Blue Jays: Top-five greatest third basemen in franchise history

No. 5 Eric Hinske

In December 2001, new Blue Jays General Manager J.P. Ricciardi made his first trade. Ricciardi had been in the Athletics front office before joining the Blue Jays three weeks earlier and chose his former team for the first big deal of his tenure.

Ricciardi traded closer Billy Koch, who had saved 100 games for the Blue Jays over the previous three seasons, for minor leaguers Eric Hinske and Justin Miller. The move was regarded at the time as a salary dump, a way to get rid of Koch’s $2.35M salary. Ricciardi saw it differently.

“This was the best deal we felt we could make, the one we’re most comfortable with,” he said at the time. “[Hinske] fits everything I like in a player…he’s not that far away from the majors, a half-year at the most. He’ll compete for a job this spring.”

His prediction proved prescient. Hinske earned the starting third baseman job out of Spring Training and made the Blue Jays forget all about their former fireball-throwing closer.

Hinske’s first home run with the Blue Jays was a go-ahead, extra-inning shot at Yankee Stadium that gave the club a 5-4 win over the Yankees. It augured what was to come, as Hinske finished the season with 24 home runs, still a Blue Jays club record for homers by a rookie. He also established Blue Jays rookie records with 84 RBI and an OPS of .845. His immediate contribution was rewarded when Hinske became only the second player in franchise history to win Rookie of the Year honours, joining Alfredo Griffin who shared the award in 1979.

Hinske didn’t approach those numbers again over his next three-plus years with the Blue Jays. But he still had his moments. On April 29, 2005, his two-run homer off Randy Johnson was the difference as Roy Halladay tossed a complete game shutout in a 2-0 win against the Yankees. He was sold to the Red Sox in 2006, ending his career in Toronto with 78 home runs in 655 games, fifth all-time among Blue Jays third basemen.

No. 4 Tony Batista

Tony Batista is fourth on this list, but in a ranking of the most unique batting stances in Blue Jays history, he would be a clear frontrunner.

Batista stood at the plate with his legs spread far apart, his entire body turned to face the pitcher as if he were trying to have a conversation instead of hitting a home run. Only when the pitcher was about to release the ball did Batista turn his upper body, leaning back over the plate.

It was an unconventional stance he stumbled upon while playing in Venezuela in 1998, and it worked for him. “I tried to do something different and right away I got a hit with that kind of stance,” Batista told author Steve Riach in his book, Life Lessons from Baseball. “It’s been working for me since that day.”

And work it did. Batista arrived in Toronto in June 1999 after a midseason trade with the Diamondbacks. He hit 26 home runs in only 98 games that first season, but his best would be saved for the following year.

It began on Opening Day. Batista had already homered when he came to the plate in the bottom of the ninth inning, the score tied 4-4. Royals’ reliever Jerry Spradlin tried to sneak a slider past him, but Batista, who often struggled to reach the outside corner with his stance, had seen the pitch before and was ready for it. He hit it 404 feet to left field to give the Blue Jays a 5-4 win. It remains the only Opening Day walkoff home run in franchise history.

Batista didn’t stop hitting homers in that 2000 season after that day. He ended the year with 41, the most in a season by a Blue Jays third baseman (Josh Donaldson tied the record in 2015). He was part of a record-breaking lineup for the Blue Jays, as Batista joined teammates Carlos Delgado, Brad Fullmer, and José Cruz with at least 30 homers. It was the first time in MLB history four teammates had each eclipsed the 30-home run milestone. The Blue Jays finished second in the league in homers, five behind the Astros.

Batista struggled in the 2001 season and was hitting just .207 before he was claimed off waivers by the Baltimore Orioles. His time with the Blue Jays was short, but no one who saw him flash his prodigious power, or that stance, will forget it.

No. 3 Ed Sprague

Ed Sprague started the most games at third base of any player in Blue Jays history, but his biggest moment came in a game he didn’t start.

The Blue Jays were already trailing the 1992 World Series 1-0 when they headed to the ninth inning of Game 2 down 4-3 in front of 52,000 tomahawk-chopping Atlanta Braves fans. The Braves had closer Jeff Reardon, at the time MLB’s career leader in saves, on the mound just three outs away from taking a commanding lead in the series.

After Derek Bell worked an eight-pitch, one-out walk against Reardon, manager Cito Gaston called on Sprague from the dugout to pinch-hit for pitcher Duane Ward. Sprague knew what to expect on the first pitch.

“I knew Reardon liked to start out with a fastball for a strike. It was down and I got on top of it. I hit it really hard,” he said after the game.

Sprague lost track of the ball in the glare of the lights of Atlanta’s Fulton County Stadium as he ran toward first base. “When I got to first, I saw Deion [Sanders, the Braves’ left fielder] had his back turned. I threw my hands in the air a bit, I was so excited.”

His two-run homer gave the Blue Jays a 5-4 win and evened the series heading back to Toronto. The Blue Jays would eventually win the series in six games, bringing the World Series title north of the border for the first time. It might never have happened if not for Sprague.

Sprague became the Blue Jays’ starting third baseman the next season as the club repeated as World Series champs. He spent the next five-plus seasons manning the hot corner in Toronto, making 808 career starts for the Blue Jays at third, the most in franchise history.

