Blue Jays: Assembling the all-time team of biggest busts

Every professional team in sports has made personnel moves they regret, and that’s just part of the game. Who are the biggest “busts” in Blue Jays history by position? Let’s have a look.

When you think of the word “bust” in professional sports, it usually pertains to draft picks. That’s certainly a fair way to look at things, but in my mind the word bust can pertain more than just a minor leaguer who was supposed to be a star.

We’ve watched it happen in Toronto many times over the years with draft picks who were supposed to pan out, but also with free agents who were supposed to push the Blue Jays from a pretender into a contender. It’s happened a few times more recently, but there are also several cases throughout the 41 year history of the team that have been forgotten, especially by the modern Blue Jay fan.

We saw the fruits of a recent example this past week, as the Blue Jays designated Jaime Garcia for assignment before the end of his first season with the team. While Garcia wasn’t expected be an ace by any means, I don’t think many people expected him to be healthy and dropped from the Blue Jays’ roster before the end of the year.

For every Roy Halladay, Carlos Delgado, or Josh Donaldson, there have been plenty of Garcia’s who haven’t lived up to expectations. If we were to break it down by position, who have been the biggest “busts” in Blue Jays history?

The outfield

LF- Travis Snider

Before Vladimir Guerrero Jr., I can’t personally remember a Blue Jay minor leaguer that was hyped more than Travis Snider.

He broke into the big leagues as a 20 year old, and looked like a lock to be a middle of the order hitter in Toronto for a long time. Not surprisingly he had a tough time adjusting to the big leagues in the early part of his career, so the Blue Jays made a bit of a habit of sending him down to Buffalo when he started to struggle.

Unfortunately that never really changed throughout his time as a Blue Jay, as he continued to yo-yo up and down in the system, and never really grabbed a full-time job for any extend length of time. You could argue that the Blue Jays never gave him the full opportunity he should have had, but hindsight is 20/20, and it’s hard to say if that would have made a difference.

He last appeared in a big league game in 2015 with the Pittsburgh Pirates.

CF- Colby Rasmus

One of Alex Anthopoulos’ biggest moves in the early part of his tenure as the Blue Jays GM was to trade for Colby Rasmus of the St. Louis Cardinals.

At the time he looked like a budding star with the potential to bring five tools to the table with a new team. He was a combination of power and speed the Blue Jays had been looking for in centre field, and he was supposed to lock down the position for years to come when he arrived in 2004.

While he showed plenty of flashes of promise, he was never truly able to put it together in Toronto, or elsewhere for that matter. His best season came in 2013 when he hit .276/.338/.501 with 22 home runs and 66 RBI in 118 games. Unfortunately he was unable to build on, or even repeat those numbers, and he’s barely hanging on these days.

Now 32, Rasmus appeared has appeared in 18 games with the Orioles in 2018, hitting .133/.204/.222 in just 45 at bats.

RF- Dalton Pompey

I’m cheating here because Pompey is really more of a centre fielder, and has appeared more in left than in right field. Still, when I thought about the outfielders of the last four-plus decades, he’s one name that really stuck out as a disappointment. I considered making an argument for Jose Cruz Jr., mostly because of the hype that came with him when he arrived from Seattle, but instead I’ll go with the current member of the organization.

Pompey was supposed to be the centre fielder of the future in Toronto. Maybe that was unfair pressure to put on a former 16th round pick, and was probably as much about his being from Missisauga as anything. That said, he’s a talented guy and looked like he could profile as the leadoff hitter the Blue Jays needed, and the speedy gloveman in centre.

After a failed attempt as a rookie in 2014, Pompey has battled injuries for several years now and has spent this season in Buffalo. The rope could be getting awfully short for him, and I’m not sure there’s a guarantee that he’s still around this team next year, but that remains to be seen.

DH- Frank Thomas

If Kendrys Morales had been designated for assignment back when he was struggling in May, he’d likely occupy this spot right now. Instead he’s completely turned his season around and has been arguably the best hitter on the Blue Jays this year. Who woulda thunk it?

Instead of Morales taking the spot, I believe it still belongs to a Hall of Famer who spent some late tiem in his career in Toronto. The Blue Jays signed Frank Thomas to a two year deal after 16 seasons with the White Sox.

He managed to overcome a very slow start to his first year in Toronto to put up 26 home runs and 95 RBI, but it was clear that the fit was anything but perfect. After another rough beginning to his season in his age 40 season in 2008, Thomas quickly grew frustrated by being benched, and even blamed the his contract incentives for his time out of the lineup, despite his .167 batting average.

He was eventually released and landed in Oakland, where he would finish out the season, and his storied career. It’s too bad things didn’t go better for him in Toronto, as it was pretty cool seeing the giant stand in the box while wearing the Blue Jay colours.

The Rotation

This was arguably the most difficult spot to choose from, as there have been plenty of failed pitching experiments over the years, and lots of draft picks who didn’t fulfill their promise.

Pitching is the most difficult spot to develop for big league teams, and the bullpen is often made up of failed starters, so the tales are endless here. For every success story there are usually 10, 20, or 50 failed arms that couldn’t quite cut it in a big league rotation. There’s a reason the best are so sought after and highly paid.

For the Blue Jays you could make a list of a couple dozen worthwhile candidates throughout franchise history, but I’ve done my best to narrow it down to five. Feel free to disagree with me, as there are plenty of good choices here.

1- Mike Sirotka

Traded to the Blue Jays from the White Sox, Sirotka was the centre piece that came back when Toronto shipped David Wells to Chicago. Sirotka had just come off a season with a 15-10 record and a 3.79 ERA across 193 innings pitched, and looked like a solid piece in return for Wells at the time.

