Fourth Outfielders We Have Known

It can often be somewhat difficult to decide should be designated the "fourth outfielder." I don't think it's necessarily the man who plays the fourth most games in the outfield. Often it is, and often it's a simple enough matter. But sometimes a regular gets injured, and the fourth man gets into more games. Sometimes a regular is traded halfway through the season (or acquired halfway through) and doesn't get into as many games as the guy who backs up all three positions. As best as I can figure, here's who has had this particular job over the years. Many of these players had other roles on the team, besides this one, so I would always draw your attention to the second column, which is the number of games actually started in the outfield.

Year  OF starts  Name             G   PA  AB    R   H   2B 3B  HR  RBI SB  CS  BB   SO  BAVG   OBP   SLG   OPS OPS+
                                                                                
1977    61    Bob Bailor        122  523  496  62  154  21  5   5  32  15   6  17   26  .310  .335  .403  .738  101
1978    58    Otto Velez         91  300  248  29   66  14  2   9  38   1   3  45   41  .266  .380  .448  .828  132
1979    64    Otto Velez         99  325  274  45   79  21  0  15  48   0   1  46   45  .288  .396  .529  .925  148
1980    80    Bob Bailor        116  388  347  44   82  14  2   1  16  12   8  36   33  .236  .311  .297  .608   65
1981    37    George Bell        60  168  163  19   38   2  1   5  12   3   2   5   27  .233  .256  .350  .606   69
1982    55    Hosken Powell     112  280  265  43   73  13  4   3  26   4   4  12   23  .275  .304  .389  .692   82
1983    94    Barry Bonnell     121  417  377  49  120  21  3  10  54  10   7  33   52  .318  .369  .469  .838  124
1984    76    Jesse Barfield    110  360  320  51   91  14  1  14  49   8   2  35   81  .284  .357  .466  .822  123
1985    16    Lou Thornton       56   75   72  18   17   1  1   1   8   1   0   2   24  .236  .267  .319  .586   58
1986    24    Rick Leach        110  266  246  35   76  14  1   5  39   0   0  13   24  .309  .335  .435  .770  106

1987    29    Rick Leach         98  224  195  26   55  13  1   3  25   0   1  25   25  .282  .371  .405  .776  105
1988    41    Sil Campusano      73  158  142  14   31  10  2   2  12   0   0   9   33  .218  .282  .359  .641   79
1989    54    Mookie Wilson      54  247  238  32   71   9  1   2  17  12   1   3   37  .298  .311  .370  .681   96
1990    55    Glenallen Hill     84  278  260  47   60  11  3  12  32   8   3  18   62  .231  .281  .435  .715   93
1991    39    Mookie Wilson      86  258  241  26   58  12  4   2  28  11   3   8   35  .241  .277  .349  .626   70
1992    39    Derek Bell         61  184  161  23   39   6  3   2  15   7   2  15   34  .242  .324  .354  .678   88
1993    40    Turner Ward        72  198  167  20   32   4  2   4  28   3   3  23   26  .192  .287  .311  .599   61
1994    24    Darnell Coles      48  156  143  15   30   6  1   4  15   0   0  10   25  .210  .263  .350  .612   57
1995    40    Candy Maldonado    61  190  160  22   43  13  0   7  25   1   1  25   45  .269  .368  .481  .850  121
1996    69    Jacob Brumfield    90  340  308  52   79  19  2  12  52  12   3  24   58  .256  .316  .448  .764   92

