Career Jays vs Began as a Jay vs Finished as a Jay

Saturday, June 14 2008 @ 12:08 AM EDT

The Jays have now been around for 31 years. In those 31 years they have had players who started here, ended here, and even a few who were here for their entire big league careers. Now, a good question (at least in my mind) is which of those 3 groups is the strongest? Those who began their careers here, those who ended here, or those who were Jay lifers?

I only care about how they did as a Jay so, sorry, Phil Neikro is not a Jay all-star (0-2 8.25 ERA) and actually doesn't qualify as he finished in Atlanta. As to guys who started and finished here there are just 7 of them who didn't spent their whole career here - Tony Fernandez, Greg Myers, and Rob Butler on the hitting side, Stieb, Hentgen, Linton, and Kenny Robinson on the pitching side - these guys qualify for both started in and ended in Toronto but I'm only listing them for started in. Full career guys (like Garth Iorg) only count for the 'full career' team, not the started or ended.

To start I pulled data from Baseball-Reference.com (so don't blame me if someone is listed as ending here when they actually had a cup of coffee elsewhere at the end). From there I found the following raw stats...

Started in Toronto: 69 hitters,
Ended in Toronto: 80 hitters,
Full Career in Toronto: 30 hitters, 36 pitchers (21 hitters, 26 pitchers who are retired)

Not too many Toronto 'lifers' eh? Lets start by looking at that crew. Most here will be familiar with the bulk of this team as it is dominated by current players. If I disqualified them we'd have just 4 guys who played 40+ games here.

For the stats I'm using simple stuff. Games played - Avg/OBP/Slg-OPS+. A fun thing like this doesn't require EqA or WaRP or ...

Toronto Lifetime

Pos	Name	Games	Avg	OBP	Slg	OPS+
CA	Curtis Thigpen	51	234	293	280	53
1B	Domingo Martinez	15	409	435	682	198
2B	Aaron Hill	475	284	339	409	96
3B	Garth Iorg	931	258	292	347	72
SS	Russ Adams	278	248	314	376	80
LF	Ron Shepherd	115	167	204	278	28
CF	Vernon Wells	1012	282	331	478	108
RF	Alexis Rios	612	286	338	445	103
DH	Adam Lind	113	249	292	415	84
UT	Danny Ainge	211	220	264	269	47
UT	Joe Lawrence	55	180	262	247	35

To think Shepherd complained about not being able to break into the Bell/Moseby/Barfield outfield. Iorg was platooning at third as part of the legendary Gance Mullinorg team. First base was a desperation slot as few players who played at first base actually spent their entire careers here. Always felt Domingo deserved more of a shot but first McGriff then Olerud was at first and Olerud/Winfield/Molitor were the DH's while he was here and near the majors. Hopefully he went to Japan and had some good paydays.

For pitchers I go with IP/ERA/ERA+/W-L-Sv (again, very basic but enough for these purposes)

Pos	Name	IP	ERA	ERA+	W	L	Sv
SP	Roy Halladay	1664	3.60	129	119	60	1
SP	Luis Leal	946	4.14	103	51	58	1
SP	Shaun Marcum	338	3.78	116	20	13	1
SP	Gustavo Chacin	332	4.18	108	25	15	0
SP	Jerry Garvin	606	4.43	94	20	41	8
SP	Jesse Litsch	187	3.65	119	14	11	0
RP	Jason Frasor	271	3.96	115	12	19	21
RP	Bob File	111	4.20	111	6	4	0
RP	Brian Bowles	31	3.23	144	2	1	0
RP	Casey Janssen	167	3.89	116	8	13	6
RP	Mike Willis	296	4.59	89	7	21	15
RP	Brandon League	97	4.44	102	3	3	1
RP	Corey Thurman	83	4.75	98	3	4	0

Starters are nice, although dominated by 2007 guys. I put Litsch in there despite his low innings as a #6 guy, but with any luck he'll be a key member of this team by the end of the season. Hopefully the next group is better.


Finished in Toronto (sorry, 07/08 guys do not qualify here)...

