Munenori Kawasaki turns 44 today.
Kawasaki played with the Blue Jays for two seasons and a few games of a third. He hit .242/.326/.301 in 201 games, which added up to a 1.6 bWAR.
He also played a season for the Mariners and Cubs and, of course, 12 seasons in the Japan Pacific League.
Of course, it wasn’t his play that we loved. It was his personality.
Examples:
He gave perhaps the most famous post-game interview in Blue Jays history.
And, as always, he was a fan favourite.
I liked that he reminded me that baseball is entertainment. He was entertaining.
Happy Birthday, Munenori.
Jose Molina turns 50 today.
Molina was your basic good glove/bad bat type catcher.
He played 15 seasons in the majors, playing for five different teams. Two of the seasons, 2010 and 2011, were with the Jays. He played 112 games with the Jays, hitting .263/.323/.396 with 9 home runs, which isn’t bad. He hit better with the Jays than any other team, a 94 OPS+, when his career number was 64. Maybe it was Cito’s coaching.
He hit .233/.282/.327 in his career with 39 home runs in 947 games. He played for the Cubs, Angels, Yankees, Jays, and Rays. It was his glove that kept him in the game all those years. He threw out 37% of base stealers, and his pitchers talked highly of him. His brothers Yadier and Bengie were also catchers in the majors. Bengie (who lost out when his parents gave names) spent a second with the Jays.
Happy Birthday, Jose.
Nelson Liriano turns 61 today.
Nelson was a Blue Jay from 1987 until halfway through the 1990 season.
He played 37 games for us in his rookie season, hitting .241/.310/.342, and somehow he earned Rookie of the Year votes. Well, he got a Rookie of the Year vote. He must have saved a Writer’s cat from a tree or something.
1988, he played 99 games, hitting .264/.297/.333. He played 132 games in 1989, plus 3 in our ALCS loss to the A’s. In 1990, he played 50 games for us, and then, at the end of July, he was traded to the Twins for John Candelaria.
He played 318 games for the Jays, hit .251/.311/.345 with 11 home runs and 44 steals, good for a 2.2 bWAR.
After Toronto, he played for the Twins, Royals, Rockies, Pirates, Dodgers, and Rockies. In total, he played 11 seasons, hit .260/.324/.366 with 25 home runs, 26 triples (how many guys play 11 seasons and have more triples than homers?).
He was replacement level for his career. He was average defensively and somewhat less than average with the bat, but he played 823 games, so he had something that managers wanted.
We had a stretch of weak-hitting second basemen there for a while: Garth Iorg, Manny Lee, and Nelson, which makes you understand why we traded for Roberto Alomar.
Happy birthday, Nelson.
It is also Eric Lauer’s 30th birthday.
He’s pitched in 126 games in the majors, 114 starts with a 4.25 ERA.
Happy Birthday, Eric.