1997    81    Shawn Green       135  471  429  57  123  22  4  16  53  14   3  36   99  .287  .340  .469  .809  110
1998    73    Jose Canseco      151  658  583  98  138  26  0  46 107  29  17  65  159  .237  .318  .518  .836  114
1999    44    Jacob Brumfield    62  195  170  25   40   8  3   2  19   1   2  19   39  .235  .307  .353  .660   69
2000    38    Marty Cordova      62  221  200  23   49   7  0   4  18   3   2  18   35  .245  .317  .340  .657   65
2001    23    Vernon Wells       30  103   96  14   30   8  0   1   6   5   0   5   15  .313  .350  .427  .777  102
2002    28    Dewayne Wise       42  116  112  14   20   4  1   3  13   5   0   4   15  .179  .207  .313  .519   34
2003    94    Reed Johnson      114  457  412  79  121  21  2  10  52   5   3  20   67  .294  .353  .427  .780  102
2004    34    Frank Catalanotto  75  274  249  27   73  19  1   1  26   1   0  17   33  .293  .344  .390  .734   88
2005    90    Reed Johnson      142  439  398  55  107  21  6   8  58   5   6  22   82  .269  .332  .412  .744   96
2006   103    Reed Johnson      134  517  461  86  147  34  2  12  49   8   2  33   81  .319  .390  .479  .869  124

2007    62    Reed Johnson       79  307  275  31   65  13  2   2  14   4   2  16   56  .236  .305  .320  .625   66
2008    53    Brad Wilkerson     85  241  208  20   45   8  2   4  23   2   3  25   53  .216  .297  .332  .629   69
2009    70    Jose Bautista     113  404  336  54   79  13  3  13  40   4   0  56   85  .235  .349  .408  .757   99
2010   104    Fred Lewis        110  480  428  70  112  31  5   8  36  17   6  38  104  .262  .332  .414  .745  101
2011    74    Corey Patterson    89  341  317  44   80  16  3   6  33  13   8  15   65  .252  .287  .379  .665   78
2012    49    Anthony Gose       56  189  166  25   37   7  3   1  11  15   3  17   59  .223  .303  .319  .622   71
2013    75    Rajai Davis       108  360  331  49   86  16  2   6  24  45   6  21   67  .260  .312  .375  .687   88
2014    74    Anthony Gose       94  274  239  31   54   8  1   2  13  15   5  25   74  .226  .311  .293  .604   73
2015    44    Ezequiel Carrera   91  192  172  27   47   8  0   3  26   2   1  11   45  .273  .321  .372  .693   88 
2016	68    Ezequiel Carrera	110  310  270  47   67   9  1   6  23   7   4  27   70  .248  .323  .356  .679   83 

2017	71    Ezequiel Carrera	131  325  287  38   81  10  1   8  20  10   1  30   75  .282  .356  .408  .764  104 
2018	60    Curtis Granderson	104  349  302  48   74  21  1  11  35   2   1  42   96  .245  .342  .430  .772  112 
2019	62    Billy McKinney 	 84  276  251  37   54  14  1  12  28   0   2  19   73  .215  .274  .422  .696   83 
2020	11    Derek Fisher	 16   39   31   5    7   2  1   1   7   0   1   7   11  .226  .359  .452  .811  122 
2021   121    Randal Grichuk	149  545  511  59  123  25  1  22  81   0   3  27  114  .241  .281  .423  .703   87 
2022    87    Raimel Tapia	106  355  336  36   88  17  1   6  42   6   1  13   65  .262  .289  .372  .661   87 

1977 - Bailor had been a shortstop in the minors, but he had some arm issues when he arrived in Toronto, and didn't do well when they put him there. Gary Woods began and ended the season as the regular centre fielder, but Bailor played there a lot in between.

1983 - Collins, Moseby, Barfield were the regulars - Bonnell filled in at all three spots and had by far the best year of his career.

1984 - George Bell seized an everyday corner spot and Collins had the best year of his career.

1985 - The next three years would basically see Bell, Barfield, and Moseby play until they dropped. Or broke down. Extra outfielders? Bah!

1989 - Mookie Wilson was something unique in Blue Jays annals - a fourtb outfielder who played every day, after he came over from the Mets. Bell, Moseby, Felix were clearly the regulars, but Moseby was breaking down by this time, and Bell didn't seem to mind DHing so much. Wilson split his time at the three outfield spots.

1992 - Derek Bell was supposed to be the regular but he got hurt right away and Candy Maldonado filled in. But Maldonado was bad and Bell went back into the lineup when he was healthy. But Bell was even worse than Maldonado. So the Candy man got another chance, and ran with it.