Pos	Name	Games	Avg	OBP	Slg	OPS+
CA	Darrin Fletcher	540	276	318	434	91
1B	Cliff Johnson	400	273	372	466	125
2B	Frank Menechino	141	268	381	443	114
3B	Rance Mulliniks	1115	280	365	424	114
SS	Alfredo Griffin	982	249	280	327	64
LF	Juan Samuel	157	252	328	447	98
CF	Mookie Wilson	287	267	297	357	81
RF	Mike Huff	152	267	358	390	94
DH	Jeff Burroughs	86	257	366	429	114
CA	Buck Martinez	454	222	297	378	81
UT	Doug Rader	96	240	323	435	104
UT	Mike Bordick	102	274	340	382	88
UT	Dave Berg	228	263	307	372	76

Pos	Name	IP	ERA	ERA+	W	L	Sv
SP	Pete Walker	309	4.32	106	19	14	4
SP	Joe Johnson	155	4.42	99	10	7	0
SP	Jackson Todd	215	4.27	97	7	10	0
SP	Don Kirkwood	68	4.24	93	4	5	0
SP	Mark Bomback	150	4.74	88	6	10	0
RP	Duane Ward	651	3.18	127	32	36	121
RP	Randy Moffitt	57	3.77	115	6	2	10
RP	Tom Buskey	159	3.86	111	9	12	7
RP	Jason Kershner	82	3.86	123	3	4	1
RP	Danny Cox	147	4.21	107	9	10	5
RP	John Frascatore	126	4.42	112	10	5	1
RP	Ron Musselman	74	3.79	112	3	2	1

No idea why some of these guys never got another chance in the majors. Just bad luck or something in some cases, injuries in others. Did you know Frank Viola finished here? Or for ugly how about JJ Cannon who had a lifetime OPS+ of 6 (!) over 192 AB's as a Jay (-51 in his last season over 50 AB's).

So the ended in Toronto crew has a nice bullpen, 1/2 decent starters, some depth in the infield but probably a 75 win team at best.


And finally...
Started it all here but didn't end it all here...

Pos	Name	Games	Avg	OBP	Slg	OPS+	Note
CA	Greg Myers	375	258	314	400	91	Came back to end it here
1B	Fred McGriff	578	278	389	530	154
2B	Orlando Hudson	462	270	328	418	93
3B	Kelly Gruber	921	259	307	431	102
SS	Tony Fernandez	1450	297	353	412	106	Came back to end it here
LF	George Bell	1181	286	325	486	119
CF	Lloyd Moseby	1392	257	333	415	103
RF	Jesse Barfield	1032	265	334	483	118
DH	Carlos Delgado	1423	282	392	556	142
CA	Pat Borders	747	256	290	388	83
OF	Shannon Stewart	907	298	365	440	108	Currently here
OF	Shawn Green	716	286	344	505	116
UT	Manuel Lee	753	254	304	323	74
UT	Alex Gonzalez	890	245	304	386	77

Pos	Name	IP	ERA	ERA+	W	L	Sv	Note
SP	Dave Stieb	2873	3.42	123	175	134	3	Came back to end it here
SP	Jimmy Key	1696	3.42	121	116	81	10
SP	Juan Guzman	1216	4.07	111	76	62	0
SP	Pat Hentgen	1636	4.28	110	107	85	0	Came back to end it here
SP	David Wells	1149	4.06	110	84	55	13
RP	Billy Koch	212	3.57	137	11	13	100	Ended in spring here
RP	Mark Eichhorn	493	3.03	142	29	19	15
RP	Tony Castillo	296	3.49	133	13	13	16
RP	Victor Cruz	47	1.71	230	7	3	9
RP	Mike Timlin	393	3.62	124	23	22	52
RP	Paul Spoljaric	150	4.31	112	4	8	4

Nice offense eh? John Olerud with a 130 OPS+ is no better than #3 for 1B/DH. The pitching isn't half bad either with all starters and relievers at 110+ for lifetime ERA+ as a Jay. This is a team that should win over 100 games. The Jays have either developed or acquired before reaching the majors a lot of top talent over the past 30 years, while letting it leave before it expired. Gillick did that with the outfield of the 80's, Fernandez, Gruber, etc. while JP continued with Delgado, Gonzo, Koch. Ash was more sentimental which might explain why his teams didn't do as well.


Pretty clear that the 'Started Here' crew is the best, while the Jays have rarely kept players for their entire careers - no Cal Ripken, Ted Williams, or Mickey Mantle here. Someday I'll have to dig into career players for other teams to see if anyone has a really good one based on 1977 on.

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