Before anything else, a ball club needs talent. At a certain point, the distribution of that talent becomes an issue. Had the Minnesota Twins, for instance, swapped out some of their decent starters and outfielders for some quality middle infielders at any point this decade, they may well have won a World Series. Then you have the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, who have more topnotch offensive prospects than they know what to do with, but very little pitching. If they ever figure out a way to solve that, they’ll be a force.

Some very smart people run the Toronto Blue Jays, but after their most recent trade, you have to wonder if they haven’t outthought themselves. Entering the off-season with a plan to expand the payroll from $45 million to about $80 million, they wanted a top-of-the-rotation starter to slot behind ace Roy Halladay, a top closer, and more offense. The huge contracts they forked over to starter A.J. Burnett and closer B.J. Ryan took care of the first two items on the agenda; trades for first baseman Lyle Overbay and third baseman Troy Glaus took care of the latter. Still, in all, the Blue Jays are an odd team right now, with plenty of talent that doesn’t quite fit together.

Last year, the Blue Jays finished 80-82; based on the number of runs they scored and allowed, they should have finished 88-74, and that’s with Halladay, who through the end of June was easily the best pitcher in the league, missing almost half the season after being struck by a comebacker. The team couldn’t hit a lick – Shea Hillenbrand, whose .291 BA/.343 OBA/.449 SLG line was hardly overwhelming, was the team’s fiercest offensive threat. But the pitching was very good, and the defense, anchored by Gold Glove second baseman Orlando Hudson and center fielders Vernon Wells and Alexis Rios (who played right), was excellent.

The main obstacle to fixing the offense was that the team had too many of a particular kind of player. Hillen brand, left fielder Frank Catalanotto, and third basemen Eric Hinske and Corey Koskie are all reliable, but essentially mediocre hitters – the sort you can count on to post on-base averages between .340 and .360 and slugging averages around .450. Much of Hinske’s and Hillenbrand’s value is tied up in their ability to play third base passably; Koskie is the worst hitter in the lot, but a good third baseman.

Add in shortstops Russ Adams (an absolute butcher in the field who hasn’t hit well in his first two seasons but is likely to hit as well as these other players this year) and Aaron Hill (an inferior hitter with a better glove) and you have a lot of players who aren’t outstanding on either side of the ball, but who offer total packages that make them worth starting. These are the types of players who start for teams like Pittsburgh; Toronto has higher ambitions than that.

So the decision to ship out Hudson and pitcher Miguel Batista (a valuable swingman who’s good for 30 starts, 10 relief appearances, and 200 league-average innings a season at the low price of $5 million a year) for Glaus and Sergio Santos (a B-grade shortstop prospect who looks like he might grow up to be Adams or Hill) makes little if any sense. The Jays already have three – three! – third basemen and a first baseman, all of whom have to play somewhere.

Glaus, meanwhile, is a wretched third baseman, probably best suited for the designated hitter role at this point, and a good but not game-breaking hitter whose good batting eye and excellent power are offset by low batting averages. (He’s a career .253 hitter.) Reports have the Jays ready to play him at third as part of the payoff they made to get him to waive his no-trade clause in Arizona and okay the deal.

The problem here is not just that the Jays have added to their logjam, but that they vastly weakened their middle infield, which had been a point of strength (and now is not) to do it. Hudson is a league-average hitter and a truly superb defender. The difference between him and Adams, who will slide over to second, may well be something like 30 runs over the course of a season – and it’s no sure bet that Adams will even hit as well as Hudson.

In the best case, Glaus’s power and walks will make the deal a wash; in the more likely scenario, the Jays will hit better than they did last year, but just enough to make up what for they lost on the other side of the ball with the departure of Hudson and the substitution of Glaus for last year’s defensively effective Koskie/Hillenbrand combination.

The kicker here is that, of all things, the Jays are relying on a staff headed by Halladay and Burnett, two of the more extreme groundballers in baseball. It’s an odd fit all around. Toronto’s made a lot of noise, but it’s unclear right now that they’re even any better than they were three months ago.

tmarchman@nysun.com