News of DeMar DeRozan’s departure hit Toronto sports fans hard Wednesday morning. As word of the trade began filtering out, many took to Twitter to vent about the heavy feeling in their hearts.
Pro sports franchises essentially feature a revolving door through which players enter and inevitably leave. Rare is the instance where an athlete sticks with his team for the duration of his career.
Of course, Toronto sports fans know this all too well. Over the past 18 months, they’ve had to bid goodbye to Edwin Encarnacion, Jose Bautista, Tyler Bozak, DeRozan and, perhaps soon, current Toronto Blue Jays J.A. Happ and Josh Donaldson.
The Encarnacion departure was particularly painful to Blue Jays Nation because of the key role he played during the organization’s renaissance that resulted in two playoff berths. Losing him felt like the band was breaking up.
With that in mind, for the purposes of our Ex-Files series, it’s worth looking at how he’s doing now.
The 35-year-old slugger — who signed a three-year, $60-million deal with Cleveland on Jan. 5, 2017 — is trudging through this campaign with mixed success. Yes, his 22 home runs are tied for the 12th most in baseball and his 65 RBIs are tied for ninth. He’s still a prodigious run producer and his barrel rate ranks in the top eight percentile, league-wide.
However, that success has been paired with some red flags for the aging slugger. Encarnacion is slashing .225/.311/.466 through 86 games this season, and is worth 0.4 wins above replacement, per FanGraphs. He’s going to be hard-pressed to reach the 2.5 WAR he accrued in 2017, which was in fact his lowest total since 2011.
This year, he’s striking out at a higher rate (23.2 per cent) than at any point since his rookie campaign in 2005, while his walk rate has plummeted a full five per cent from last season. Beyond that, he’s pulling the ball less frequently than ever before.
A constant theme around Encarnacion’s time in Toronto was that as the weather heated up, so did his bat. This year, it looked like he was emerging from a slump with a monstrous May, but he’s since come down to Earth. The Indians essentially have the AL Central locked up, so how Encarnacion fares down the stretch will be an important question for the club.
Here’s a look at how some other ex-Blue Jays are faring this season.
Jose Bautista, New York Mets
0.6 WAR (FanGraphs) | 7 HR | .238/.394/.437
Bautista’s numbers have dipped in July, but overall, his career resurgence is still in effect. Earlier this month he managed to accomplish something he hadn’t done in his 1,700-plus big-league games: Hit a walk-off homer. In true Bautista fashion, it was a grand-slam and as you’ll see in the video below, it looked — for a split second, at least — like he was ready to flip that bat.
Brandon Morrow, Chicago Cubs
0.6 WAR | 1.47 ERA | 30.2 innings | 31 strikeouts | 9 walks
The Yu Darvish and Tyler Chatwood signings haven’t worked out well for the Cubs so far, but their addition of Morrow certainly has. The closer made headlines in June when he required a DL stint after injuring his back taking off his pants, but he’s since returned and has been just as dominant.
Morrow’s strikeout rate has declined this season, but his groundball percentage is a career-high 51.9 per cent, while his flyball clip is a career-low 24.7 per cent.
Steve Pearce, Boston Red Sox
0.8 WAR | 5 HR | .324/.390/.562
This is how you make an impactful first impression. Pearce’s numbers since the Blue Jays shipped him to Beantown are gaudy: 11-for-26 (.423) with one home run and four doubles across 10 games. He has filled the role Hanley Ramirez used to play for the Red Sox and now that Pearce appears healthy, he could be a real difference-maker in the battle for the AL East crown.
Wade LeBlanc, Seattle Mariners
0.6 WAR | 3.63 ERA | 89.1 innings | 66 strikeouts | 18 walks
Here’s a name nobody expected to see on this list. The left-handed starter was briefly in the Blue Jays system, compiling a 1.71 ERA across 14 starts and 89.2 innings for the Buffalo Bisons in 2016. There was no room on the major-league roster for LeBlanc, so the Blue Jays traded him to Seattle. He then briefly spent time in the Pirates and Yankees organizations before settling back with the Mariners.
The soft-tossing 33-year-old entered Seattle’s rotation on May 3 of this year and has helped stabilize the collective. Team brass has been so impressed, they inked LeBlanc to a potentially lucrative extension.
Adam Lind, Pawtucket Red Sox
9 HR | 10 2B |.256/.317/.425 (MiLB numbers)
Like some elder power-first sluggers, Lind has had a rough go since becoming a free agent at the end of last season. The first baseman wasn’t able to find work until late in the winter, when he signed a minor-league deal with the Yankees. New York released him two weeks later, then signed him back. He played in a handful of games for the club’s triple-A affiliate, then was released and signed with the Red Sox.
The 35-year-old, who posted an .898 OPS against right-handers with the Nationals in 2017, hasn’t played particularly well in the minors this year, and is blocked on Boston’s major-league roster by Pearce, Mitch Moreland and Blake Swihart.
Eric Thames, Milwaukee Brewers
1.3 WAR | 13 HR | .250/.344/.556
When discussing the contending Brewers, it’s easy to focus on outfielders Lorenzo Cain and Christian Yelich. Rightfully so, as the team’s major off-season additions played well enough to earn all-star berths. On the other hand, the contributions of former Blue Jay Thames shouldn’t be glossed over. Since returning from a thumb injury on June 12, Thames’s .850 OPS ranks second on the team — behind breakout star Jesus Aguilar (1.173) and ahead of Cain (.813) and Yelich (.750).
Thames was placed on the DL with a hamstring strain last Saturday, but the hope is that, thanks to the all-star break, he wont be out long.
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