Blue Jays: Top ten designated hitters in franchise history

TORONTO, CANADA – APRIL 13: Jose Bautista #19 of the Toronto Blue Jays is presented the Silver Slugger Award by former player Carlos Delgado and George Bell before the start of MLB game action against the Tampa Bay Rays on April 13, 2015 at Rogers Centre in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. (Photo by Tom Szczerbowski/Getty Images)

The Blue Jays have had some very productive designated hitters over the years. Let’s have a look at who might top the list of the best DH in franchise history.

As we continue to wait for baseball to return in North America, I can’t help but look back and think about teams and players of the past. And as I’ve done with building the ultimate, all-time Blue Jays lineup, and then the same for a pitching staff, I can’t help but do some rankings while I’m reminiscing.

With that in mind, I thought it might be fun to look back at the best designated hitters the Blue Jays have employed over the years, and do a quick little ranking on them as well. I’ll be using a very imperfect system (my own opinion), and largely basing it on what they did as a designated hitter for the Blue Jays, ignoring any defensive value they may or may not have brought with them. I’ll provide the numbers from their peak season, and in some cases, that one year will be where I’m basing all of the value they brought to the blue birds.

There are plenty of familiar names on the list, and maybe a couple that could surprise you as well. I did make sure to go back and look at the numbers from every season from 1977 up to the present, and as always I’ve done my best to avoid recency bias as much as I can.

I’ll count them down from 10, saving the best for last, and of course, you’re more than welcome to tell me how wrong I am in the comments section below.

The Blue Jays have had some very productive designated hitters over the years. Let’s have a look at who might top the list of the best DH in franchise history.

Schedule