Blue Jays All-Star team over the last decade (2010-2019)

Since we’re coming to the end of the decade in a few months, lets look back at the greatest Blue Jays to put on the uniform from 2010-2019.

I saw an inspirational post the other day that said, “you have less than three months left in this decade. Make ’em count”. Since I can’t remember setting any specific goals for the 2010’s, let’s just say I’ve already accomplished them and say we’re good here.

However, it did get me thinking about how much my life has changed over the last decade, and that inevitably got me thinking about baseball, and then, how much things have changed for my beloved Toronto Blue Jays. The last ten years have brought futility in the early years, the end of a playoff drought in the middle, and the start of a new rebuild to finish off the decade.

It also got me thinking about the best players to put on a Blue Jays uniform over that timeframe, and what that team might look like if you assembled a group of the best of them. So, I decided to go ahead and do just that.

Naturally there are a lot of players from those 2015-16 playoff teams, but I think some of you will be surprised to see a few names pop up on this imaginary All-Star team I’ve created here. There’s no scientific system to how they were selected either, although I have highlighted their best season by bWAR to at least show some justification.

So without further adieu, who were the best Blue Jays of the last 10 years? Let’s have a look at a team made up of ’em.

The lineup

The Blue Jays have had some talented hitters grace their lineup over the last decade, especially during the playoff seasons of 2015-16 when the “New Jacks” put fear into American League pitchers.

There were some impressive offensive performances outside of those two seasons as well though, which you’ll see below. Although there were some impressive rookie performances in 2019, I chose not to include any of this year’s emerging rookies, mostly because I don’t feel that they’ve quite earned the spot just yet, and again, these are my made-up rules.

Here’s how I’ve drawn it up:

RF- Jose Bautista (2011- 8.3 bWAR)
CF- Vernon Wells (2010- 4.0 bWAR)
LF- Colby Rasmus (2013-4.9 bWAR)
1B- Justin Smoak (2017- 3.5 bWAR)
2B- Devon Travis (2016- 3.0 bWAR)
SS- Yunel Escobar (2011- 4.8 bWAR)
3B- Josh Donaldson (2015- 8.5 bWAR)
C-  Russell Martin (2015- 3.0 bWAR)
DH- Edwin Encarnacion (2012- 5.0 bWAR)

Starting with the no-brainers, Bautista, Donaldson, and Encarnacion were going to make this made-up team, and I just highlighted their best season in terms of WAR. I could have used a few examples for each of them and they would have been included regardless. Martin was easily the best choice at catcher, and Travis’ inclusion reflects the lack of high-end options at second base over the past ten years rather than a standout performance. I’ll also admit that I took great joy in putting Escobar down over another notable shortstop or two, but I genuinely feel he was more valuable to the Blue Jays during this decade.

I had considered another option at first base/DH, but in the end it was the combination of EE and Smoak that won out by the numbers. As most of us will remember, Smoak really started to thrive after he was thrust into the middle of the order in 2017, but he was also an important cog in the playoffs teams as well.

The hardest part to sort out was the outfield, and I ended up cheating a little bit to make it work. Rasmus wasn’t really a left fielder, although he did play there a bit as a big leaguer. I felt that his 2013 season, when he teased us with the potential that he was brought to Toronto to put together, was more impressive than the other challengers. Vernon Wells’ best days as a Blue Jay were behind him by the time 2010 rolled around, but he still put together a couple more solid campaigns before he was traded to Anaheim.

Considering that the above nine players totalled 43.6 bWAR in their best seasons over the last decade, imagine what they would have done if they would have been assembled all at the same time?

The Bench

With just four spots on a theoretical bench, you would think that it would be easier than putting together a nine-man lineup. Turns out, that’s not the case at all when you’re trying to sort through 10 years of 25-man rosters to pick four players.

Because this is more of an exercise of who performed the best rather than me trying to build an ideal team, that did help me to speed things up a bit. I decided to go with a transitional bench that included a back-up catcher, infielder, outfielder, and then the “best of the rest” for the fourth spot. Again, this isn’t a scientific formula being used here either.

