Weekend Chart: Roster Tenure

Weekend Chart returns after a one week hiatus due to your esteemed author's inability to fully think through some wieghted averaged after the planned chart's trend collapsed on further introspection.

Last offseason, the Blue Jays chose to go in a new direction and cut ties with a number of long-tenured players. Dustin McGowan was drafted all the way back in 2000 and debuted in 2005; Adam Lind and Casey Janssen were drafted in 2004 and debuted in 2006. All had been in the organization for over a decade with over seven credited years of major league service.  With the release of Ricky Romero earlier this year a couple months shy of the 10 year anniversary of his signing, another long tenured departed.

In fact, there is no player currently in the system who originally signed with the Jays prior to 2007 and has been continuously with the Jays since. There's a number of ways to make a list of tenure: consecutive or total, organizational tenure vs 40-man vs 25-man vs active. Below are the top 10 tenured players, by time in the organization and major league service with Toronto (uninterrupted by playing for other teams).

Organizational Tenure

Nominally, Luis Hurtado ranks second on this list, having played from 2006 to 2012, but while he has signed as a free agent both last year and for 2016, he's been a coach and didn't play.

Major League Service

I find it pretty remarkable that players with under two years service time with the Blue Jays can place in the top 10, but that underscores the degree of turnover in recent years.

Next week, we'll look at same charts, but all-time tenure instead of the current roster.