Happy Birthday Maicer Izturis

Former Blue Jays infielder Maicer Izturis turns 40 today.

You’ll likely remember him. Alex Anthopoulos signed him as a free agent back in November of 2012. Maicer got three years (plus a team option for a fourth), at $3 million a year. At the time, it was Alex’s biggest free-agent signing.

It didn’t turn out well.

Alex said he was the ‘leading candidate’ to play second base, but he was still looking to improve the position. Near the same time, Alex traded Mike Aviles (and Yan Gomes) to Cleveland for Esmil Rogers. That didn’t work out well either. Though we wouldn’t have been that much better off with Aviles at second, he was healthier, but he didn’t hit much. We had just picked up Aviles from the Red Sox in trade for John Farrell.

A few days later, Alex would make a big trade with the Marlins. Included in the trade was Emilio Bonifacio, who would share time with Izturis at second for part of the 2013 season. We ended up using many different second basemen over the next couple of years, including Munenori Kawasaki and Ryan Goins.

In the three seasons, Izturis played 118 games, spending more time on the DL than in uniform. The Jays declined the option on the 2016 season, giving him the $1,000,000 buy out.

Izturis hit .240/.291/.310 with 5 home runs.

In January of 2016 the Jays signed him to a minor-league deal, but he never played again.

Maicer played 11 seasons in the MLB. He hit .269/.331/.372 with 39 home runs in 909 games. Most of those 11 seasons were with the Angels, but he came with the Expos.

Happy Birthday Maicer, hope it is a good one.