During the playoffs, teams not in the playoffs tend not to make news. MLB frowns on any team making news that might detract from the playoffs. Not that it isn’t very possible that the Jays wouldn’t give us anything to talk about anyway.
I guess the announcement of the Gold Glove finalists is news. Two Jays are ‘nominated’ (‘nominated’ in this case means that they are in the top three in voting).
Daulton Varsho is one of the three center fielders (Jake Meyers, Astros, Jarren Duran, and Red Sox are the other two). Daulton better win.
Ernie Clement is one of the three third basemen. The other two are Alex Bergman of the Astros and Jose Ramirez of the Guardians.
But let’s ask a question:
Which player in Blue Jays history did you have the highest hopes for but didn’t live up to your expectations?
There are many ways you could go with this, but my answer, at this moment, is Travis Snider. Snider was our top prospect and came up and wasn’t bad. In 2008, at just 20 years old, he came up and played 24 games, hitting .301/.338/.466.
The next year, at 21, he played 77 games and hit .241/.328/.419 (not all that bad for a 21-year-old. 2010 he hit .255/.304/.463 in 82 games.
There were things I didn’t understand. He was a top prospect on a team that would finish 11 games out of first. Why couldn’t we play him every day? He had a .767 OPS, still at 22. Why not play him every day?
In 2011, he played just 49 games for us. On July 30th, 2012, he was traded to the Pirates after playing just 10 games.
Anyway, he spent three seasons in Pittsburgh, hitting .244/.314/.388 and playing 311 games. He also spent a year with the Orioles.
I thought he was mismanaged a bit. If you are bringing up a guy at 21, you should put him in the lineup and leave him there. But the Jays had many issues then, and they weren’t good at putting young guys in the lineup. They would prefer to use the Kevin Millars, Brad Wilkersons, and Kevin Menchs of the world instead. If a guy comes up at 20-21, you gotta play him.
Anyway, it’s your turn. You don’t have to write 400 words on your choice, but give us your choice and reasoning.