The Chicago Cubs take full advantage of the Toronto Blue Jays in most recent trade

The Cubs trade Cody Bellinger and $5 million in cash to the Yankees in exchange for right handed reliever Cody Poteet which can pretty much be seen as a salary dump.

MLB insider Jon Heyman stated that apparently the Cubs used the Blue Jays interest in Cody Bellinger to leverage a better offer from the Yankees as they only had to send New York $5 million in cash to help with the $52.5 million he is owed over the next 2 years.

This is unfortunately not the first time that the Blue Jays interest in a player is used against them as just a couple weeks ago Juan Soto used their offer for them as a way to raise his final price with the New York Mets.

Last season, Shohei Ohtani did the same when the Blue Jays showed a ton of interest in him but he used their offer to make the Los Angeles Dodgers raise theirs to over $700 million.

Clearly Ross Atkins has been getting used quite a bit over the last two season as team's are using his interests to drive up the price for certain players while the Blue Jays always seem to end up with nothing.

This is another unfortunate situation with Bellinger since the Blue Jays could have benefitted from adding an outfielder that can hit the ball in their lineup but it looks all they did was help the Cubs drive up their asking price.

Atkins needs to find a way to be a serious contender when it comes to landing these players instead of just being a stepping stone.

On the other hand, the Blue Jays need to start making moves as as each day goes by, more and more top end players are signing elsewhere.