Happy Birthday Aaron Hill, Luis Leal and Anthony Kay

Aaron Hill turns 39 today.

We talked about Hill a couple of weeks back, so I’ll keep this short.

I wonder how Hill’s career would have been if it wasn’t for the concussion he suffered in 2008, but then the best season of his career came the next year. There are many players who have a ‘what if’

We did get the best part of his career, he played 7 seasons of his 13-year career with the Jays. With us, he had a 17.1 bWAR. The other 6 seasons added up to 7.3 bWAR. I’d say he was traded at the right time, but then we didn’t get that much from Kelly Johnson.

By WAR he was the Jays second-best second baseman, number 3 on the list is Orlando Hudson. And his 2009 season, where he had a 5.8 bWAR, was the best by any Jays second baseman not named Roberto Alomar (Alomar had a 6.6 in 1992 and 6.1 in 1993. The next best was Orlando Hudson at 5.2 in 2004 (Hill’s 2007 season tied that).

Happy Birthday, Aaron, though I’d imagine he won’t read this. there a post-career interview he did where he said he stays off social media.

Luis Leal turns 64 today.

Leal was a pretty good pitcher for us back in the early 80s. He pitched for us from 1980 to 1985. Career he pitched in 165 games, 151 starts. He had a 51-58 record and a 4.14 ERA in 946 innings.

His best season was 1982 when he had a 12-15 record and a 3.93 ERA in 38 starts with 10 games and 249.2 innings pitched. He’d throw over 200 innings in each of the next two seasons. In that 3 year stretch, he made 108 starts and threw 689.1 innings with a 38-35 record and a 4.03 ERA.

On our franchise leader board, Leal is 14th in bWAR at 10.6, 9th in innings pitched and 11th in wins.

Happy birthday, Luis. I hope it is a good one.

And it is Anthony Kay’s 26th birthday. He is listed to pitch in today’s game.

Happy birthday Anthony.