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

Saturday, June 14 2008 @ 12:08 AM EDT

Contributed by: John Northey

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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