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After seeing nine players play their first major league game in 2012, the 2013 Blue Jays were not expected to have too many debuts because of the dearth of major league-ready prospects in the upper levels of the minors and all their high-profile acquisitions in the offseason. At the beginning of spring training, there were only two players on the 40-man roster who have not played in the majors: Ryan Goins and A.J. Jimenez. So we thought there was a "very strong possibility" that the 2013 squad would see a later first debut than any other team in franchise history.
We turned out to be right. Sean Nolin made his major league debut on May 24, 2013 in the 48th game of the season, beating out Lloyd Moseby, who also made his debut on May 24, but that was only the 37th game of the 1980 season.
Two other rookies made their major league debut with the Blue Jays last year: Kevin Pillar on August 14 and Ryan Goins on August 23.
Here is an updated list from last year, showing which player made the first major league debut of each of the 37 Blue Jays seasons (source: Baseball-Reference.com).
Player |
Date |
Position |
Al Woods | 1977-04-07 | PH RF |
Garth Iorg (1) | 1978-04-09 | 2B |
Bobby Brown (2) | 1979-04-05 | LF |
Lloyd Moseby | 1980-05-24 | DH |
George Bell | 1981-04-09 | PR LF |
Jim Gott | 1982-04-09 | P |
Jim Acker | 1983-04-07 | P |
Jimmy Key | 1984-04-06 | P |
Lou Thornton | 1985-04-08 | RF |
Don Gordon | 1986-04-10 | P |
Mike Sharperson | 1987-04-06 | 2B |
Sil Campusano | 1988-04-04 | CF |
Junior Felix | 1989-05-03 | RF |
Willie Blair | 1990-04-11 | P |
Mike Timlin | 1991-04-08 | P |
Ricky Trlicek | 1992-04-08 | P |
Willie Canate | 1993-04-16 | LF |
Alex Gonzalez | 1994-04-04 | SS |
Paul Menhart | 1995-04-27 | P |
Tilson Brito | 1996-04-01 | PH 2B |
Chris Carpenter | 1997-05-12 | P |
Steve Sinclair | 1998-04-25 | P |
Peter Munro (3) | 1999-04-06 | P |
Dewayne Wise | 2000-04-06 | CF |
Ryan Freel | 2001-04-04 | 2B |
Eric Hinske (4) | 2002-04-01 | 3B |
Aquilino Lopez | 2003-04-02 | P |
Simon Pond | 2004-04-07 | RF |
Aaron Hill | 2005-05-20 | DH |
Casey Janssen | 2006-04-27 | P |
Jesse Litsch | 2007-05-15 | P |
Randy Wells | 2008-04-05 | P |
Ricky Romero | 2009-04-09 | P |
Rommie Lewis | 2010-04-28 | P |
Luis Perez | 2011-04-16 | P |
Evan Crawford | 2012-04-15 | P |
Sean Nolin | 2013-05-24 | P |
In four instances, multiple Blue Jays players made their major league debut in the same game:
(1) Garth Iorg made his debut by coming up to bat in the bottom of the first inning. Willie Upshaw also made his debut in this game, as defensive replacement for John Mayberry before the bottom of the third.
(2) Bobby Brown made his debut in left field in the bottom of the first inning. Ted Wilborn made his debut a few minutes later as defensive replacement for Rick Bosetti before the the top of the second.
(3) Pete Munro made his debut in relief of Dan Plesac in the bottom of the seventh inning. Tom Davey also made his debut, the next inning when he relieved Munro.
(4) Eric Hinske made his debut by coming up to bat in the top of the first inning. Scott Cassidy made his debut in the bottom of the fourth, relieving Scott Eyre.
Right now there are four players on the 40-man roster who have yet to make their debut: Deck McGuire, A.J. Jimenez, Rob Rasmussen, Kenny Wilson. Non-roster invitees with no MLB experience include: Jared Goedert, Ricardo Nanita, Kevin Nolan, Aaron Sanchez, John Stilson, Marcus Stroman, and Marcus Walden.
Just like last year, we can turn this into a prediction game to guess the first Blue Jays major league debut. In 2013, my guess was that Ricardo Nanita would finally make his big league debut, in the bottom of the first on June 24. I am bad at predictions. The winner last year was someone named "AApologist", who correctly guessed Sean Nolin, missing his actual debut date by just two days.
Game Instructions
In the comments, guess:
- Who you think will be the first player to make a major league debut with the Blue Jays in 2014,
- The date of the debut, and
- The inning of the debut.