The only real question left is how deep the purge will be. Here are the options: trade them all, trade just the pending free agents and any controlled underperformer, or trade the pending free agents that you don’t have interest in resigning, plus the underperformers. or any of the other players under control beyond this season.
Let’s make this real. If the Blue Jays were going to totally rebuild and tear things apart, then they would be open to trading every veteran player. It would start with the pending free agents . Usually, a club can tell a player that they are trading him but that they have strong interest in bringing him back. Players usually understand that a club can get prospects if they trade them and then play with those prospects, if they re-sign with the team in the off-season. It appears that this will be a sellers’ market. There will be a lot more demand for players than supply available.