Happy Birthday Josh Phelps

Josh Phelps turns 42 today

Phelps was one of our catchers of the future who didn’t turn out to be a catcher. Josh was #36 on the Baseball America top 100 prospects before the 2002 season.

He was terrific coming up through our minor league system. In 2001 he hit .292/.406/.562 with 31 home runs in 136 games with the Double-A Tennessee Smokies. 2002 he hit .292/.380/.658 with 24 home runs in 70 games at Triple-A Syracuse. We thought we had someone who could hit in the middle of the order with another of our catchers of the future, Carlos Delgado.

After getting 1 at bat in 2000 and 12 at bats in 2001 (without getting a hit), he was called up in June of 2002. He didn’t hit his first home run until his 14th game, but he would finish the game with 15 home runs and a .309/.352/.562 line in 83 games, playing DH. On August 29th, he hit two home runs of Roger Clemens. I was always happy to see us beat Clemens. Josh would drive in 4 runs again the Yankees the next day (not that it got us a win, Pete Walker gave up 8 in 5 innings to get the loss).

In 2003 Josh hit .268/.358/.470 with 20 home run in 119 games. He had injury troubles all his career.

In 2004 he was hitting .237/.296/.417 with 12 home runs in 79 games, and then, on August 4th, we traded him to Cleveland for Eric Crozier. It was type for type trade. Crozier was a power-hitting, DH/first baseman type. It didn’t work out for the Jays. Crozier would play 14 games with the Jays (the total of his MLB career) hitting .152/.282/.394.

Phelps hit .303/.338/.579 in 24 games for Cleveland. After the season, he signed with the Rays as a free agent. From there, Josh went to the Tigers, Orioles, Yankees, Pirates, Cardinals, Giants, Rockies, and Cleveland again. But then he didn’t play in the majors for most of those teams. But, when you are a top prospect, teams will give you a shot.

He last played in the majors in 2008, getting 36 at-bats with the Cardinals. Career he played in 465 games and had a .273/.343/.472 line with 64 home runs.

Why didn’t he have the career we expected. Well, in 2005, Baseball Prospectus wrote this:

He has more power than your local utility but has no clue what to do with it, swinging indiscriminately at pitches, relay throws from the outfield, low-hanging clouds. As his time in Toronto went on, Phelps crossed the line dividing productive aggression and diminishing returns, so this positionless player was sent south for nothing more than Eric Crozier. Working with Eddie Murray, he cut his strikeouts just slightly, but that sample is so small as to be nearly meaningless. Signed by Tampa, Phelps will meet Lou Piniella at the same age that the somewhat similar Jay Buhner did. Buhner blossomed at that point; Phelps will need to follow instruction a lot better than he did with the Jays to have a chance to do the same.

Not having a position didn’t help, and the 25.6% career strikeout rate (getting worse as his career went on) didn’t help either. Maybe if he could have stuck at catcher, his career would have gone better. When you are a DH you have to hit, or someone else gets the job. It isn’t a place where you can slowly develop as a hitter.

Anyway, Happy Birthday, Josh. I hope it is a good one.

Felipe Lopez turns 40 today

The Blue Jays drafted Felipe in the first round on the 1998 draft, number 6 overall (CC Sabathia was the best of the first round, taken with the 20th pick). He didn’t burn it up in the minors but he was called up to the Jays in August of 2001. In 49 games, he hit .260/.304/.418.

He started the 2002 season with the Jays but was sent back to the minors in mid-June. He hit .227/.287/.387 in 134 games with the Jays.

After the season, he was part of a complicated 4-team trade. Lopez ended up with the Reds. The Jays ended up getting Jason Arnold from the A’s. He never played in the majors.

Lopez would end up playing 11 seasons in the MLB, hitting .264/.333/.391, with 90 home runs in 1185 games.

Happy Birthday Felipe, I hope it is a good one.

Jonathan Davis turns 28 today

Davis has played 57 games over the past two seasons with the Jays, hitting .185/.264/.259 with 2 home runs.

If baseball does come back this year, I’d imagine he’d, at least, be part of the Jays ‘taxi squad’.

Happy Birthday, Jonathan.