Jays not in fire-sale mode

The Blue Jays have millions of reasons for not wanting to have a fire sale — namely put Josh Donaldson on the market.

Those millions are people, not dollars. They are second in the AL in average attendance — barely trailing the Yankees. Their playoff appearances in 2015-16 — after not making the postseason since 1993 — energized a baseball passion again in Toronto. And Blue Jays officials are loathe to lose that momentum.

So their plan is to try to trade walk-year players Marco Estrada, Francisco Liriano, Joe Smith and Jose Bautista, but keep their core together and go for it in 2018 as so to not disenchant their fan base. The internal management thinking is that if they deal Donaldson now, they might as well also unload Marcus Stroman, Aaron Sanchez and Roberto Osuna and go into a total rebuild.

Instead, they want to believe they are a good team that has had a bad year and can go for it again next year. What hurts that is how little they can expect in return for their walk-year players.

Estrada is 4-7 with a 5.52 ERA (10.38 in three July starts) and Liriano is 6-5 with a 5.99 ERA.

Smith only came off the DL this week (shoulder inflammation) and the trade market is saturated with righty relievers. Bautista, 36, is in the midst of his worst season as a Blue Jay, hitting just .220 with a .723 OPS and he was .169/.597 in July. Yet, owing to Bautista’s reputation, Toronto had received some feelers on him, plus he almost certainly would get through waivers and be in play as an August trade candidate as well.

Earlier this season, when they were plotting strategy if they were to become sellers, Rays officials figured Alex Cobb would be their most obvious trade chip, since they were flush with starters and the righty was in his walk year, meaning the last time Tampa Bay could turn him into future assets.

But Cobb won again Wednesday, delivering seven innings of one-run ball against the Orioles. In his last nine starts, Cobb has gone 5-1 with a 2.24 ERA, a .195 batting average against and a .573 OPS against. Rather than a trade chip, Cobb has helped turn the contending Rays into deadline buyers while also enhancing his free-agent stock.