Happy Birthday Bo Bichette

Bo Bichette turns 24 today.

Must be a pretty good life, 24, you’ve played the last three seasons in the majors (not that they have been three normal seasons, but you take what you can get). A .301/.345/.506 batting line with 45 home runs and 9.3 bWAR already tallied. It does look like his fourth season in the majors may be shortened again, but hopefully, it will get going at some point.

Bo has a nice headstart on his dad, who didn’t get his first MLB game in until after he was 24. Dante has resigned from his role with the Blue J0ays because team employees are not to interact with players during the lockout. When your son is a player, you’d likely want to be able to interact with him.

Maybe, for a birthday present, the owners could make a reasonable offer to the players today? No? I guess that is asking a lot.

Coming off a season where he led the league in hits (and led the league in errors), I’d imagine he’d be wanting to get on the field as soon as possible.

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

Brad Mills turns 37 today. Not the Brad Mills who was manager of the Astros, back in the tanking days.

Brad was a left-handed pitcher who the Jays picked in the 22nd round of the 2006 draft, but didn’t sign, and then picked him in the 4th round of the 2007 draft, and this time they came to an agreement. I wonder how many times a team has picked the same player in the draft two years in a row?

Mills had a pretty quick rise through the Jays minor league system. I remember thinking he was a pretty decent prospect. In 2008 he made it to Double-A. And, in 2009, he got called up to the majors, making two starts for the Jays. Unfortunately, they weren’t successful ones, giving up a total of 12 earned in 7.2 innings.

Over the next two seasons, he pitched in 12 Jays games, having about the same level of success.

After the 2011 season, he was traded to the Angels for Jeff Mathis. He bounced around to a few different teams before the Jays took him off waivers from the A’s in 2014. He made two relief appearances (13 earned in 4.1 innings) and was allowed to leave as a free agent at the end of the season. The A’s and Mariners each gave him a look, but he was out of baseball after the 2016 season. He also had a season in Japan.

Happy Birthday, Brad.

Felipe Crespo turns 49 today.

Felipe was a 3rd round pick in the 1990 draft in 1990 out of Notre Dame, but not the college, a high school in Puerto Rico. A switch-hitting infielder

He had a slow but steady rise through our minor league system. He played 22 games for the Jays in 1996 (hitting .184/.375/.265). It is too bad he didn’t hit a little better, since Tomas Perez didn’t exactly have a lock on the second base job. And he played 12 games in 1997, hitting a better .286/.333/.465, getting into a couple of April games as a defensive replacement and then playing more as a September callup.

In 1998 Felipe spent the full season with the Jays, hitting .262/.342/.362 in 66 games, mostly as a defensive replacement/utility player. He played all over the field. He was released in spring training in 1999.

After that, he bounced around from the Giants, Phillies, Reds and Marlins and spent some time in Japan.

Career he played 262 games, hitting .245/.330/.380.

Happy Birthday, Crespo.

Phil Roof turns 81 today. Phil spent most of his career as a backup catcher, playing 15 seasons in the majors. His last MLB action was 5 hitless at-bats with the Jays in 1977. Career he hit .215/.283/.319 in 857 games (most of them with the Twins and A’s). My only memory of him was his baseball card. As a kid, I could have sworn his card was in every pack I bought.

If you want 50 of this card, I’m pretty sure I have them somewhere:

Brian Lesher turns 51 today. He played 24 games for the Jays in 2002 at the end of a five-year career, where he totalled 108 major league games. He was a first baseman that didn’t show much power (though he did have some home runs in the minors, including 21 for the Edmonton Trappers back when I went to some games.

Happy Birthday Brian and Phil.