MLB trade rumors: Blue Jays to acquire Corey Dickerson in four-player deal with Marlins

The trade deadline is almost exactly one month away and the Toronto Blue Jays aren’t waiting around to improve their roster for the stretch drive. On Tuesday, the Blue Jays acquired outfielder Corey Dickerson and righty reliever Adam Cimber from the Miami Marlins for infielder Joe Panik and a pitching prospect, report the Miami Herald’s Craig Mish and MLB Network’s Jon Heyman.

Neither the Blue Jays nor the Marlins have announced the trade.

Dickerson, 32, is currently on the injured list with a foot contusion that seems more serious than a regular old contusion. Last week manager Don Mattingly told reporters, including Mish, that Dickerson will be in a walking boot for three weeks, then will be reevaluated. Best-case scenario is he’s back two weeks from now, though he could be out much longer.

In 62 games around injuries this year Dickerson owns a .260/.321/.377 batting line with two home runs. He has been a much better hitter throughout his career though, authoring a .292/.329/.484 batting line from 2018-20, including .300/.339/.503 against righties those seasons. No team has received fewer plate appearances from left-handed hitters this season than Toronto:

Once healthy, the lefty swinging Dickerson will give the Blue Jays a little more lineup balance, and another option in left field and at DH, where Lourdes Gurriel Jr. and Rowdy Tellez have underwhelmed. Toronto is the second highest scoring team in baseball (5.09 runs per game) and they really need some pitching, though there’s nothing wrong with adding to a strength.

Cimber, 30, owns a 2.88 ERA and is one of the better exit velocity suppressors in baseball. The Blue Jays bullpen has really struggled the last few weeks and the submarining Cimber should see plenty of matchup situations against top AL East righty bats like Xander Bogaerts, Aaron Judge, JD Martinez, and Giancarlo Stanton the rest of the season.

The 30-year-old Panik has settled into a light-hitting utility infielder’s role the last few years and was included in the trade as a salary offset as much as anything. He’s owed the remainder of his $1.85 million salary this year while Dickerson is owed the remainder of his $8.5 million salary. Including Panik in the trade softens the financial blow for the Blue Jays.

Kaitlyn McGrath of The Athletic reports the pitching prospect going to the Marlins is righty Andrew McInvale. The 24-year-old was a 37th-round pick in 2019, and owns a 2.55 ERA with 34 strikeouts in 24 2/3 relief innings split between High Class-A and Double-A this season. McInvale does not rank among Toronto’s top prospects, so the trade is mostly about clearing Dickerson’s salary.

The identity of the pitching prospect is currently unknown and would seem to be the key to the trade for the Marlins. They unloaded a good chunk of Dickerson’s salary, though Panik has no real long-term value to the organization, so the pitching prospect is the real get. Given the money and Dickerson’s injury, it’s unlikely to be a top pitching prospect.

At 33-44, the Marlins are in last place in the NL East, and they’ve lost 19 of their last 28 games. The Dickerson trade figures to be the first of several “sellers” deals at the deadline, with first baseman Jesús Aguilar and especially rental center fielder Starling Marte standing out as trade candidates. Righties Sandy Alcantara and Pablo López seem less likely to move.

The Blue Jays are in third place in the AL East and five games behind the second wild card spot at 40-36. They have the game’s seventh-best run differential (plus-65), however, and the main reason they’ve unperformed is their bullpen. Cimber will help there, though chances are Toronto has more moves coming prior to the July 30 deadline.