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Didn't Molitor, Whitt, Alomar, Bell, Moseby and Henke all come from outside the organization? Or am I having another brain cramp?

And where's the love for Willie Upshaw?!?!

Mike

I guess the most glaring ommision is Joe Carter. Statistically not everyone's favourite, but I think I'd have put him in the RF slot.

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Oops... I was wrong about Moseby. I thought Gillick stole him from the Yankees.

Mike

Joe Carter versus Jesse Barfield... adjusted OPS+ in years as a regular in Toronto.

Carter - 124, 119, 111, 113, 88, 90, 76 (average 103)
Barfield - 97, 112, 123, 142, 147, 105, 102 (average 119)

Not even close. Barfield also won two gold gloves and had 117 assists and 42 errors as a Blue Jays outfielder; he also had terrific range factors. Carter had average range factors, and had 51 assists and 43 errors as a Blue Jays outfielder.

I think there are 6 who weren't home grown. Molitor, Whitt, Alomar, Gruber, Bell and Henke.

Wait, Clancy too. He was selected from Texas in the expansion draft.

Molitor: Milwaukee
Whitt: Boston
Alomar: San Diego
Gruber: Cleveland
Bell: Philidelphia
Henke: Texas

Spicol, you are absolutely correct. I missed Clancy altogether -- I always thought he was an original draftee -- but for forgetting Molitor, I can only plead the aforementioned brain cramp: too close to the target, I guess.

I would choose Carter over Bell. Bell was an awful leftfielder, and Joe, at least in his first few years in Toronto was fairly good with the leather. Other than 1987 (a hitter's year) they were basically the same type of hitter - low OBP a fair amount of power.

Considering the intangibles (and playoff performance) I think the nod should go to Joe.

I disclose my bias as follows: George Bell was my least favourite Jays regular ever.

Clancy also came from outside the organization. I guess Gideon's counting 'selected in the expansion draft' as equivalent to 'homegrown', which is, I suppose, fair enough. That takes Clancy and Whitt off the list and brings it down to five - one trade, one free-agent signing, one compensation-pool pick, and two Rule 5 guys.

Let's do an All-Time Jays farm system team. Taking their entire careers into account, choose the best players that originally signed with the club:

Catcher: Greg Myers (backup: Pat Borders)
First Base: Carlos Delgado
2nd base: Jeff Kent in a cakewalk
Shortstop: Tony Fernandez
Third Base: Ed Sprague, not much else
Reserve Infielders: Alex Gonzalez, Luis Sojo
Centerfield: Lloyd Moseby
Right Field: Jesse Barfield
Left Field: Shawn Green (moved from RF)
Reserve Outfielder: Shannon Stewart, Vernon Wells, Glenallen Hill
DH: John Olerud

15 position players

Rotation:

Dave Stieb
Jimmy Key
Roy Halladay
Pat Hentgen
David Wells

Pen:
Ace: Billy Koch
Setup: Mark Eichorn
Lefty: John Cerutti
4th: Steve Karsay
Long Reliever: Woody Williams

10 pitchers

The system hasn't produced many quality relievers, particularly lefties, so I moved 2 rotation guys to the pen. I'm distressed at having to list Koch as the ace reliever, but I don't see a better candidate among the pitchers who have held the role in the majors.

Neyer's book addresses Robert's most recent lineup with its "All-Homegrown" list:

DH Delgado
C Borders
1B Olerud
2B Kent
SS Fernandez
3B Sprague
LF Stewart
CF Moseby
RF Barfield
SP Stieb
RP Eichhorn

And while I have Neyer's book in front of me here in my office, I'll just throw out some of Neyers' other Jays lists:

All-Time Second Team
DH C. Johnson
C Borders
1B McGriff
2B Garcia
SS Griffin
3B Mulliniks
LF Carter
CF White
RF Green
SP1 Wells
SP2 Guzman
SP3 Stottlemyre
SP4 Clemens (because he makes an exception for two seasons like those)
RP Ward

All-Single Season Team
DH Molitor '93
C Whitt '87
1B Olerud '93
2B Alomar '93
SS Fernandez '88
3B Gruber '90
LF Bell '87
CF Moseby '84
RF Barfield '86
SP Clemens '97
RP Eichhorn '86

All-Rookie Team
DH McGriff '87
C Phelps '02 (he admits this isn't a "serious choice")
1B Olerud '89
2B Garcia '80
SS Griffin '79
3B Hinske '02
LF Stewart '97
CF Cruz '97
RF Green '95
SP Guzman '91
RP Eichhorn '86

I would choose Carter over Bell. Bell was an awful leftfielder, and Joe, at least in his first few years in Toronto was fairly good with the leather.

When Bell first came up, he was a good enough outfielder to play right field - in 1984, he played right when Dave Collins was in the lineup, and left when Barfield was in the lineup. Bell was also the club's emergency infielder: he'd play third if Jimy pinch-hit for Iorg, and once played second. Back then, he could both run and throw; he wasn't a natural outfielder, but he could outrun his mistakes.

He started to put on weight, and suffer injuries, in about 1987. (The concrete that the Jays played on in those years didn't help.) After that, he became a poorer defender (though some of that was because he began overthrowing the cutoff man in an attempt to prove that he could still throw out runners at the plate).

