Yes, we know that this is taking a while!

As many of you know, we at Notinhalloffame.com are slowly generating the top 50 of each major North American sports team. That being said, we have existing Top 50 lists and consistently look to update them when necessary and based on necessity. As such, we are delighted to present our post-2024 revision of our top 50 Toronto Blue Jays.

As for all of our top 50 players in baseball, we look at the following: 

1.  Advanced Statistics.

2.  Traditional statistics and how they finished in the American League.

3.  Playoff accomplishments.

4.  Their overall impact on the team and other intangibles that are not reflected in a stat sheet.

Please note that our algorithm has changed, which yielded minor changes throughout the baseball lists.

Last year, the Blue Jays had a disappointing campaign where they had a losing record.  There were no new entrants, but two elevations

As always, we present our top five, which saw one change based on the new calculations.

1. Dave Stieb

2. Roy Halladay

3. Jose Bautista

4. Tony Fernandez

5. Carlos Delgado

You can find the entire list here.

First Baseman Vladimir Guerrero Jr. vaulted ten spots to #12. 

Notably, Bo Bichette’s poor year dropped him two spots to #27.

The new algorithm brings Brett Lawrie at #45.

We thank you for your continued support of our lists on Notinhalloffame.com.

 

Yes, we know that this is taking a while!

As many of you know, we here at Notinhalloffame.com are slowly generating the 50 of each major North American sports team.  We have a new one to unveil today, that of the Toronto Blue Jays, which means we have finally completed all of the MLB teams!

Our Top 50 lists in Baseball look at the following:

1.  Advanced Statistics.

2.  Traditional statistics and how they finished in the American League.

3.  Playoff accomplishments.

4.  Their overall impact on the team and other intangibles not reflected in a stat sheet.

Remember, this is ONLY based on what a player does on that particular team and not what he accomplished elsewhere and also note that we have placed an increased importance on the first two categories.

This list is updated up until the end of the 2022 Season.

The complete list can be found here, but as always, we announce our top five in this article.  They are:

1. Dave Stieb

2.  Roy Halladay

3. Jose Bautista

4. Carlos Delgado

5. Tony Fernandez

We will continue our adjustments on our existing lists and will continue developing our new lists. 

Look for our more material coming soon!

As always, we thank you for your support.

An Amateur Free Agent signee in 1988, Puerto Rico’s Carlos Delgado first made the Blue Jays roster in 1993, but it was not until 1996 that he was an everyday player at First.

Delgado began a ten-year streak of at least 30 Home Runs in 1997 (though the last two were with other teams), and three of those seasons saw the slugger exceed 100.  A bona fide run generator, Delgado drove in at least 100 runners six times with Toronto, including a league-leading 145 in 2003.  That was his best season in the Majors, where he was second in MVP voting, won The Sporting News Player of the Year Award, and won his third and final Silver Slugger.  

As good as Delgado was, he was unable to play in any playoff games with the Jays, who went into sharp decline after their second World Series win in 1993.  He was easily the Jays best batter from 1996 to 2004, after which he left for the Marlins as a Free Agent.

As of this writing, Delgado is the all-time franchise leader in Offensive bWAR (39.4), Plate Appearances (6,018), Runs Scored (889), Home Runs (336), and RBIs (1,058), and is a member of the Blue Jays Level of Excellence.  He was also named to the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame.

You know how hard it is to get into the Baseball Hall of Fame? In 2013, with a ballot brimming with qualified candidates, not one player received the 75 percent of the votes needed for admission. (I identified 14 likely Hall of Famers on the 2013 ballot.)

Granted, 2013 was the first year of eligibility for Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens, both poster boys for performance-enhancing drugs (PED), bringing to a head the contentious debate about "cheaters" and their admission into the Hall. But there were certainly several "clean" players on that ballot, and a few of those, such as 3000-hit-club member Craig Biggio, would have been uncontroversial picks in any previous year.

And although 2014 saw the election of three players—Tom Glavine, Greg Maddux, and Frank Thomas—it was merely the tip of a talent-heavy iceberg (I identified 18 likely Hall of Famers for that ballot), while providing a burn to Biggio yet again as not only did he miss election by one vote (he garnered 74.8 percent of the vote), but three first-time candidates leapfrogged him into Cooperstown.

One of the more consistent hitters in his era, Carlos Delgado was only named to two All Star teams due to the glut of top tiered First Basemen in his time. He had great power numbers (473 Home Runs and 1,512 Runs Batted In) and had a very good career OPS of .929 which sound like Hall of Fame numbers, but his career WAR of 44.3 while although good, is not on par with a lot of the current players they are looking at.