Carlos Delgado to be added to Level of Excellence

[Parataxis]

He had the original contract that hamstrung the franchise's ability to spend (not his fault) which forced the Jays to trade (my favourite player at the time) Shawn Green, and he wouldn't stand for God Bless America -- other than that, great Jay!

That they were playing God Bless America in Toronto was the travesty.

[Strav]

[Waylon Mercy]

"Hard Rock" Delgado because he use to hit bombs to the Hard Rock Cafe still hate Riccardi
for running him out of town.

[Randle McMurphy]

:clap: "Hard Rock" Delgado because he use to hit bombs to the Hard Rock Cafe still hate Riccardi
for running him out of town.

You might want to blame Rogers for that because JP showed he would never hesitate to spend money that was there. At the end of 2004, it wasn't.

[TOStateofMind]

Well deserved. Fav player growing up along with Doc.

[Michael Bradley]

:clap: "Hard Rock" Delgado because he use to hit bombs to the Hard Rock Cafe still hate Riccardi
for running him out of town.

You might want to blame Rogers for that because JP showed he would never hesitate to spend money that was there. At the end of 2004, it wasn't.

Except after the 2004 season they gave $5.5 million to Koskie (signing bonus included), $3.9 million to Hillenbrand, and $2.5 million to Schoeneweis (all 2005 salaries only). Ricciardi could have re-signed Delgado. He may not have been able to do much else, but retaining a star is far more valuable than reallocating that money to bit players (Koskie was good at the time but an injury risk). There was no benefit to losing Delgado either as they didn't offer him arbitation, so no draft picks came with it. Just pointless all around.

Ricciardi and Rogers (Godfrey specifically since he was more hands on at the time) deserve a ton of blame for that. I believe they tried to trade him during the 2004 season and Carlos refused to waive his NTC, so I think JPR wanted him gone well before it actually happened.

As for Delgado, I echo the sentiments already said. Great player, class act. He deserves this honor.

[Randle McMurphy]

Except after the 2004 season they gave $5.5 million to Koskie (signing bonus included), $3.9 million to Hillenbrand, and $2.5 million to Schoeneweis (all 2005 salaries only). Ricciardi could have re-signed Delgado. He may not have been able to do much else, but retaining a star is far more valuable than reallocating that money to bit players (Koskie was good at the time but an injury risk). There was no benefit to losing Delgado either as they didn't offer him arbitation, so no draft picks came with it. Just pointless all around.

All minor contracts that didn't come close that didn't come anywhere close to the 4 year/52M commitment that it would have taken to sign Delgado. I get that people hate JP, but Rogers being cheap and only allowing the team to have a $45M payroll in 2005 (good for 25th in the league) is the main reason Delgado didn't play here after 2004. JP didn't have some vendetta against elite players, he would have kept him if he could have.

Ricciardi and Rogers (Godfrey specifically since he was more hands on at the time) deserve a ton of blame for that. I believe they tried to trade him during the 2004 season and Carlos refused to waive his NTC, so I think JPR wanted him gone well before it actually happened.

Yes, he wanted to trade Delgado away before he lost him for nothing due to Rogers not being willing to pay his future salary. It would have been a perfectly rational decision to make, just as it was perfectly rational for Delgado to not waive his NTC and want to stay.

It's just a shame the short-term payroll boost didn't happen a year earlier. Could have had Delgado for multiple years instead of BJ Ryan.

[Randle McMurphy]

How did the Jays manage a Pythagorean W-L of 88-74 on that 2005 payroll with no Halladay for half the year, the best full-season pitcher being Josh Towers, and nobody on the entire roster above .800 OPS except Frank Catalanotto? I'm going to chalk it up to Gibbons.

http://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/TOR/2005.shtml

[Homer Jay]

where would you rank Delgado as an all time Blue Jay.... rank him by number

Depends if you go by only their careers with the Jays or careers with other teams as well (the obvious example there would be Alomar, as he is probably the best player to wear a Jays uniform in his prime but only played here for 5 years.)

Looking only at their careers with the Jays, I think Halladay is number 1, and then maybe between Delgado, Bell, Stieb and Fernandez for number 2? I would put Delgado at number 2.

Here are the top players average WAR as a Blue Jay.I discounted early in their career seasons with less than 120 abs, or less than 20 IPs in order to keep them from skewing their average too much. Also, I didn't include Clemens or Molitor as I thought it should be a minimum 5 seasons as a BJ. Clemen's average was 9.7 thou!


Alomar: 4.2
Halladay: 4.1
Bautista: 4.0
Delgado: 3.92
Stieb: 3.59
Barfield: 3.48
Fernandez: 3.20

For all his accolades as a player Joe Carter actually had less than a 1.0 WAR each year. Talk about celebrating mediocrity. He never measured up for how popular he was. Barfield isn't mentioned for the LOE, even thou he had a much better career as a BJ than Carter.

[Randle McMurphy]

How many years did you average with Halladay? He only had 2 starts in 1998 and only 67 (terrible) innings in 2000.

[Homer Jay]

How many years did you average with Halladay? He only had 2 starts in 1998 and only 67 (terrible) innings in 2000.

I only threw out 98 with Halladay, as he was full-time in 99 and selected that as his starting point. But removing his 2000 puts him at an average 4.84. Yes, his 2000 brought down his average that much... it was probably the worst season ever pitched by a Blue Jay,

[Lateral Quicks]

How did the Jays manage a Pythagorean W-L of 88-74 on that 2005 payroll with no Halladay for half the year, the best full-season pitcher being Josh Towers, and nobody on the entire roster above .800 OPS except Frank Catalanotto? I'm going to chalk it up to Gibbons.

http://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/TOR/2005.shtml

I'm nitpicking a bit, but The Cat did have an OPS above .800, and Hillenbrand's was .792. The team had no power and no speed, but they did get on base 33% of the time.

I agree with you though, it's pretty remarkable that team did so well with that roster.

[HangTime]

If we get rid of Lind, we should sign Delgado to play 1B/DH.

[satyr9]

How did the Jays manage a Pythagorean W-L of 88-74 on that 2005 payroll with no Halladay for half the year, the best full-season pitcher being Josh Towers, and nobody on the entire roster above .800 OPS except Frank Catalanotto? I'm going to chalk it up to Gibbons.

http://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/TOR/2005.shtml

Especially when that was the year JFG was gonna break out, along with Quiroz, and we'd just robbed TB of Chad Gaudin. If someone's got Spring Training 2005 season threads, my guess is there will be multiples on each of them, I'm sure there were on Scout.com at the time (please don't find them, I remember being particularly fond of the Gaudin pick-up, at least 'til I saw him... you know... like... pitch ).

I will say that lineup makes a pretty good case that OPS is power-biased, 'cause they played pretty well even if those numbers are unremarkable in retrospect. Really if you can do a few things just well enough, there's some room for marginal success. I think it's one of the missing ingredients of Baseball's statistically analysis: what's a good enough performance? The identification of true difference making thresholds for a player, for a club, etc..., that's the goal.

And one last thing; Looking at that roster, both the names that panned out and the ones that didn't, Gord Ash probably deserves a touch more credit than he gets (yes I know where we are in relation to Gord at this point). His legacy to the subsequent GM was certainly more helpful than JP's.