Here’s what I came up with, and feel free to debate it until you’re blue in the face.

Bench- J.P. Arencibia (2012- 1.5 bWAR)
Bench- Jose Reyes (2014- 3.2 bWAR)
Bench- Troy Tulowitzki (2016- 3.4 bWAR)
Bench- Kevin Pillar (2015- 4.9 bWAR)

There’s a good argument that I should have put Pillar in the starting lineup based on WAR, but I didn’t feel that he hits enough to be a starter, and I told you at the beginning that there were no hard and fast rules being used to make this roster. He’d be there as a late-inning defensive replacement and pinch runner, and can obviously cover all three outfield positions.

The infield picture would be pretty full, but I chose to carry Tulowitzki and Reyes, who were both legitimately beat out by Escobar for this exercise, if you ask me. They would be a little redundant, but you could probably start either of them at second base in this fictional baseball universe and slide Travis to the bench as well.

As for Arencibia, the numbers say that this spot should actually go to John Buck from the 2010 season, but I went with Arencibia for a few different reasons (again, the no real rules thing). With Martin as the starter, Arencibia wouldn’t have to be relied on for his defence, and could just start a couple times a week and try to hit home runs. That was his best skill during his short big league career anyway, so he’s the back-up catcher on my team.

I considered several others like Melky Cabrera, Adam Lind, Rajai Davis, and several players from the 2019 team, but these four were what I ultimately went with. That said, you could get 10 different people to do this exercise and you might get 10 different 4-man benches.

The Bullpen

I’ll admit right off of the bat that I didn’t do the deep dive into their stats that I could have, but that’s because of the sheer volume of relievers that have come and gone over the last ten years. You may leave a comment below with a name that I missed, and I could end up totally agreeing with you.

To round out my fictional roster, the only stipulation I added was that I wanted to include at least two left-handers, which wasn’t hard to do in the end at all. The rest, well, have a look for yourself and get ready to tell me I’m wrong.

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RP- Roberto Osuna (2016- 2.1 bWAR)
RP- Ken Giles (2019- 2.4 bWAR)
RP- Brett Cecil (2013- 1.3 bWAR)
RP- Scott Downs (2010- 1.8 bWAR)
RP- Casey Janssen (2011- 1.9 bWAR)
RP- Jason Frasor (2011- 1.1 bWAR)
RP- Ryan Tepera (2018- 1.3 bWAR)

I could have gone a whole pile of different ways, and guys like Darren Oliver, Liam Hendriks, Joaquin Benoit, Dominic Leone, Aaron Loup, and many others could have made the seven-man bullpen. I suppose it would depend on how much you weighed one successful season against a bulk contribution, but I sort of did both here.

I went with the two-headed closing monster of Osuna and Giles, even though they were traded for each other. For southpaws I went with Brett Cecil and Scott Downs, both for their body of work more than an individual season. If I had used that metric exclusively in my nonsense guidelines, Oliver would have made this team.

Janssen was a valuable contributor in a number of different roles and is a lock for a spot to help out in the mid to late innings. As for the last two jobs, I gave them to Frasor and Tepera. Neither of the righties had particularly impressive single seasons to point out, but they were both effective for more than just one campaign, and that means something to a long-time fan like yours truly.

And that brings me to the end of my 25-man roster. Since Cito Gaston coached this team over the last decade then he gets the automatic nod as the skipper. I’m sure he’d be willing to hire John Gibbons and Charlie Montoyo as bench coach and first base coach or something. You could bring Steve Delabar back to teach the weighted ball program, and maybe Omar Vizquel would come work as an infield instructor?

Who did I miss? Did anyone surprise you? Let us know in the comments below, and thanks for coming along for my trip down memory lane with the Blue Jays over the last ten years. There were highs and lows, and some memories we’ll hold on to for the rest of our lives, but here’s hoping the next decade brings a World Series championship. It’s pretty fun to think about the names that will fill out this list for 2020-2029 too.