Does the Varsho Trade Tilt World Series Odds in Blue Jays' Favour?

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Mark Keast

Last Updated: Dec 26, 2022

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Does the Varsho Trade Tilt World Series Odds in Blue Jays' Favour?

Seemingly out of nowhere, the day before Christmas, the Toronto Blue Jays pulled a monster trade that not only shook up the American League East but also re-shifted World Series futures.

We reached out to Johnny Avello, director of race and sportsbook operations for DraftKings, and a member of the Sports Betting Hall of Fame, for his thoughts on the trade the brought the Jays left-handed hitting outfielder (and part-time catcher) Daulton Varsho from the Arizona Diamondbacks in exchange for outfielder Lourdes Gurriel and blue-chip catching prospect Gabriel Moreno.

“The Blue Jays are already a competitive team and should be in the mix for the World Series,” he says. “The Varsho acquisition gives them a better overall defensive outfield, more speed on the bases and an added lefty stick. We dropped the odds from 15-1 to 13-1 to win it all and from 8-1 to 7-1 to win the AL pennant.”

Reaction to the trade was divided between the emotional – especially in handing over Moreno, a Top 3 prospect in all of Major League Baseball at age 22 according to Baseball America – and people who work in the game – who see Varsho as the best player in the trade, a football player in a baseball uniform who had an Outs Above Average last season of 18, leading the league.

OAA is a range-based metric of skill that shows how many outs a player has saved, led by Catch Probability, taking the distance an outfielder must go, the time he has to get there and the direction he travels to put a percentage on the likelihood he catches the ball.

Part of the issue in Toronto was few people had ever watched Varsho play, factoring in the three-hour time difference with West Coast games. They saw his .235 batting average in 2022. Baseball people love him, however. Varsho had 27 homers, was a Gold Glove finalist last season, and had a 4.9 WAR (tied for 41st among league leaders – Aaron Judge No. 1 at 10.6, pitcher Alek Manoah was tops on the Jays at 5.9).

So Jays general manager Ross Atkins, who made improving the team’s defence his top priority this off-season (while adding left-handed bats), looks to have achieved that (by adding free agent centre fielder Kevin Kiermaier as well), trading Gurriel and earlier Teoscar Hernandez out of town (Hernandez was traded in November to Seattle for a package that included relief pitcher Erik Swanson). George Springer moves to right field, giving the Jays as good a troika defensively as any team in MLB.

It’s important to remember that Christmas just passed. There is still a lot of road to travel this off-season. And the Jays aren’t finished even though Atkins told reporters Friday that the “heavy lifting” on the roster had now been done.

Tinkering will likely include adding another bat, to make up for the power they lost, especially with losing Hernandez (25 homers in 2022, a season where he struggled with injuries).