I'd rank George over Joe, but it's close.

I'm distressed at having to list Koch as the ace reliever, but I don't see a better candidate among the pitchers who have held the role in the majors.

What about Escobar? :-) :-)

Moseby over Devo is tougher: Lloyd was a better hitter in his prime, but Devo was a better defender.

I agree with the rest of the all-time Jays lineup.

Ack. My comments are out of order. Move the last two paragraphs up to the all-time Jays discussion. Sigh. Note to self: edit before posting.

Rob Neyer's All Single Season Blue Jays team made me think.........
'93 Olerud over 2000 Delgado??? First I though I was biased towards a season I was more familiar with so I actually looked at some statistics. Not too in depth, but I think it showed my amazement has nothing to do with a bias. Unless the big ring on Olerud's finger plays a part......

All stats courtesy Baseball-Reference.com

OBP - Olerud .473; Delgado .470
SLG%- Olerud .599; Delgado .664
OPS - Olerud 1.072; Delgado 1.134
OPS + - Olerud 185; Delgado 182
BA - Olerud .363; Delgado .344
RBI - Olerud 107; Delgado 137
HR - Olerud 24; Delgado 41
Extra Base Hits - Olerud 80; Delgado 99
Runs - Olerud 109; Delgado 115
K/BB - Olerud 65/114; Delgado 104/123

Olerud's BA was 94 points better than the league BA , while Delgado's was 65 points better.

OBP, OPS +, and runs can all be called a wash.

Delgado is significantly better when it comes to power numbers (HR, RBI, OPS, SLG%, RBI, and Extra Base hits)

Olerud comes through big in BA (and Delgado's is still excellent), and K-BB ratio.

Delgado even has a better Range Factor at 1B (and fewer games at DH) with a 9.43 - 9.18 advantage.

It's definitely close, but I still feel Delgado deserves the spot. Now feel free to tear my analysis apart and berate my opinion. Or politely agree, your choice ;-)

Wow, I'm surprised there's not more love for Henke/Ward. I'd take either over Koch. In a heartbeat.

I'm all surprised at the pro-Carter calls. Does no one remember his crippling RBI/RISP stats? Man got along on reputation alone for a long time.

And where's Candy? Ok, now I'm joking.

I think baseball is fun. I enjoy playing it with my invisible friends.

Henke and Ward were obtained from other organisations. Mine was a list of fully "homegrown" players.

Concerning Robert Dudek's all-homegrown team, and Donkit's later comments... isn't Olerud universally regarded as a pretty good fielder? I certainly would want him out there instead of Delgado, yet Robert, you list Carlos as your 1B and Johnny O as the DH.

Just nit-picking. And, for what it's worth, I'm terribly upset over the lack of Manny Lee in this thread.

It's definitely close, but I still feel Delgado deserves the spot.

Here's some more numbers:

Olerud in '93--.373 EQA, 153 EQR
Delgado in '00--.369 EQA,157 EQR

Single season, you could clearly make a case either way (personally I'd lean towards Johnny O), although I think Delgado deserves the overall nod.

And speaking of close...

Joe Carter versus Jesse Barfield...

I'm amazed Green isn't getting more consideration. His 1999 season is remarkably close to Barfield's '86 season. For starters, they were both 26 at the time. Here's what they did:

Green--143 OPS+, .318 EQA, 125 EQR, gold glove, 9th in MVP
Barfield--147 OPS+, .317 EQA, 122 EQR, gold glove, 5th in MVP

Remarkably, Barfield is also Green's 8th all-time most similar batter according to Baseball-Reference.

Although Green is showing a higher ceiling with the Dodgers, I guess I'd concede Barfield to the All-Time Team since he saw more full-time action in Toronto (#$^&#@% Gaston and $%#$@$#%#!! Ash!). For single season, however, I'd give props to Shawn. (How Mondesi made RF for the Dodgers over Green, however, baffles me.)

Wow, I'm surprised there's not more love for Henke/Ward. I'd take either over Koch. In a heartbeat.

Agreed. No question. It's the difference between Rivera and, well, Koch.

Henke and Ward were obtained from other organisations. Mine was a list of fully "homegrown" players.

Whoops. I was researching Green v. Barfield when R.D. posted this. I take it back.

Top Ten Blue Jay Starting Pitching Performances*:

SP Clemens '97 (226 ERA+, 264.0 IP)
SP Clemens '98 (176 ERA+, 234.2 IP)
SP Stieb '85 (171 ERA+, 265.0 IP)
SP Hentgen '96 (165 ERA+, 265.2 IP)
SP Key '87 (164 ERA+, 261.0 IP)
SP Halladay '02 (152 ERA+, 239.1 IP)
SP Stieb '84 (145 ERA+, 278.0 IP)
SP Stieb '83 (142 ERA+, 267.0 IP)
SP Stieb '82 (138 ERA+, 288.1 IP)
SP Key '91 (138 ERA+, 209.1 IP)

*also of merit is Guzman's '96 season (181 ERA+, 187.2 IP) and Hentgen's '94 season (141 ERA+, 174.2 IP)

Did I miss anybody?

R.K.

In retrospect, I would flip-flop Olerud and Delgado.

I need to read more clearly.