Maybe it’s corny to get fixated on round numbers at this point, but with Wednesday’s win over the Yankees, the Blue Jays’ all-time victory total moved to 2999.
There are more immediate concerns with the state of the team on the field, but being a hopeless nostalgic makes me a sucker for the moment where the odometer flips and pops up zeroes. It’s hard to have that moment and not consider the places you’ve been along the way.
At the same time, there are current members of the Blue Jays whose own imprint on the team’s total legacy has become more noticeable in statistical bookkeeping of franchise history. Seasons and years can disappear before you notice, and suddenly a “young” player starts to creep past some of the more notable names in franchise lore.
Here are a few of the more noteworthy personal milestones that are on the horizon:
Edwin Encarnacion
Speaking of 2999, that’s the number of plate appearances that EE has made for the Blue Jays. Not bad for a player who was close to being cast off from the franchise on numerous occasions.
Currently sitting at 23rd all-time in plate appearances, Encarnacion should vault past Roberto Alomar (3105), Alex Rios (3354) and Kelly Gruber (3372) in this category if he plays a relatively healthy season.
Encarnacion will start to find himself in more hallowed ground in terms of runs scored. Sitting at 413 and in 20th place, a typical season – like the 86 runs he’s averaged over the past three years – would see him pass John Olerud for 11th all-time.
Maybe more impressive is the company Encarnacion will keep with a decent season of power. His 162 home runs currently places him 17 behind sixth place Jesse Barfield’s 179. Next up in fifth and fourth would be George Bell (202) and Joe Carter (203).
Jose Bautista
Like Encarnacion, Bautista was considered unlikely to be much of a contributor upon his arrival, but now he’s solidifying his case as one of the greatest players to ever pull on a Blue Jays uniform.
Bautista is now 15 behind Vernon Wells for second all-time in homers with 208, though he’s managed the feat in almost 2500 fewer plate appearances. He’s also likely to pass Lloyd Moseby for second in walks, as his 539 sit just eight shy of the Shaker’s mark.
And if all these dumb counting stats are making your eyes roll, FanGraphs tells us Bautista has 30.1 career Wins Above Replacement with the Jays. That leaves him agonizingly close to Tony Fernandez’s 35.1 and Carlos Delgado’s 34.7 marks, the two best in the team’s 39 seasons of baseball.
I wouldn’t expect that anyone will stop the game should such a thing come to pass this season or next. How soon would anyone even realize that he’d reached that mark? Especially since he might need to be in the right park or playing the right position to get a beneficial adjustment to help ease him over the peak. Still, there are far more clever folks who would probably know by the end of the half inning should this occur.
Incidentally, Bautista is now the active leader and 21st overall in games played by with 833. Encarnacion is next at 722 (26th all-time), but would you care to guess who follows? With Adam Lind (953, 12th), Colby Rasmus (408, 46th) and Brett Lawrie (345, 54th) all dispatched over the offseason, next on the list is Jose Reyes with 252.
Zip quickly past two more recent departures in Melky Cabrera (227) and Anthony Gose (202), and the next on the active list (sort of) is Munenori Kawasaki with 178 games played in blue.
Brett Cecil
He spent his early career bouncing back and forth between Toronto and the minors, but now Cecil sits one inning back of 20th place all-time in innings pitched for the Jays with 574.0. A typical 50-plus inning season would push Cecil past Dave Lemanczyk, Shaun Marcum, Jerry Garvin and Woody Williams by the end of 2015. Just over yonder is Duane Ward at 650.1 innings and Jesse Jefferson at 666.1, though it would take heroic efforts to reach Dave Stieb’s team-leading 2873.0 innings.
Cecil also sits 19th in games pitched (225), and seems likely breeze past Shawn Camp (236) and possibly Dan Plesac (262) in that category, with Pat Hentgen (270), Mark Eichhorn (279) and Jim Acker (281) on the horizon.
R.A. Dickey
While the star prospect for whom he was dealt still has yet to throw a big league pitch, Dickey could vault himself into the top 20 in strikeouts with an average season. Having averaged 175 Ks in the last two seasons, a similar campaign would see Dickey (370 strikeouts, 26th all time) move past Doyle Alexander (392, 23rd), Ted Lilly (424, 22nd), Marcum (479, 19th) and possibly even A.J. Burnett (525, 16th).
Russell Martin
Too soon to think about his place in Jays history? His seven big flies already place him in 20th place among Jays catchers in that category. Though it would take him maintaining an unusually torrid pace to get past Sportsnet’s own Buck Martinez in sixth place with 35 homers, or Gregg Zaun in 5th with 45.
