The Jays finished off the "road" portion of their 2020 schedule by breaking off their six-game losing streak. In fact, the whole season has been made of road games, but they went 15-19 when playing in some other team's home field. They will finish the regular season playing four with the Yankees and three with the Orioles in their temporary pandemic home south of the border.
Back in mid-summer 2010, when we were all fretting endlessly about young Travis Snider's development, I thought it might be useful to compare young Snider's path to the big leagues with that of some other young Jays hitters of note. Being an extremely simple fellow, I used an extremely simple method. Snider happened to be 22 years and 7 months old at the time - I compared his career numbers to those of ten other Jays hitting prospects when they were the exact same age. I discussed each player's particular development path, at what, remarkably, was not - not - excessive length, and I speculated further on what young Snider needed to do going forward. With what passes for wit around my house, I called the ensuing piece Bringing Up Babies, which is where you'll find the actual discussion of how these youngsters became major leaguers.
Years have passed since I wrote my note, and there were some good times along the way. Those good times, however, came courtesy of a few veteran sluggers, arriving from other organizations and turning into world-beating monsters in Toronto blue. The only interesting young hitter to emerge from the system in those years was Brett Lawrie, and that was a tale that did not end well.
Today's Blue Jays, however, generally have not one, not two, but five young hitters in their lineup most days. Sometimes more. It's true that none of Biggio, Gurriel, or Tellez had appeared in the major leagues at the age in question, but the other two - Bichette and Guerrero - are so young that technically they're still too young to even qualify for the Bringing Up Babies table. Which is pretty cool if you ask me. Granted, young Bo Bichette is so close to the age marker that he might as well be there already (he's only going to play another 7 games before he's there) and for that reason I think we can safely pretend he belongs already..
But Vlad Guerrero is a different case entirely. Young Vlad won't have reached the same age as the rest of this group of young Jays until next season is over. We're looking at how they Jays bring up babies. Vlad isn't even one of the babies yet. He's... an infant?
Player G PA AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI SB CS BB SO BAVG OBP SLG OPS
Lloyd Moseby (May 1982) 358 1407 1284 126 296 64 7 28 142 27 26 84 280 .231 .279 .357 .636
Vlad Guerrero (Oct 2021) 175 725 654 79 172 36 3 22 94 1 1 65 127 .263 .332 .428 .761
Brett Lawrie (Jul 2012) 139 584 533 85 153 27 7 18 63 20 9 38 91 .287 .343 .465 .808
Travis Snider (Aug 2010) 153 556 496 66 124 33 1 19 63 4 3 52 152 .250 .323 .435 .759
Alex Gonzalez (Nov 1995) 126 484 420 58 97 22 5 10 43 7 4 48 131 .231 .310 .379 .689
John Olerud (Feb 1991) 117 429 366 45 98 15 1 14 48 0 2 57 76 .268 .364 .429 .793
Bo Bichette (Oct 2020) 68 308 289 44 89 18 0 16 38 8 4 17 68 .308 .347 .557 .904
Tony Fernandez (Feb 1985) 103 292 267 34 72 6 4 3 21 5 8 19 17 .270 .318 .356 .674
Willie Upshaw (Oct 1979) 95 250 224 26 53 8 2 1 17 4 6 21 35 .237 .298 .304 .602
Jesse Barfield (May 1982) 68 236 215 26 54 8 4 5 28 5 5 17 46 .251 .312 .395 .707
George Bell (May 1982) 60 168 163 19 38 2 1 5 12 3 2 5 27 .233 .256 .350 .606
Carlos Delgado (Feb 1995) 45 161 131 17 28 2 0 9 24 1 1 26 46 .214 .354 .435 .789
Shawn Green (May 1995) 44 127 120 16 26 5 0 5 15 1 2 5 25 .217 .260 .383 .643
Vernon Wells (Jun 2001) 35 125 120 14 31 6 0 2 10 3 1 5 24 .258 .288 .358 .646
Shannon Stewart (Sep 1996) 19 62 55 4 11 1 0 0 3 3 0 6 9 .200 .290 .218 .509
Kelly Gruber (Sep 1984) 15 16 161 1 1 0 0 1 2 0 0 0 5 .063 .063 .250 .313
Fred McGriff (May 1986) 3 5 5 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2 .200 .200 .200 .400
https://www.battersbox.ca/article.php?story=20200920191319444