Jose Berrios from the Minnesota Twins, per reports.

Berrios, a righthanded pitcher who is eligible for free agency after the 2022 season, has a 3.48 ERA and a 3.57 FIP in 121 innings over 20 starts for the Twins this year. He’s generally viewed as a solid mid-rotation starter, and the Twins’ asking price for him was reportedly fairly high, but Toronto, it appears, was willing to make a deal Minnesota would accept. Multiple reports are indicating it is Simeon Woods-Richardson and Austin Martin going to Minnesota.

The general consensus has been that the dominos to fall on the starting pitching market would be Max Scherzer, then Jose Berrios, then Kyle Gibson. The Scherzer domino fell last night, with the Nationals agreeing to send him to the Dodgers. Berrios is now, it appears, off the board.

Which leaves Kyle Gibson. Evan Grant says the Rays and Rangers have discussed a Kyle Gibson/Ian Kennedy package, which would make sense for both teams, especially since the Rays have a deep system chock full of the types of players the Rangers target.

I joked last night on Twitter that the Rangers would send Kyle Gibson and Ian Kennedy to Seattle for Kaden Polcovich and Austin Shelton, two guys who, as I noted in the tweets, scream “Rangers trade target”. Then an hour later the Rays acquired Shelton. So maybe Texas can still get Shelton in a Gibson/Kennedy trade.