The Toronto Blue Jays are playing well and find themselves 10 games over .500 as of this story’s publication. However, they are still trailing the New York Yankees by 11 games in the AL East. While they have the Wild Card to fallback on, Toronto would prefer to win the division. But losing Hyun-Jin Ryu, who underwent season-ending Tommy John surgery on Saturday, will make their division-winning goal all the more challenging.

The Blue Jays may need to add from the outside if they want to catch the Yankees. Without further ado, here are 2 pitchers Toronto must look into acquiring.

Zac Gallen

Acquiring Arizona Diamondbacks’ star pitcher Zac Gallen could prove difficult for a number of reasons. First off, the right-hander is just 26-years old. Teams typically fade the idea of trading young pitching. Secondly, Gallen still has three years of team control left on his contract, per Spotrac. He will receive arbitration barring a contract agreement with Arizona over the course of the next three seasons.

The D’Backs may very well plan to build around him.

On the other hand, Arizona is nowhere close to contending. They play in an extremely difficult NL West division and they are in the midst of a full rebuild. Trading Gallen now would allow them to get the most bang for their buck.

For Toronto, dealing for someone like Gallen would be ideal. Ryu is going to miss the remainder of the 2022 season and will likely miss the majority of 2023 as well. So the Blue Jays could acquire Gallen and slot him into Ryu’s role in the rotation. Toronto’s potential big 3 of Kevin Gausman, Jose Berrios, and Zac Gallen would matchup well with almost any team in the league.