No easy options for Blue Jays with Aaron Sanchez

11:00 AM ET

This isn’t The Shutdown. (You can Google “Stephen Strasburg” for more details.) This isn’t The Return of the Dark Knight’s MCL. (Terry Collins and Matt Harvey could fill you in on that rocking plot synopsis.)

But in its own way, what we have here is another chapter in the same confusing story. The subject this time is Aaron Sanchez, 24-year-old shooting star for the surging Toronto Blue Jays. Now it’s him and his team facing the same array of impossible questions as his innings mount, his teammates set their sights on October and the trade deadline looms. Uh-oh!

The good news: Sanchez leads the American League in ERA (at 2.72) in his dazzling, breakout season. The bad news: He’s one inning short of his career high, 133.1, set in 2014 during a season spent at Double-A, Triple-A and Toronto.

What happens next is … Uhhh, who the heck knows?

Aaron Sanchez has been mowing ’em down, making it difficult for the Blue Jays to consider shutting him down. Dan Hamilton/USA TODAY Sports

The Blue Jays have talked since spring training about moving him to the bullpen at some point. So they’ve known for months this crossroad was coming. What they didn’t know was that they could be contemplating a move that no team has ever made.

According to the Elias Sports Bureau, no starting pitcher with a sub-3.00 ERA at least 20 starts into a season has ever turned around to make at least 10 appearances out of the bullpen. So no wonder, now that the Blue Jays’ monstrous moment of decision is approaching, we still find ourselves asking:

How will this affect their deadline dealings? How will they juggle the chance to win with their commitment to keeping a great young pitcher healthy? And whatever they do, how will they sell it to their fans, their clubhouse and the rest of their sport — all of whom are watching closely?

“My job is to go out there and start games until I’m told not to,” Sanchez told me earlier this month.

“We’re hoping, as players, that it kind of gets re-evaluated,” the friendly neighborhood MVP, Josh Donaldson, said that same day.

“Nothing has changed,” Blue Jays general manager Ross Atkins said this week. “The whole time, what we’ve been trying to balance is what’s best for the team and what’s best for Aaron, and to weigh that against a lot of alternatives.”

Hmmm. The storylines sound familiar? Now before we sort through all these questions, there’s something you need to keep in mind: Nobody knows the “right” answer.

Medical science doesn’t know. No GM, no manager, no pitching coach, no doctor, no pitcher really knows. And whatever happens — to Aaron Sanchez, to his team, to the front office that will make a call that could change the face of its season –nobody will ever be able to say if it was the right decision or the wrong decision. We’ll all play the what-if game. But we’ll never know.

Got that? Cool. Now let’s tackle the big questions:

How will it affect the deadline?

Too bad it’s not last year. Last year at this time, the Blue Jays solved their rotation problems by making a franchise-changing deal for David Price. So if they could just pluck an ace out of the sky again this July and plug him into Sanchez’s spot in the rotation, boy, would they save themselves a lot of second-guessing. Not to mention first-guessing.

Except there’s no sign they’re on the verge of trading for, say, Chris Sale. So Plan B is to trade for, well, pitching — probably a starter, possibly a reliever. But Atkins is adamant that he can’t let the Sanchez decision weigh too heavily into whatever deals his team makes in the next few days.

Asked if his preference is to acquire a starter, the GM replied: “Our preference is to acquire the best piece that can make our team better. But our preference is also to acquire the best piece at the best price.

“I do think that starting pitching is going to be harder to find,” he went on. “But even if it would be our preference to have that, we’re not going to let Aaron Sanchez factor into that decision.”

Nevertheless, other clubs report that the Blue Jays have been one of the most aggressive teams in hunting for a starter in recent days. They’ve been linked with all sorts of names, ranging from the usual suspects (Rich Hill, Andrew Cashner) to some you’d never see coming (CC Sabathia?). One name to keep an eye on is Philadelphia’s Jeremy Hellickson, who at least could provide reasonably dependable innings, for a return they could probably afford.

What options are on the table?

Life is complicated. Baseball is …

continue reading in source espn.go.com