A history of Toronto’s weird missteps with first basemen

Carlos Delgado

When Delgado took over Olerud, he ended up becoming the best homegrown slugger in Toronto history. After taking over first base full-time in 1997, he had a stretch of eight seasons with 30+ home runs, and 100+ RBI, He won three Sliver Sluggers, finished second in MVP voting in 2003 and produced 36.4 bWAR.

The deal: On Dec. 8, 2004, Delgado became a free agent, ending his 16-year tenure with the Blue Jays. He signed four-year, $52 million contract with the Florida Marlins in free agency.

Did it work out: No! The Blue Jays signed Delgado as an amateur free agent in 1988 and spent 16 years developing him into a legitimate superstar but didn't even get a compensation pick when he left. Blue Jays GM J.P. Ricciardi cited payroll restrictions as the reason he couldn’t meet Delgado’s contract demands.

Delgado went on to pad his numbers on his Hall of Fame resume. From 2005 to his retirement in 2009 Delgado was good for 7.6 bWAR, hit 137 home runs and had a slash line of .275/.363/.525. Over that same time, the Blue Jays had Eric Hinske and Lyle Overbay make the majority of the starts at first base.

To give credit where credit is due though, Overbay had several productive seasons in Toronto from 2006 to 2009. Although he never hit for a ton of power, he got on base and was actually worth more bWAR (9.9) in that time period than Delgado. Despite Overbay’s production, the absence of Delgado left a hole in the hearts of a lot of Blue Jays fans and his leaving for the Marlins is still a sense of frustration for plenty of Blue Jays fans.