Not So Weekly Poll

with Ike, Quantrill, and Downs splitting over 90% of the vote about evenly. Ike’s 1986 was likely the best single season for a Jays middle reliever ( though he did save 10 games that season) , with166 Ks in 157 innings, only 46 walks, and a sub-1 WHIP, but he only had one other great season for the Jays, the following year.

Quantrill had great ERAs for many years, but he also put a lot more runners on (only in his final year with Toronto did he have a WHIP below 1.2). He had the longest tenure (5 years) of the three and only one of the years was bad, though a couple were mediocre. He also didn’t get the K’s the other two got.

Finally, Downs has never had a bad year for the Jays with 2 solid years as a swingman and then 2 incredible seasons, but also never approached the dominanace that Ike had in 1986. However, Downs is the only one with 2 years of ERA+ over 200 (neither of the others is even close). I voted for Downs on the basis that Quantrill was a little more hittable and Ike didn’t have enough service time on the Jays, with a season and a half less to his credit than Downs. One could easily make a case for the other two though.

in 1993, he was a big part of our World Series win that year with a 2.72 ERA setting up for Duane Ward. He was traded to us during the 1992 season and had a 0 ERA in the playoffs of both seasons. Quantrill pitched in 107 more games for the Jays but Eichhorn pitched 20 less innings as he would often go 2 or 3 or more innings in a game. They both had 6 seasons with the team and 5 each as relievers. Quantrill pitched a ton of games but Eichhorn pitched a lot of inning.

Guess I’m giving away who my choice was. But then I had Eichhorn #32 and Quantrill #33 on the top 50 list.

I think if Downs has another season or two like last year he be the easy choice.

who used to imitate other ballplayers? For some reason I remember him doing a good impersonation of Mattingly’s swing.