The Toronto Blue Jays just made one of the most bizarre kinds of trades a sub-.500 team can make. They are betting on a guy they already gave up on.
Toronto acquired right-hander Simeon Woods Richardson from the Minnesota Twins on Wednesday, per Mitch Bannon of The Athletic. The Blue Jays are sending only cash considerations in return. That tells you everything you need to know about where Woods Richardson is in his career right now.
Here is the strange part. Woods Richardson, 25, was already a member of the Blue Jays organization from 2019 through 2021. Toronto originally got him from the New York Mets as part of the Marcus Stroman trade. Then they shipped him to Minnesota in 2021 as part of the Jose Berrios deal. Now he is coming back to the team that already decided once they did not want him.
What changed? On paper, not much. Woods Richardson was a consensus top-100 prospect when he was drafted in the second round by the Mets in 2018 (No. 48 overall). He never broke through as a true rotation starter in Minnesota, but he had his best season in 2025, going 7-4 with a 4.04 ERA and 107 strikeouts over 22 starts. That is back-end starter production, which is a fine outcome for a former top prospect even if it was not what scouts originally projected.
This year fell apart. Across 10 starts for the Twins, Woods Richardson posted seven losses (a Major League high), a 7.74 ERA, and a 1.89 WHIP. The wheels did not just fall off. The whole car flipped over. Minnesota designated him for assignment earlier this week, which is how Toronto got him for essentially nothing.
So why bring him back? The Blue Jays season is going sideways. They are below .500 in a tough AL East. Vladimir Guerrero Jr. has dealt with injuries. Dylan Cease is also banged up. The rotation has been a mess. When you are out of the playoff race in June, you have nothing to lose by giving a former top-100 prospect a low-risk reset in the place where his career started.
This is the kind of move that does not show up in the standings but can pay off in 2027. If Woods Richardson finds something in Toronto, he becomes a cheap controllable arm for next year’s rotation. If he does not, the Blue Jays paid a few hundred thousand dollars in cash considerations for the experiment and move on with no real loss.
The Blue Jays pitching coach situation is going to be important here. Pete Walker has a reputation around the league as one of the better diagnosticians for guys whose mechanics have fallen apart. Woods Richardson’s spike from a 4.04 ERA to a 7.74 ERA almost certainly involves something biomechanical, not just bad luck. If Walker can find the fix, this is a win.
There is also the familiarity angle. Woods Richardson came up in the Blue Jays organization. He knows the staff, knows the facilities, and knows what success looked like for him when he was younger. That comfort factor can matter for a guy who is clearly trying to find his footing again.
The downside is real. If he cannot fix his command issues, this is a body for a Triple-A roster and nothing more. The Blue Jays have minor league depth, but they are also one of those teams that has watched too many former prospects flame out over the last three years. They need a few of these bets to pay off if they want to be competitive again in 2027.
Cheap, low-risk, former top prospect with rotation upside. That is the entire pitch for this trade. Sometimes those bets actually hit.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
