Poll Time: Best Center Fielder in Blue Jays History

George Bell easily won our left fielder poll.

Let’s look at the center fielders. I think there are a few good choices, mostly because there wasn’t one terrific player, but a few that were pretty good.

• Rick Bosetti spent 4 season with us, in the early days of Blue Jays baseball. He wasn’t good. He hit .252/.289/.348 over 445 games. He played all 162 games in 1979.
• Lloyd Moesby. Shaker. He played 10 seasons with us. His career number are hurt by the fact that he was brought up to the minors too early, he was just 20 years old and had less than 200 games of minor league experience all in the low minors. So he had on the job training in the majors. In his 10 seasons he hit .257/.332/.414 with 169 homers and 280 steals. His best season was 1983, when he hit .315/.376/.499. He stole 30 bases in 5 consecutive seasons. He was good defensively. My son went to a couple of the Blue Jays baseball camps and he love Moesby, Moesby was so good with the kids. Teasing and laughing with them. If there is one rule I live by it is ‘if you are good with my kids, I’ll like you’.
• Mookie Wilson spent the last 3 seasons of his career with us. He was a spark plug who got a lot of the credit when we made the playoffs in 1989. We got him in a trade deadline deal and then went on a hot streak, carrying us to the top of the AL. In his time as a Jay, he hit .267/.297/.357 with 46 steals in 287 games.
• Devon White was the smoothest outfielder I’ve ever seen. You rarely saw him making the diving, highlight reel catch, mostly because he got to the ball and didn’t need to dive. Played 5 seasons with the Jays. Hit .270/.327/.432 with 72 homers and 126 steals. When we got him from the Angels, Cito put him in the leadoff spot, even though he had hit .217 with a .290 OBP the season before. But Cito felt that if you showed faith in him, he would produce. And he did hit much better with the Jays than he had as an Angel. We had better choices for leadoff, but Cito felt he could get the best out of White if he kept him in that spot. White has 2 World Series rings from the Jays and another as a Marlin.
• Otis Nixon. He ran fast and that was about all he did. Played 2 stasons with us, hit .275/.362/.317 with 101 steals. Master of the bunt single.
• Jose Cruz, Jr. He never quite became the player we hoped he would, but, considering we traded two middle reliever types to get him, he did pretty good. He played with us for 6 seasons, hit .250/.331/.462 with 122 home runs and 85 steals. He was a very good player, but everyone seemed to think he would become Ken Griffey Jr and when he didn’t, we were disappointed.
• Vernon Wells had 12 up and down seasons with us. In total he hit .280/.329/.475 with 223 home runs, and 90 steals. Unfortunately, he’s remembered more for the big contract he signed with us. It seemed like people blamed him for the Jays stupidity in offering so much money. He’s one of two Jays, that I’ve seen, who always ran out every ground ball as hard as it could. He played the game as hard as he could, and he paid for it with a bunch of injuries and hamstring problems. His best seasons were very good, in 2003 he hit .317/.359/.553 with 49 doubles (he always hustled) and 33 home runs. And his bad offensives seasons read much like Kevin Pillar’s numbers.
• Colby Rasmus. I was always a fan. He seemed like the square peg in a round hole baseball world. I always liked the guys who were different. He played 4 seasons with us, hit .234/.295/.433 with 66 home runs.
• Kevin Pillar. So far, he’s had 5 seasons as a Jay. Has hit .264/.302/.390 with 40 home runs and 55 steals in 548 game. If we were picking the best defensive center fielder, I’m not sure if I would vote for him or Devon. His batting line isn’t all that much worst than Devon’s either, 25 points short on On Base and 42 points short in slugging (actually it is almost exactly White’s line with the Angels (.247/.395/.389) in his first 6 seasons). It’s possible he’ll close up those spreads. Course, it’s also possible he’ll have a really bad season, with the bat, and lose his job.