His best season came in 1996, when he became the first Blue Jays third baseman to hit at least 36 home runs and only the second to reach the 100 RBI milestone. He’s second in Blue Jays history with 103 homers as a third baseman, second in hits with 719, and second with 382 RBI.

Sprague was traded to the Athletics at the deadline in July 1998, but not before he wrote his name all over the franchise record book. And, of course, there was the memorable homer, when the Blue Jays, on the brink, needed a hero. Sprague proved to be it, however unlikely it seemed.

No. 2 Kelly Gruber

Kelly Gruber was an athletic Texas kid with a dirty blonde mullet who admits he couldn’t even find Toronto on the map when the Blue Jays claimed him in the Rule 5 Draft in 1983 from the Cleveland Indians. But he turned out to be right at home for the burgeoning franchise.

Gruber became a fan favourite not because he was the best player in a star-studded Blue Jays lineup. It was because he played the hardest. Playing every game like it’s your last is an old cliche, but Gruber lived by it.

“I just made it a vow, and I played every pitch like it was my last,” he told Sportsnet’s Kristina Rutherford in a 2017 interview celebrating the 25th anniversary of the Blue Jays’ 1992 World Series title. “I think that at the very least, the people who pay these kinds of prices to come watch you play, they respected me because I was the dirtiest one coming off the field. I gave it my all.”

Gruber was the first Blue Jay to hit for the cycle, doing so on a Sunday afternoon at Exhibition Stadium in April 1989 as the Blue Jays erased a six-run deficit to beat the Kansas City Royals. Gruber went 4-6 with six RBI, completing the historic feat with an eighth-inning single. He made his first All-Star team after that season, but it was the following year that Gruber seemed to be blossoming into a star.

Gruber’s 118 RBI in 1990 set a Blue Jays record for third basemen that stood for 25 years. His 31 home runs were also a franchise record at the time. He earned his second straight All-Star selection, finished fourth in MVP balloting, earned his only career Gold Glove Award, and was the American League Silver Slugger for third basemen.

Gruber was the starting third basemen on the 1992 world champions, and while he was only two-for-19 in the six-game series win over the Braves, battling injuries the entire year, he still made his mark. His home run in the bottom of the eighth inning in Game 3 off Steve Avery tied the game 2-2 as the Blue Jays won the game in the ninth to go up 2-1 in the series.

He earned the ring, but Gruber’s time with the Blue Jays wouldn’t last much longer. He was traded to the Angels after the 1992 series and only played 18 more games in his career before retiring at the age of 31. The move, just a few weeks after helping the team win a championship, left some bitterness in Gruber, who didn’t return to Toronto for more than a decade.

Gruber’s time in Toronto didn’t end the way he would’ve wanted, but for a generation of Blue Jays fans, his flowing mullet and the dirt on his white jersey were symbols of a young franchise that developed into world champions.

No. 1 Josh Donaldson

In April 2010, a 24-year-old prospect made his Major League debut as a catcher with the Oakland Athletics against the Blue Jays at the Rogers Centre, striking out in his only at-bat. Nearly five years later, Josh Donaldson returned to Toronto, this time as a member of the Blue Jays and an MVP-caliber third baseman.

General Manager Alex Anthopoulos had to give up homegrown hero Brett Lawrie in a package to pry Donaldson away from the Athletics, but it proved to be worth it. The Blue Jays in 2015, with Donaldson in the middle of their lineup, became an offensive powerhouse.

“I definitely think the elements are there to win,” Donaldson said at the time of the trade that sent him to the Blue Jays. “You start looking at the capability of this lineup and the potential that it brings. I’m going to venture to say there’s probably not going to be another lineup as potent as this in Major League Baseball.”

He turned out to be right. The Blue Jays scored 130 more runs than any other team and led MLB in homers and OPS by more than 40 points. Donaldson hit 41 home runs, tying Tony Batista for the most ever by a Blue Jays third baseman. His 123 RBI was a new franchise record at the position.

Donaldson’s .939 OPS in 2015 was more than 60 points higher than any other Blue Jays third baseman had recorded in a season and stood as a franchise record until the following season when he had a .953 OPS. He beat out Mike Trout for AL MVP, becoming only the second player in franchise history to win the award after George Bell in 1987. He followed up his MVP season with 37 more homers in 2016, the first third baseman to reach that number in consecutive years and only the third player overall in franchise history.

Donaldson’s Blue Jays won 93 games in 2015 and made it all the way to the ALCS in their first postseason appearance in 22 years. They got back there the next year, Donaldson’s hustle rounding third base on a groundball scoring the winning run in the clinching game of the ALDS. Postseason baseball, after decades of futility, had returned to Toronto, and Donaldson was right in the middle of it.

Donaldson was traded to the Cleveland Indians, bringing an end to his four-plus years in Toronto. He finished as the franchise leader in home runs by a third baseman with 116 despite playing half the number of games as Kelly Gruber and more than 400 fewer than Ed Sprague; he trails only Gruber and Sprague in RBI. His career OPS in Toronto is nearly 80 points higher than any other third baseman in franchise history.

It’s no wonder the team honored him with a tribute video and rousing ovation when he made his return to the Rogers Centre in 2019, this time as a member of the Atlanta Braves. It was recognition of an indisputable fact: Donaldson was the greatest third baseman in franchise history.