Blue Jays: Combining generations for an all-time pitching staff

Earlier in the week we looked at an all-time Blue Jays lineup if you combined all generations of the team. What would the pitching staff look like?

Since we don’t have any real baseball to watch, many of us have been getting our baseball fix by watching classic games of our favourite team, with many Blue Jays games being aired on Sportsnet lately.

Watching some of these old games has got me thinking about all kinds of “fantasy” questions, including what a team made up of the best Blue Jays of all time would look like. I ended up writing an article about what that lineup and bench could look like earlier in the week, and as promised, I’d like to take a stab at the all-time pitching staff as well.

Just as there was with the lineup, there are some obvious cases of who would make the team, and then plenty of arguments for some of the final spots. Once again, I tried to avoid having too much of a recency bias, and to that end I even spent time digging into the pitching stats from the 80’s, and even the late 70’s, and hopefully all generations of the Blue Jays are properly represented.

As I did in the article about the lineup, I also included a peak season for each pitcher. I didn’t base all of the choices off of just that one season, but instead tried to focus on each player’s peak as a Blue Jay, while using that top season to reinforce the argument.

Without any further adieu, let’s have a look at who I’ve selected for my all-time Blue Jays pitching staff.

A Pair Of Aces

1- Roy Halladay
2003 Stats: 22-7, 3.25 ERA, 1.071 WHIP, 204 K, 266 IP, 8.1 bWAR

There arguably may have been better individual seasons from Blue Jays pitchers, but no one else has made a bigger impact on the mound in Toronto than Roy Halladay.

The Hall of Famer was at his best in 2003 when he picked up the AL Cy Young Award, an honour he likely should have had more than once during his tenure in the American League with the Blue Jays. We could have easily used his 2008 campaign or others as well, as he was a dominant force in Toronto for parts of 12 seasons.

2- Roger Clemens
1997 Stats: 21-7, 2.05 ERA, 1.030 WHIP, 292 K, 264 IP, 11.9 bWAR

When I mentioned above that there were better individual seasons to look at, I mostly had Clemens in mind with that statement.

He was only in a Blue Jays uniform for two seasons, but no pitcher has ever made a bigger impact in such a short time. He won the Cy Young award in both 1997 and 1998, and earned an incredible 20.0 bWAR during that time as a Blue Jay. He also struck out a remarkable 563 batters over those two seasons, all of this after the Red Sox thought he was done with the peak of his career. It didn’t last long and ended with a trade to the Yankees, but the Red Sox miscalculation was the Blue Jays’ gain for two magical seasons.

Rounding Out The Rotation

3- Dave Stieb
1984 Stats: 16-8, 2.83 ERA, 1.135 WHIP, 198 K, 267 IP, 7.9 bWAR

After what I consider to be the undisputed top two in Halladay and Clemens, things get a little more open for debate. That said, there’s no way you can have an all-time Blue Jays rotation without Dave Stieb.

The slider artist enjoyed a fine career with the Blue Jays, and likely didn’t get the credit he deserved for his work at the time. Although he was a 7x All-Star, he never finished higher than 4th in Cy Young award voting, and with the benefit of the advanced data we have today, that could have been different.

Either way, Stieb’s 56.8 bWAR over parts of 15 seasons definitely makes the list, and you can take your pick of several fine seasons in a Blue Jays uniform.

4- Pat Hentgen
1996 Stats: 20-10, 3.22 ERA, 1.250 WHIP, 160 K, 264 IP, 8.6 bWAR

The Blue Jays have had three Cy Young Award winners in franchise history, and I figured that meant that Hentgen should join Halladay and Clemens on this list as well.

At his best Hentgen was an outstanding starting pitcher, earning 8.6 bWAR during his Cy Young campaign in 1996. He had several other productive seasons in Toronto throughout his career, but that was certainly his peak. He was also a different pitcher than a typical Cy Young winner of that era, more frequently pitching to contact. You can’t argue with the results.

5- Jimmy Key
1987 Stats: 17-8, 2.76 ERA, 1.057 WHIP, 161 K, 262 IP, 7.4 bWAR

I considered plenty of options for the fifth and final spot in the rotation including Juan Guzman, David Wells, and even Jim Clancy, but I ultimately had to go with Jimmy Key.

There were a lot of similarities to Hentgen for Key, in that he had a long and successful career as a Blue Jay, plenty of productive seasons, and a very good peak year. In 1987, Key arguably should have won the Cy Young award when he led the AL in ERA and WHIP, but he fell just shy of Roger Clemens, who was outstanding with the Red Sox that year, and a worthy winner. Still, Key doesn’t get the credit he deserves for what he did in Toronto, and in my mind he’s the guy to round out the rotation.

The Bullpen

1- Tom Henke
1989 Stats: 8-3, 1.92 ERA, 1.022 WHIP, 20 saves, 3.4 bWAR

There are plenty of people around baseball that believe that Tom Henke could have been a Hall of Famer if he had pitched for more than the 12 full seasons he did (pitched in parts of 14 total). Regardless, he was an excellent reliever during the time he was active.

Henke was the “Terminator” for the Blue Jays during their 1992 World Series championship, but was arguably at his best in 1989 with a 1.92 ERA.

2- Duane Ward
1993 Stats: 2-3, 2.13 ERA, 1.033 WHIP, 45 saves, 3.0 bWAR

After Henke left for Texas in 1993, the Blue Jays were fortunate to be able to pass the closer’s role into the capable hands of Duane Ward. He was arguably even better as a set-up man in 1992 with a 1.95 ERA, but fortunately it didn’t matter much whether he was pitching the eighth or the ninth inning. He was lights out either way.

3- Mark Eichhorn
1986 Stats: 14-6, 1.72 ERA, 0.955 WHIP, 10 saves, 157.0 IP, 7.3 bWAR

Mark Eichhorn’s 1986 season was the kind that you just don’t see from a reliever anymore. During his rookie campaign that year, he ended up appearing in 69 games and finishing 38 of them, without making a single start.

He was so dominant in the long reliever role that he earned a third place finish in Rookie of the Year voting, and even placed sixth in the Cy Young award category.

4- David Wells
1990 Stats- 11-6, 3.14, 1.111 WHIP, 189 IP, 4.3 bWAR

I’m cheating a little bit by including Wells in the bullpen, but he did have a successful stint as a reliever in the early part of his career in Toronto, so I’m doing it anyway.

He split the 1990 season between the bullpen and the rotation, and was successful either way, earning 4.3 bWAR for his efforts.