Blue Jays Level of Excellence: Is Jesse Barfield worthy?

Should the Toronto Blue Jays enshrine Jesse Barfield on the Level of Excellence honouring him as one of the Jays all-time greats, here is how Barfield stacks up versus his former teammate George Bell?

Much of the Level of Excellence chatter of late has surrounded the unfortunate passing of Roy Halladay and when the Blue Jays will officially give the late hurler his much-deserved recognition on the wall.

However last evening while I was perusing the Jays Journal Twitter feed I saw a tweet from “Blue Jays Dad” asking the question about the omission of Jesse Barfield on the wall which then sent me to compare the stat lines of both Barfield and George Bell who is enshrined on the wall.

Both Bell and Barfield spent 9 nine seasons with the Blue Jays and along with Lloyd Moseby formed arguably the best outfield trio in Blue Jays history.

On a head to head comparison level here is how Barfield stacks up versus Bell during their days north of the border.

Bell: 1181 games- .286/.325/.486 with 202 home runs, 740 runs batted in and 59 stolen bases.

Barfield: 1032 games- .265/.334/.483 with 179 home runs, 527 runs batted in and 55 stolen bases.

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Barfield accumulated a 29.5 WAR while with Toronto compared to that of Bell who totalled a 21.1 WAR during his tenure.

In 1987 Bell was awarded the American League MVP honours and also took home 3 Silver Slugger awards along with 2 All-Star nods.

Barfield collected some hardware of his own winning a Gold Glove on two occasions coupled with a Silver Slugger and an All-Star appearance.

Bell may have had an edge offensively, however, Barfield was in a league of his own on the defensive side of the game and for that deserves to be celebrated on the Level of Excellence. On four occasions Barfield led all right fielders in assists and three times turned the most double plays among anyone at his position.

Next: Blue Jays: Dissecting the Donaldson trade three years later

Barfield unequivocally deserves to be etched on the wall for fans to appreciate his accomplishments north of the border for years to come. Barfield is 100% worthy and the Jays need to make it happen sooner than later.