Time to take a break from politics and discuss the benign….
Recent discussion among Yankee fans debated if Juan Soto signed a long term deal with the team, where he might end up on their list of greatest Yankees ever. Obviously, with an iconic franchise with such a deep pool of hall of farmers and all stars any discussion of the greatest evers can go on for a while.
Instead of going down that rabbit hole, I decided to think of the Blue Jays best evers. Sadly, it didn’t require that much time. In terms of criteria, I decided to first look at position players that had played a minimum of 500 games for at least 2500 at bats as Blue Jays. So while the Jays have had some quite notable hall of farmers either start their careers, Fred McGriff, or play with them later on in their careers, ie. Paul Molitor - they are not eligible.
For offensive reference used https://www.mlb.com/bluejays/stats/all-time-totals
I can’t be bothered to rank them, as everyone will have their own weighting of what offensive stats are most important to them and how much defense should be considered. That said, I don’t believe the Top 7 are much debate, however, it does get tricky after that. Here goes…
Tony Fernandez
Roberto Alomar
Carlos Delgado
Jose Bautista
George Bell
Joe Carter
Vernon Wells
Edwin Encarnación
Vladimir Guerrero Jr.
Lloyd Moseby
Some honourable mentions go to Shawn Green, John Olerud, Jesse Barfield and Teoscar Hernández, who was well on his way to qualifying and pushing for consideration before he was traded for a relief pitcher. Let that one sink in and sting some more. The fact that Vlad is already on the list says something about his talent, but is also sad commentary on the lack of depth for this 48 year old franchise.
Next will look at the pitchers…
The lack of depth is even more noticeable when you start to look at Blue Jays pitching. For this Top 10 list I have grouped both starters and relievers together with one distinction. Starters will have to have pitched over 500 innings and relievers half that amount to qualify.
So no Rogers Clemens, with his 498 and two-thirds does not qualify as being an all-time Blue Jay in this list. It is hard to believe that Rogers Clemens - arguably one of the game's best, was at one - time a Blue Jay. It also speaks to another self-inflicted problem this club has suffered through most of its history. Leading up to and including the World Series seasons, the Blue Jays and their Labatt ownership spent as much as any team in the game. Once InBev purchased Labatt in 1995 everything changed. One of the best run organizations in all of sports was dismantled in the years that followed as the commitment from ownership waned.
Fans and apparently management, never knew what the budget was going to be in any given season. Some seasons the team would go out and charm a mercenary like Clemens to play north of the border (stars come if you pay them) and other seasons we let stars like Delgado or Halladay go. Either because the team wouldn’t pay them individually or spend enough on the talent around them to make them worth keeping or wanting to stay.
One of the complaints Alex Anthopoulos had was knowing his budget beyond the current season. It’s hard to develop a winning strategy if you don’t know if you should operate like Tampa and covet youth and picks or have the money to act like one of the big budget clubs who can pick off top talent from the poor teams.
Even now, the Blue Jays are still guilty of sucking and blowing at the same time when it comes to spending. Entering the high stakes game of competing for top free agent talent is a lot like gambling. Don’t do it, unless you can afford to lose. Not all free agents work out and if you can’t afford to write off a bad contract and reload - then you shouldn’t be swimming in that end of the pool. The Jays apparently went after Ohtani, then didn’t spend the money elsewhere. It will be interesting now if the Jays spend the money they say they were going to on Ohtani and Soto - elsewhere. Will see, but corporate ownership has realized what I have opined before - Good is Good Enough in Toronto.
Getting back to the list of all time pitchers, it is sad that there isn’t that much to pick from. Only one current player - Gausman makes the list. There was a case building for Romano, but like so many others he’s gone before having a sufficient body of work to compare with the best.
Without lamenting further, here is my list…
Dave Stieb
Roy Halladay
Duane Ward
Pat Hentgen
Jim Clancy
Jimmy Key
Tom Henke
Juan Guzman
David Wells
Kevin Gausman
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