Jeff Hoffman has been the best performer of any player the Blue Jays traded away this summer.

Since landing in Minnesota, he's made 13 appearances with a 3.00 ERA, six holds, 17 strikeouts, and seven walks over 12 innings.

Unlike Kevin Gausman and Daulton Varsho, Hoffman still has a year of control remaining on his contract in 2027, adding real long-term value to how this trade gets judged.

His talent was never really in question. What made him a change-of-scenery candidate was some genuinely bizarre bad luck in Toronto.

His strikeout-minus-walk rate ranked top-10 among qualified relievers, while his .376 BABIP led all of baseball, an almost impossibly unlucky number for a pitcher with his underlying stuff.

That gap between results and process is exactly the kind of thing a change of scenery can fix.

Why the numbers back up a genuine turnaround

In Minnesota, his BABIP has dropped to .321, still high but far more normal, and he hasn't allowed a single fly ball to leave the yard since the trade.

That's happened despite striking out fewer batters and walking more than he did with Toronto, a strange split that suggests the earlier bad luck was real, not just a symptom of declining stuff.

He's settled into a steady setup role behind Twins closer Yoendrys Gomez, exactly the kind of trusted late-inning job Toronto never quite found for him.

There have been a couple of hiccups, small blow-ups that let the Brewers and Padres tie games against Minnesota.

Otherwise, it's been a smooth transition for a pitcher who looked snakebitten in Toronto no matter how well he actually pitched.

For a Blue Jays front office grading its deadline moves, Hoffman's early returns in Minnesota are the clearest example yet of a trade that gave up more value than it originally appeared to.