Unfortunately the former White Sox hurler never threw a pitch in a Blue Jay uniform, as a torn labrum kept him from continuing his professional career in Toronto. That one didn’t work out so well for the Blue Jays.

2- Josh Johnson

Back in 2013, the Blue Jays pulled off a major blockbuster with the Marlins and looked like they could be real contenders for the American League pennant. Sending minor leaguers  and other pieces south, the Blue Jays acquired Jose Reyes, Mark Buehrle, Emilio Bonifacio, John Buck, and the centre-piece of the deal, Josh Johnson.

Then-GM Alex Anthopoulos had had interested in Johnson for years, and he was finally able to pry him away from the Marlins and bring him in to bolster a Blue Jays rotation that already featured Ricky Romero and Brandon Morrow. It was supposed to be a move that turned the Blue Jays into contenders, but instead it backfired in many ways.

Johnson was never productive as a Blue Jay, making just 16 starts in Toronto. He signed a few minor league deals afterward, but he was never healthy enough to make it back to the big leagues after that trade.

3- Kyle Drabek

I mentioned that I would get back to the return for Roy Halladay later, and this is that time. Drabek was the centre-piece of the trade that sent Halladay to Philadelphia, and it was rumoured that the Phillies were very reluctant to give up on him back then.

The son of a former NL Cy Young winner (Doug Drabek), Kyle was unable to find his form at the highest level despite showing promise throughout the minor league system. He threw 172.1 innings as a Blue Jay over five years, and was last seen in the Diamondbacks’ bullpen in 2016.

4- Erik Hanson

Brought in as a free agent and a potential difference maker, Hanson was anything but in a Blue Jays uniform. After making the AL All-Star team the year before as a member of the Red Sox, the Blue Jays signed him away thinking they had picked up a significant arm to shore up their rotation. Unfortunately things never worked out that way.

Over the span of three seasons, Hanson started 45 games for the Blue Jays, pitching to a 5.63 ERA, and a 1.679 WHIP. He did managed 214.2 innings in his first season, but that came along with a 5.41 ERA, a 13-17 record, and represented the highlight of his career in Toronto.

 5- Deck McGuire

I very nearly listed Ricky Romero as the fifth member of the All-Time Busts team, but there’s someone else that deserves the spot even more.

You might remember Deck McGuire from a short stint with the Blue Jays earlier in the 2018 season, but he was actually a first round pick of the team back in 2010 as well.

The draft is infamous because it featured the likes of Bryce Harper and Manny Machado in the first three picks, and the Blue Jays selected McGuire with the 11th pick in the first round. While some pitching prospects miss, it was what came after McGuire that truly made this one sting.

Chosen in the first round after the 11th pick were: Chris Sale, Christian Yelich, Aaron Sanchez, Noah Syndergaard, and more. Ouch.

Bullpen

I could have rolled with a seven man bullpen here, but I decided to include a top-5, much in the same way the rotation is laid out. Call it wrong, call it lazy, that’s how I decided to do things here.

1- B.J. Ryan

The Blue Jays blew the walls off the bank safe when they signed Ryan to a five year, 47 million dollar deal. It was the biggest contract for a reliever at the time, and it was supposed to solidify the Blue Jays closer position for years to come.

Instead, the Blue Jays got an outstanding first year, followed by a pile of injury troubles. In all he would pitch in 155.1 innings in his four seasons in Toronto, not even surviving the life of his contract.

2- Robert Person

In a trade that sent John Olerud away from the Blue Jays (what were they thinking?!?), Robert Person was supposed to be a starter with solid potential, or at worst a high end late-inning reliever.

However, he had a 5.61 ERA in 22 starts in his first season as a Blue Jay, and eventually moved to the bullpen in an effort to soak some value out of the hard-throwing righty. He would go on to have a couple decent seasons in Philadelphia, but never panned out the way the Blue Jays and their fans hoped he would.

3- Kerry Ligtenberg

Coming off several productive seasons with the Braves and Orioles, Ligtenberg was supposed to be the missing piece for the Blue Jays bullpen. Unfortunately he was not the same pitcher once he arrived north of the border, finished with a 6.08 ERA in 57 appearances in his only season as a Blue Jay in 2004.

He tried to rectify things in 2005 with the Diamondbacks, but a recently productive career quickly went south. He was out of the big leagues by the age of 34, and that was the end.

4- Ken Dayley

Ken Dayley had been a lights out left-hander for the St. Louis Cardinals for several years, and the Blue Jays really thought they were shoring up their bullpen when he joined them prior to the 1991 season.

For all the excitement, Dayley only threw five innings over the course of his Blue Jays career, appearing in eight games in 1991, and another two in 1993. Oops.

5- Roberto Osuna

Last but not least, I had to include the former Blue Jays closer, even if he doesn’t really belong here based on his on-field contributions in Toronto.

The only reason I’ve included him here is because of what he “should have been” for the Blue Jays, or maybe more accurately, “could have been”. His legal proceedings are ongoing, and now that he’s a member of the Houston Astros he’s really not a problem for the Blue Jays anymore, except when he’s the opponent.

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That said, for a guy that had/has as much promise and value to the Blue Jays organization less than a year ago, it’s sure a shame to see how things ended between the two parties. I won’t comment on his situation beyond that, but regardless of whether he’s guilty or not, it’s hard to swallow what could have been with the talented Mexican closer. By many accounts, he was supposed to be a Blue Jays legend, and instead it ended with the front office selling him to the highest bidder, and getting him out of town as quickly as they could.

So. how did I do? By now I’m sure you’re thinking about several names that I missed, and like I said above, there are great arguments to include many other players throughout the history of the franchise.

Feel free to include those omissions in the comments section, tell me why I’m wrong, or whatever you need to do to feel better. Talking about the biggest busts in franchise history has a way of making us all feel a little frustrated.