The Blue Jays made the first of what could be several trades this winter on Saturday, as they moved Aledmys Diaz to the Houston Astros in exchange for Trent Thornton, a RHP starting pitcher.
The move happened for a couple reasons. As we’ve discussed here at Jays Journal, Diaz was expendable because of the plethora of depth the Blue Jays have in their middle infield, a “problem” they definitely didn’t have a year ago. However, the second reason is because Ross Atkins and the Jays front office need to do some work on the 40 man roster, especially in advance of the Rule 5 draft.