- This Saturday will be one of the more fun days of the year as the Jays will be on the radio for the first time. I don't care what the weather is like, it'll feel like spring.
- St. Louis had better lock up Pujols soon. Their best pitcher (Adam Wainwright) is already gone for the year with a wonky elbow.
- Pencil Mauer in as the MVP.
Just for a fun change of pace...here’s a look at the list of “all-time” Blue Jays by position as picked by .... ME!!!
So here is the criteria is the criteria to be an all timer for the Jays.
1. Must have been a Jay for a minimum of 4 years.
2. Must have had less than 2 years major league experience before coming to the Jays.
This will exclude some major contributors to Blue Jay lore. Guys like White, Alomar, Carter, Morris, and Clemens wouldn’t be eligible. This is more about home-grown and nearly home-grown talent. I doubt there will be much controversy and I’ll try to stay to the new history for Doris.
Off we go then
Right Handed Pitcher
I figured this would be the toughest call. It wasn’t. Stieb and Halladay both had brilliant careers with the Jays, but Halladay is approaching Hall of Fame consideration at this point. Stieb, being one of the best 2 pitchers of the 80’s was never considered to even be a potential Hall of Famer. There are a couple of ways to look at ‘typical seasons’, one is the 162 game average. This discounts injury time and takes your totals as continuous service. If you were to use this lens to look at the average season throughout Halladay’s career (not forgetting his 1st three years were 8-7, 4-7, 5-3) it would look like this: 17 Wins; 9 Losses; 3.32 ERA; 33 Starts, 6 Complete Games, 2 Shutouts, 235 innings; 175 strikeouts and 50 walks. Easy Call. Roy Halladay
Left Handed Pitcher
With all due respect to David Well’s 8 quality years with the Jays, this one is a landslide. It is Jimmy Key, all day; every day. Just as a reference point, Key had 116 wins over 9 season for the Jays, averaging 12.8 per year. Halladay averaged 12.3 / year while a Jay (wins divided by years, not 162 game avg). Key was dominant AND a lefty in a time when the Jays were unable to find left handed pitching anywhere. His 186 career wins has him ranked 145th all time in career wins and he’s #34 all-time amongst lefties.
Closer
Tom Henke. Again, another no doubter. His 311 career saves have him at #17 all time. He won the “Rolaids Relief Award”, went to two all star games and most importantly – brought stability to a franchise that was an absolute mess in the bullpen.
Catcher
There are some to consider here. You’ve got Buck Martinez and Ernie Whitt. They were sort of both ½ a great catcher each. I don’t think you can go wrong with Pat Borders though. When it comes to making the most out of limited talent, this is your guy. 17 years in The Show and he actually had 200 more games played than hits! There wasn’t a statistical category that stands out,
First Base
30th all time in home runs, top 100 all time in total bases, doubles, RBI, walks, extra base hits, sacrifice flies, hit by pitch, intentional walks, assists, put outs, fielding percentage, winner of the Hank Aaron award and the Roberto Clemente award - Carlos Delgado. This guy should be a legend, instead he’s just another guy screwed by the J.P. Ricciardi propaganda machine. In his last year with the Jays, 2004, he made a whooping 19,700,000.00. Its well documented that JP tried to bully Delgado into a trade which he refused to accept. JP, of course, painted it as Delgado doing a disservice to the organization rather than exercising his collectively bargained right. At the end of the season JP made one contract offer to the Delgado. He admitted to not following up. No phone calls, no emails, no text messages, no nothing. There were vague accusations of Delgado following the money and pricing himself out of the market. The truth, which Delgado has never hidden, is that he wanted to stay in Toronto. Toronto and specifically JP had no interest. The propaganda machine wants you to believe that Delgado signed a lucrative contract to play in Florida. Here is the truth. Carlos signed a 5 year 58 million dollar deal and did not ask for or receive a “no trade” clause. What is really interesting is the first year of the contract paid him 4 million dollars. 4 freaking million for a fringe hall of famer (at the time) in his prime as a power and RBI threat. This gave Florida the flexibility to see if they had a winning team for a year and then dumping the contract to a stupid team (say....The Mets) if their team looked weak; thereby not having to pay the expensive parts. That is creative management.
Second Base
Domaso Garcia, as I’ve said before, was our first star at 2nd base. Tough to strike out, very solid defensively and a great hitter in an era where middle infielders were played to play defence first and hit second. He would only play four years in Toronto but it started a legacy of excellence at the position.
Short Stop
Tony Fernandez. There is not discussion.
Left Field
It’s time to admit two things. George Bell was, and still is, a whack job. And he was the best left fielder we’ve ever had. As an MVP he was the first guy to really make the Jays international. Three silver sluggers, three all star games and through it all, was referred to as a clown in the outfield. While I’m not about to defend George’s exploits (he led the league in errors committed in left field 5 times and finished second in the category once) I will say that there are more to the numbers. George actually hustled in the field. While he was vacant from time to time, his greatest penalty was that he tried for stuff he shouldn’t have and made good situations bad and bad situations worse. However, he was pretty athletic, just not as athletic as HE though. This might come as a bid of surprise, but Bell led the league in assists from left field in ’85, ’86 and 87’ and finished fourth in ’88 and ’91. He wasn’t THAT bad in the field.
Center Field
This comes down to Vernon Wells and Lloyd Moseby. As a Jay, here are the critical stats: Batting average; Moseby 26th, Wells 12th. Home runs; Moseby 6th, Wells 2nd. RBI; Moseby 5th, Wells 2nd. Runs; Moseby 3nd, Wells 2rd. Hits; Moseby 4th, Wells 2nd. Doubles; Moseby 4th, Wells 2nd. Triples; Moseby 2nd, Wells, 10th. Extra base hits; Moseby 4th, Wells 2nd. Stolen bases; Moseby 1st, Wells 10th. Most times grounded into double plays; Moseby 6th, Wells 1st. Wells played one more game as a Jay (1393) than did Moseby. Grudgingly Wells.
Right Field
Jesse Barfield. A lot of people love Jesse Barfield. Not me so much. The only thing that separated Barfield from Rob Deer or Pete Incaviglia was that he could play defence. There were a lot of power hitting outfielders in the 70’s and 80’s who couldn’t hit a lick outside of the long ball. Barfield was one of those; maybe a little better, but not much. He won two Gold Gloves, but should have won more. I think he had to wrestle the first one away from Dwight Evans in Boston. He played in one all star game, won a silver slugger and led right fielders in assists 6 times. He’s 6th all time in career outfield assists.
Designated Hitter
Well I guess it has be Adam Lind even though there isn’t much of a body of work yet.
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