Happy Birthday Roberto Alomar

Roberto Alomar turns 53 today.

I don’t think there is too much that we haven’t said about Alomar over the years. And, of course, we will be profiling him in our top Blue Jays countdown.

I wasn’t a fan of the trade when it happened. I was a huge fan of Tony Fernandez and Fred McGriff (but we had John Olerud waiting in the wings). Joe Carter seemed overrated, and Alomar hadn’t shown all that much yet. Three seasons with the Padres, he hit .283/.339/.379, so he didn’t seem like an upgrade from Tony. I should have noticed that he put up those numbers in his age 20, 21, and 22 age seasons. What I should have noticed was that he was more than holding his own at that young age.

In five seasons with the Blue Jays, he hit .307/.382/.451 with 206 stolen bases. And he had a flair for the spectacular defensive play.

Let’s share a couple of videos:

Career highlights (including the home run above):

He saved his best play for the playoffs. He was MVP in the 1992 ALCS, and he really could have been MVP in the 1993 World Series (but Paul Molitor was pretty good too). For us in the playoffs, he hit .372/.452/.492 with 18 stolen bases (caught just twice).

From the Jays, he went to the Orioles (and made the playoffs twice), Cleveland (making the playoffs twice), Mets, White Sox, Diamondbacks, and White Sox again.

He seemed to age quickly. At age 33, he put up a 7.3 bWAR with Cleveland. He never had a WAR above 1 after that.

But then he didn’t need to build up the bulk numbers to make the Hall of Fame. He was elected into the Hall in 2011, his second time on the ballot, and went into Hall with a Blue Jays cap.

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