Top 5 players the Toronto Blue Jays gave up on too soon

No. 4: Liam Hendriks

For Liam Hendriks, the Jays actually acquired him twice in a span of one year, once from a waiver claim from the Baltimore Orioles in early 2014, and then again in a trade with the Kansas City Royals in late 2014, after they had traded him to the Royals earlier that summer.  In his second short stint with the Jays, Hendriks actually performed admirably to a respectable 2.92 ERA with 71 strikeouts over 64.2 innings pitched. 

Despite that production, the Jays were aiming to strengthen their rotation depth by trading Hendriks again, this time to the Oakland Athletics for Jesse Chavez.  Chavez’s time with the Jays ultimately turned out to be negligible, but for Hendriks, he has now developed into one of the premium closers in the game.  Had the Jays held on to him, he could have potentially formed a two-headed monster with Jordan Romano for the Jays bullpen in closing out games.  That could have essentially resembled the magic formed by the duo of Duane Ward and Tom Henke back in the early 1990s in the Jays contending years.

No. 3: Cecil Fielder

Back in the mid-to-late 1980s, the Jays started fielding competitive teams that gave them the chance to make the postseason each year.  At the time, the Jays had two strong first basemen in Willie Upshaw and Fred McGriff, with a raw player named Cecil Fielder playing behind them.  With the Jays, due to their excess of quality first basemen, he was given mainly part-time duty and had only average production as a result.  Fielder eventually left MLB altogether after four years with the Jays and played in Japan for a year, hoping to restart his career.  From there, he discovered his power stroke and came back with a vengeance, starting with the Detroit Tigers in 1990.

Fielder became a power-hitting machine, and helped anchor the Tigers' offence, averaging over 35 home runs and 110 RBI consistently per season over the course of six-plus years.  The Jays did have some power hitters, such as Joe Carter and Dave Winfield, during the course of those years.  However, none of them instilled the fear shown by pitchers the way Fielder did whenever he stepped up to the plate.  That intimidation and power factor by Fielder could have really helped the Jays to potentially win more than the two championships that they got in the early 1990s.

No. 2: Jeff Kent

Most people would probably rank this as the No. 1 player that got away from the Jays, but here we have slotted Jeff Kent into the No. 2 position based on the impact the other player had, but we'll get to that.  At the time, Kent was an upcoming, exciting prospect that was thought to be the heir to Kelly Gruber at third base for the Jays, since Roberto Alomar had firmly cemented his position at second base.  For the 1992 season, Kent had finally made the team and found some playing time at both second and third base due to given opportunities and injuries.

However, with the Jays gearing up for a championship run and a chance to strengthen their starting rotation, Kent was traded to the New York Mets in exchange for David Cone.  From there on, he would establish himself to be one of the premium second basemen in the game for the next decade and a half, averaging over 20 home runs, 90 RBIs, and hitting close to .290 each season. 

Who knows what kind of an effect Kent may have had with the Jays, but the Jays did not have a stalwart second basemen after the departure of Alomar, until Aaron Hill arrived on the scene in the mid 2000s.  But the one consolation prize coming out of it was at least Cone helped lead the Jays to their first ever World Series championship, making it at least a little more worth it.

No. 1: Chris Carpenter

Sitting at No. 1 may come to a surprise to many, but here we have Chris Carpenter, a former projected ace starter for the Blue Jays.  He probably wouldn’t normally be considered a player that had gotten away too fast because after all, he did spend over five seasons with the Jays.  But it’s what he accomplished after his tenure in Toronto that make him undoubtedly the top player the club should have kept around for longer.

Carpenter’s time with the Jays was often plagued by injuries and inconsistency.  As an upcoming, projected front-line starter, he never ended up displaying such potential with the Jays, pitching to an ERA of over 4.00 and WHIP of over 1.35 in each of his active years with the team.  Eventually, he was let go after 2002, and the St. Louis Cardinals kindly took a chance and picked him up.

From there, Carpenter would go on to become the Cardinals’ ace for the next decade, despite encountering some on and off injury issues along the way as well. With the Cardinals, Carpenter added three All-Star appearances, two World Series rings, and one NL Cy Young Award to his career resume.  What hurts even more was that he accomplished all of this during the years when the Jays had the late Roy Halladay in his prime.  Had the Jays chosen to gamble and kept Carpenter, both Halladay and Carpenter may have formed a strong one-two punch during the 2000s for the Jays and who knows how much success and potential championship runs they may have put together.