Blue Jays: The All Former Jays All-Star team for the 2019 season

The bench and the bullpen

I went with a 4-man bench, and the options started to dwindle on me pretty quickly. That said, it’s still a reasonably talented veteran group.

Bench- Curtis Granderson (MIA)- .183/.281/.356, 12 HR, 17 doubles, 34 RBI, -0.6 bWAR
Bench- Ryan Goins (CHI)- .250/.333/.347, 52 games played, 0.2 bWAR
Bench- Adeiny Hechavarria (ATL)- .241/.299/.443, 9 HR, 12 doubles, 0.9 bWAR
Bench- Russell Martin (LAD)- 220/.337/.330, 6 HR, 20 RBI, 0.8 bWAR 

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I could have given the back-up catching job to Jeff Mathis, but his -1.6 bWAR was enough to scare me off, and seemingly should be enough for the Rangers as well you would think. Martin didn’t do a whole lot in L.A. this season, but he’ll get a chance to pursue a World Series ring with the Dodgers this fall, as will Hechavarria in Atlanta. Goins ended up playing in 52 games for the White Sox and wasn’t all that bad.

Bullpen

RP- Roberto Osuna (HOU)- 2.63 ERA, 0.877 WHIP, 38 saves, 2.0 bWAR
RP- Liam Hendriks (OAK)- 1.80 ERA, 0.965 WHIP, 25 saves, 3.5 bWAR
RP- Miguel Castro (BAL)- 4.66 ERA, 1.418 WHIP, 73.1 IP, 0.6 bWAR
RP- Tyler Clippard (CLE)- 2.90 ERA, 0.855 WHIP, 62.0 IP, 1.4 bWAR
RP- Jesse Chavez (TEX)- 4.85 ERA, 1.333 WHIP, 78.1 IP, 0.8 bWAR
RP- Jeremy Jeffress (MIL)- 5.02 ERA, 1.365 WHIP, 52.0 IP, -0.4 bWAR
RP- Sam Dyson (SF)- 3.32 ERA, 1.059 WHIP, 62.1 IP, 0.9 bWAR

The opposite of this hypothetical starting rotation, the bullpen is made up of all right-handed pitchers. Lead by Osuna and Hendricks, this group wouldn’t be too bad at all. They could use a lefty and a more dedicated long-man, but they would have a lockdown back end of the bullpen, and enough veteran experience to be formidable in the middle innings.

Add it up and the 25 man roster made up of former Blue Jays was worth 37.7 wins above replacement. According to sportsreference.com, a replacement level team would be worth 52 wins, so therefore this fictional team would win approximately 89.7 games, or rounded up we can call it 90. That would have put them six games back of the Tampa Bay Rays for the second Wild Card spot in the AL, and three games behind Cleveland, who was just on the outside of the picture. To be honest, that’s actually much better than I would have expected.