The Star today has a feature on the greatest Blue Jay in light of Roberto Alomar's election to the Hall of Fame. Dave Perkins and Richard Griffin, as well as four nameless fans, pick their greatest Blue Jay. The six Jays mentioned in the story are Dave Steib; Carlos Delgado; Roberto Alomar; Roy Halladay; John Olerud and Cito Gaston.
Not mentioned are Tony Fernandez; George Bell; Jesse Barfield or Jimmy Key.
Griffin goes to bat for Carlos Delgado. Surprisingly Griffin mentions statistical leadership as his first point.
From this corner, it says the greatest Blue Jay ever is first baseman Carlos Delgado. There’s more to the nomination than just his statistical domination of career numbers. Certainly, accumulated statistics and Delgado’s length of service (1993-2004) with the Jays help a lot. Originally signed as a free-agent catcher, physical issues resulted in his conversion to a left fielder and then finally to first base, where he became an above-average defender. But it was always offence that set Carlos apart.
Griifin then narrows the field:
Why Delgado? It is a complicated question with no definitive answer. First of all, let’s eliminate pitchers. Even though pitchers are significant factors in the overall scheme of winning, starting pitchers are in the spotlight just once every five days, 33-36 games out of 162, while the best relievers log fewer than 100 innings per season out of an annual total of around 1,460 for the team.
Even though after serious consideration I chose none of them, arguably the three most impactful pitchers in Jays history are Roy Halladay, Dave Stieb and Tom Henke. You can throw in Pat Hentgen, Jimmy Key and Duane Ward. And in a short burst, one must look at the back-to-back pitching Triple Crowns posted by Roger Clemens. But in the end, it comes down to the fact they’re all pitchers, and in terms of clubhouse presence, leadership and impact on others, pitchers are internally focused. To me, Halladay is a future Hall of Famer and the best in Jays history. But best player? No.
Alomar doesn't win because of his non-Jay time:
Robby’s Hall of Fame status didn’t derive only from his Jays years. He was fab as a youngster with the Padres, brilliant with the Jays, wobbled but went to the playoffs with the O’s, and re-emerged as incandescent with the Indians. Alomar was the best major-leaguer ever with the Jays, but the title of best Blue Jay ever must go to someone with a brilliant but longer body of work in Toronto.
Perkins choice is Dave Steib, even though his fellow reporter discounts pitchers.
No, the greatest of all the Blue Jays, for this money, was and is Dave Stieb, by a short nose over Roy Halladay and maybe a half-length over slugger Carlos Delgado.
This is not based on any kind of personality issue. Alomar was a great interview and Stieb could be a pain to cover and be around. His evil eye directed at erring teammates was legendary.
Stieb sure could pitch, though. Halladay was a tremendous pitcher and there’s nothing bad to say about him. There’s a perception that Stieb pitched for lousy teams, compared to Halladay, but that’s wrong. Front to back, the win percentages of the 1980-90 Jays is higher (.523-.499) than the 1999-2009 Jays, essentially Halladay’s time.
Every fan knows they both had great stuff and edgy competitive demeanours. Halladay has better bare stats, in terms of strikeouts and stikeout-walk rates and win percentage. Stieb gave up fewer hits and homers per nine innings. Halladay won a Cy Young and Stieb didn’t, but certainly should have won one and possibly two. (Almost nobody was using stat metrics in the 1980s and plenty of us didn’t recognize how good Stieb was at the time. He didn’t get the kind of statistical recognition then that, say, Felix Hernandez got in 2010.)
The clincher here is that Stieb threw 800 more innings as a Blue Jay than did Halladay, although he was abused in the years 1982 to ’85 — 1,098 innings in four seasons — and that surely hurt his totals later on.
What is your vote?
