What was the Jays best Draft

Saturday, April 22 2017 @ 07:22 AM EDT

Contributed by: John Northey

Looking at the kids on the farm I got to thinking about what draft is the best for the Jays and how one would rate it? I'll do a few methods just for fun.

For WAR I'm using BR WAR as they have a nice draft page.
Some random facts...

For the following section I'm only counting guys signed. No marks for being smart enough to draft him (Jim Abbott for example) but not smart enough to sign him. Digging through all of this I'd say one needs to go with either 1997 (3 all-star guys) or 1989 (2 near HOF'ers) with 1982 getting honourable mention (2 near HOF'ers plus a WS MVP).

Since I have the data I checked by position as well.
PositionTotal WARBest WARPlayers Drafted
1B101.258 - John Olerud (3rd)66
2B10.58.8 - Ryan Freel (10th)51
3B41.824.9 - Casey Blake (7th)49
SS157.955.2 - Jeff Kent (20th)114
IF0--4
LF0--4
CF15.99.6 - Kevin Pillar (32nd)15
RF0--7
OF255.857.2 - Dave Stieb (yes, drafted in OF) (5th)143
C21.97.7 - Yan Gomes (10th)109
LHP136.753.6 - David Wells (2nd)158
RHP299.364.6 - Roy Halladay (1st)406

Notes: The best 'real' outfielder is Jesse Barfield at 39.3 WAR (9th round), then Shawn Green at 34.5; Alex Rios on BR is listed as drafted at 3B but at other sources is listed as drafted in the OF and I cannot recall ever hearing him listed at 3B nor did he play a single pro inning at 3B (or SS or 2B for that matter) so I'll assume BR has an error there.

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