Jays add Revere, Lowe at deadline to end whirlwind week

Toronto dealt 11 young arms in four days as part of team’s biggest mid-season makeover

Alex Anthopoulos could have coasted to the finish line of Friday’s MLB trade deadline and nobody would have minded.

Instead the Blue Jays general manager capped his wild week with two more deadline deals, putting a cherry on top of the most aggressive mid-season push in franchise history.

Mark Lowe and Ben Revere are not marquee superstars like Troy Tulowitzki and David Price, but they are helpful pieces in areas in need of improve- ment.

Lowe, a veteran reliever with a 95-m.p.h. fastball, adds another power arm to the back end of the Jays’ bullpen; while Revere will upgrade the team’s left-field defence and give the lineup a jolt of baserunning speed lost with the departure of Jose Reyes.

Anthopoulos said he didn’t start the week expecting to make such a big splash. “I know it seems like there was a flurry of them and they’re so easy to make, but . . . I had no idea how the week was going to play out.”

The deals for Lowe and Revere — with Seattle and Philadelphia, respectively — cost the Jays another five pitching prospects, bringing to 11 the number of young pitchers the organization has parted with in the last four days. Five of those prospects were widely considered among the organization’s top 10.

Whether the Jays gave up too much in their bid to end the longest postseason drought in professional sports will be debated for years — most hotly in just a couple months if they miss the playoffs — but this week was clearly about taking advantage of the here and now.

“I love the fact that we’re in a position to do some things and be this close,” Anthopoulos said.

Lowe, a 32-year-old pending free agent, is in the midst of a career year. His tidy 1.00 ERA is second-best in the majors, and he has struck out nearly one-third of the batters he has faced.

The move further shores up a bullpen that has improved greatly in the last week with the acquisition of LaTroy Hawkins in the Tulowitzki deal and Aaron Sanchez’s shift back into a relief role. Lowe will likely join Hawkins in a setup role to bridge to the combination closer duo of Sanchez and rookie right-hander Roberto Osuna.

In the 27-year-old Revere, the Jays added a contact-hitting speedster and left-handed bat to their heavily right-handed lineup. Revere, whose 24 stolen bases rank fifth in the majors, will likely platoon in left field with Danny Valencia.

“He’s someone that brings an element to our lineup that we don’t have,” Anthopoulos said Friday, referring to Revere’s speed. “Just having that pest . . . who can put pressure on the defence, steal a base when everybody in the park knows he’s going, it’s just a completely new element for our offence.”

Revere won’t become a free agent until 2018, but Anthopoulos said Michael Saunders — who has missed almost the entire season with a knee injury — is “still the long-term guy for us” in left field.

Anthopoulos admitted Friday he has been “holed up” all week and hasn’t paid much attention to the growing excitement around the club.

“It’s been a lot of late nights,” he said.

“It’s been a whirlwind in a lot of ways.”