Happy Birthday Robert Person

Happy 39th birthday to Robert Person. If you don't remember, the Jays traded John Olerud to the Mets to get Person, in December of 1996, maybe not the worst trade in Jay's history but it has to be in the top 5 crappy Jay trades. Not Gord Ash's greatest moment. To be fair the Jays were making room for Carlos Delgado to play first, but you would imagine there had to be a better trade out there somewhere.

Person went 8 and 13 in his 2 and a bit seasons with the Jays. He also had 8 saves for us, as, after having a lousy 1997 season making 22 starts, with a 5.61 ERA, the Jays tried him in the closer role for a bit. In May of 1999 the Jays send him to the Phillies for Paul Spoljaric. He did turn into a decent starter for them for a couple of years, having his best season in 2001 with a 15 and 7 record. He managed to turn that into a $6.25 million arbitration contract from the Phillies for 2002 and he had a terrible season.

In 2003 he signed with the Red Sox as a free agent and made 7 relief appearances for them and at 33 his career was over. He finished with a 51-41 career record with a 4.65 ERA. Considering he was drafted by the Indians in the 25 round of the 1989 amateur draft he did pretty good for himself all in all. But all he did for the Blue Jays was cost us one terrific first baseman.