Jose Reyes turns 42 today.
In November 2012, Jose Reyes joined us in a big trade with the Marlins. The exchange saw Reyes, Josh Johnson, Mark Buehrle, Jose Reyes, outfielder Emilio Bonifacio, and catcher John Buck come to Toronto. Yunel Escobar, Adeiny Hechavarria, Henderson Alvarez, Justin Nicolino, Jake Marisnick, Jeff Mathis, and Anthony DeSclafani going to Florida.
It was the first in a series of big moves that ‘won us the off-season.’ By all reports, Reyes was the piece that then-GM Alex Anthopoulos wanted, and it grew from there.
The trade didn’t work out well for us. Johnson made 16 bad starts, was injured, and never pitched in the majors again. Emilio Bonifacio was terrible offensively and defensively, and we traded him in mid-season. John Buck was flipped to the Mets. Mark Buehrle stayed around the longest.
Reyes? Well, he was injured a bunch and didn’t quite live up to expectations. He was with the Blue Jays for two and a half seasons.
In 2013, he hit .296/.353/.427 with 15 steals in 93 games. Unfortunately, he wrecked his ankle on April 12th and missed over two months of the season. When he returned, he had trouble pushing off that foot, which hurt his defensive range.
2014 could have been better. Jose hit .287/.328/.398 with 30 stolen bases. Defensively, he made 19 errors, and his range wasn’t what it used to be.
2015 was more of the same, but radio broadcaster Jerry Howarth made it a personal mission to run him out of town. Reyes had made some errors in the worst possible movements, and Howarth didn’t like that Reyes could be happy on the bench even when the team wasn’t winning.
I could understand Jerry’s grumpiness. The season (to that point) wasn’t going well (after a couple of years that didn’t go as well as we hoped), but it seemed overkill.
Anyway, the Jays traded Reyes with Miguel Castro, Jeff Hoffman (he’s back), and Jesus Tinoco for Troy Tulowitzki and LaTroy Hawkins.
That trade and trades for David Price, Mark Lowe, and Ben Revere, plus the return of Marcus Stroman from the IL, lit a fire under the Jays, and they went 40-18 over the last two months of the season. Jerry may be right, and Reyes was holding back the team. Troy was a little studier on defense. He would have his injury issues while with the team.
Reyes finished out 2015 with the Rockies, took out some frustrations on his wife (that’s shorthand for grabbing his wife by the throat and shoving her into a door), was suspended, and the Rockies released him without playing a game for the team in 2016. He signed with the Mets and played for them from 2016 to 2018.
In Reyes’ 2.5 seasons with the team, he hit .289/.334/.404 with 61 stolen bases in 305 games.
In his 16-year MLB career, he hit .283/.334/.427 with 145 home runs and 517 stolen bases in 1877 games. A pretty nice career.
Ezequiel Carrera turns 38 today.
Carrera spent the last three years of his seven-year career with the Jays, from 2015 to 2017. He mainly played corner outfield spots.
I’ll admit I wasn’t a huge fan. He hit .273/.321/.372 in 2015 in 91 games in 2015 and .248/.323/.356 in 110 games in 2016.
The saving grace was that he was terrific in the playoffs in 2016, going 2 for 4 in the Wild Card game against the Orioles. Then, he hit .333/.429/.583 with a home run in our three-game series win over the Rangers in the ALDS. He didn’t hit much in our ALCS loss to Cleveland, but none of the Jays hit in that series.
Carrera had his best season with the bat in 2017, hitting .282/.356/.408, but he still had a -0.1 bWAR because of his defense. If you don’t remember, he took Gurrielian routes to fly balls without having the great arm to make up for it.
After being released by the Jays after the 2017 season, he signed with the Braves, Mets, and Dodgers but never returned to the majors.
Besides the defense, my lasting memory was his occasion hit on a pitch at head level.
He was a replacement-level player. I said once that if you have to have a replacement-level player, he was likely as good as any. The problem was he played too much. And, for a lefty hitter, he didn’t have much of a platoon split (career .660 OPS against lefties and .698 against right-handers), so he wasn’t a great platoon player. In addition, he needed to play defense better if you wanted him to go in as a defensive replacement.
He played seven seasons, hit .262/.324/.365 with 19 home runs and 44 stolen bases in 508 games (332 with the Jays).
Happy Birthday, Ezequiel.