1993 - Darrin Jackson was a regular, but they traded him away. Rickey Henderson was a regular, but he was only there for the last two months. They both played more games than Turner Ward, Darnell Coles, and Willie Canate who respectively were fifth, sixth, and seventh in outfield games played.

1994 - Carlos Delgado was a regular for about six weeks. Mike Huff got most of the games in LF after that.

1997 - They sort of began the year with Green, Nixon, and Merced in the outfield with Robert Perez and Jacob Brumfield playing some against LH. As usual, Green didn't start hitting until June. The team even brought in the artist formerly known as Ruben Sierra in the meantime. A thoroughly washed-up Joe Carter went back to the outfield for a while (he'd been playing first base and DHing). They traded for Jose Cruz, who took over in LF. They finally got rid of Otis Nixon and turned CF over to Shannon Stewart. Then Merced suffered a season-ending injury, and Green took over in RF.

1998 - Carlos Delgado had shoulder surgery that January and was expected to miss the first two months of the season. So the Jays signed Jose Canseco to DH in his absence, with Mike Stanley (already signed to be the DH) moving to first base. But Delgado being Delgado, he was back and ready to go before April was over. Which meant Caneco had to galumph around in the outfield for the next couple of months - oh, he was awful out there - until they unloaded Stanley at the deadline. The nearest thing to regulars were Stewart, Cruz, and Green, although Stewart had a brief stretch on the DL and Cruz was optioned to Syracuse twice.

2000 - Raul Mondesi suffered a season-ending injury in July. Cordova filled in for a couple of weeks until the team got Dave Martinez to take over full-time in RF.

2002 - Mondesi was the regular in RF with Stewart playing more often as a DH - until they unloaded the Brown Buffalo on the Yankees.

2003 - Johnson came up in late May when Stewart went on the DL for a month, and played well enough to stick around. Catalanotto was often in and out of the lineup, usually because of those pesky LH pitchers.

2004 - Catalanotto was one of the regulars to start the season, but he made two trips to the DL in the first half and Alex Rios came up and grabbed one of the corner outfield jobs in his absence. He spent most of the second half as a DH.

2006 - Johnson played an awful lot for a "fourth" outfielder. He was the RH half of a platoon arrangement with Catalanotto in LF, and the primary backup to Wells in CF and Rios in RF.

2008 - They kept trying guys in LF that year - Stewart, Matt Stairs, Adam Lind, Kevin Mench, Wilkerson. Gaston took over and gave the job to Lind, who finally ran with it.

2009 - Snider, Wells, Rios were the regulars to begin with but Snider was sent down in May after struggling a bit at the plate and Bautista and Lind (normally the DH) filled in. They would dump Rios in August, and Snider would return to take over in LF. Meanwhile, Bautista would seize the RF job with a vengeance that September.

2010 - Another hard one to figure. Snider began the year as the regular LF, and moved to RF when Bautista was shifted to 3b, with Fred Lewis taking over in LF. But Snider hurt his wrist and Bautista moved back into RF. Snider came back at the end of July, having missed six weeks, and got most of the LF time from that point forward. He didn't get into as many games as Lewis, but it seems to me that Lewis was much more a fourth guy filling in than Snider was.

2015 - As you doubtless remember, after Michael Saunders knee injury and Dalton Pompey's underwhelming performance, the 2015 team spent months screwing around with career infielders Colabello and Valencia trying to figure out how to play the outfield. They couldn't bring themselves to give the job to Carrera and for all intents and purposes they didn't have a regular LF until Revere came aboard at the beginning of August.

2018 - Teoscar Hernandez began the year in Buffalo, but he was with the big club two weeks in and has been an everyday player ever since. This made Granderson a fourth outfielder, and DL stints for Grichuk and Pillar helped ensure he got to play quite a bit.

2021 - Grichuk played more games in the outfield, mostly in CF, than regulars often do - nevertheless he was supposed to be the fourth outfielder! It's just that Springer missed half the season entirely and did a fair bit of DHing when he was finally available.

And the best of the bunch? Why, Otto Velez, of course. Who never should have been a fourth outfielder anyway, but Roy Hartsfield never did seem to lnow what he had.