Trade Season in the Past

So there is a list of all the years the Jays had a shot August 1st, or would end up close in the end 1988 being that oddity).  Best player lost was Jeff Kent - 1.3 WAR here, 55.5 overall, Michael Young is 2nd - 0 WAR here, 24.7 lifetime.  The vast, vast majority though never did much.  The best guys gained for the pennant race I'd say were pitchers, Cone (161 ERA+, 4 postseason starts, 22 1/3 IP 8 ER = 3.22 ERA), Candiotti (142 ERA+ to help the Jays make the playoffs, but sucked in the playoffs), Price (179 ERA+, but in 4 playoff games 23 1/3 IP 16 ER = 6.17 ERA).  For longer term also pitchers - Ward was key to the 1992 and 1993 WS wins, as was Guzman.  Quite a few flops there too of course.  But you can see that to get quality you have to give up quality.  Cone cost us Kent, Candiotti cost us Whiten (4 HR in a game) and Hill (very good hitter as well), Price cost us  Boyd (8.2 WAR since leaving us and now a mid-season trade target himself).  The big takeaway is that most prospects traded amount to very little.   I love the Bergen for Ray trade as both have pitched here this year.  I'd say our current GM is a lot like late Gillick who learned to just say 'screw it' and do the trades vs the younger version who was hesitant to do trades for some reason.  Ash did more decent trades than I remembered, but that one ugly one really stands out, plus he never found the right pieces to win.  Both AA and Atkins had no hesitation though to do a lot of tinkering and to pull the trigger on bigger trades - well, no massive ones yet for Atkins but I suspect he would pull the trigger given his volume.  Guess we'll see over the next 11 days.