Marco Scutaroturns 51 today. Several of my favorite Blue Jays players celebrate their birthdays in October.
We acquired Scutaro in a trade with the A’s in November 2007. In the post about the trade, achnegy wrote:
I’m not surprised by the trade partner—once again, it’s the Oakland A’s, JP Ricciardi’s former boss.
Scutaro is a light-hitting shortstop, often compared to John McDonald. Still, he does have some power—he hit 7 home runs last season and has a career batting average of .259. Scutaro is arbitration-eligible
and is expected to earn around $2 million. He has a good chance of starting, as he represents a slight upgrade with the bat at shortstop. He can also provide rest days for others. Together, he and McDonald make a strong platoon option, with McDonald excelling against lefties in 49 games, posting a .818 OPS and a .329 batting average. Over his career (.257/.306/.645), McDonald has been considerably better against southpaws.
The prospects we gave up never appeared in my top 20. Kristian Bell and Graham Godfrey were both 23-year-old pitchers in A-ball.
Kristian Bell seemed expendable—he struggled with control and was a bit too hittable, posting a career WHIP of 1.43 in A-ball.
Godfrey posted a 3.98 ERA for Lansing and didn’t exactly impress in his professional debut. His numbers were solid, but his hit and strikeout rates were nothing special.
Overall, I’d call this another decent move by Ricciardi. Scutaro was a cheap option (though I was hoping for a Crosby trade) and was slightly better than McDonald offensively. The players we gave up were expendable—each had question marks and were still in A-ball. Their chances of making it to the majors were slim. This was a salary dump for Oakland, and utility players like these aren’t hard to find among minor leaguers.
Kristian Bell never made it to the majors (but terrific in The Good Place). Godfrey appeared in 10 games over two seasons with the A’s.
It was a good trade, but JP oversold it by claiming Marco was our 2008 MVP a year later. I politely disagreed:
JP said Scutaro was our team MVP. That alone should be added to the reasons for firing JP. If you think a player with an OPS+ of 86 is your MVP, you probably shouldn’t be running a team. Putting aside that Doc was the real MVP. On offense, who was ahead of Scutaro? Wells, Rios, Overbay, Inglett, Rolen, Lind, Barajas.
Marco hit .267/.341/.356 in 145 games, mostly at shortstop, in his first season with the Jays. While JP may have been wrong about him being MVP, I was wrong about Marco, too.
And if he ends up hitting at the top of the order more than a few times next year, well, then you’ll know we haven’t learned anything from this season.
In 2009, he hit .282/.379/.409. He was excellent at shortstop and as our leadoff hitter, and he became one of my favorite players.
Marco was a lot of fun to watch. I remember him, upon noticing the camera was on him, kissing his bat after a home run.
And there was this:
A few years later, Jose Bautista pulled off the same trick.
He played only two seasons for the Jays before signing with the Red Sox after the 2009 season. Afterwards, he joined the Rockies and then the Giants, eventually picking up a World Series ring (there’s a terrific GIF of him standing in the rain after the win):
Marco enjoyed a 13-season MLB career, hitting .277/.341/.388 over 1,391 games. His two best seasons came with the Jays, posting bWARs of 4.5 and 5.5, and he finished with a career bWAR of 22.1.
Happy birthday, Marco. Hope it’s a great one.
Also celebrating today is former Jays pitcher Joe Johnson, who turns 65.
Joe arrived in a trade from the Braves in July 1986, with Jim Acker going to Atlanta. He finished the 1986 season, going 7-2 with a 3ERA .89 ERA in 16 games, 15 starts) for us. Unfortunately, 1987 wasn’t as successful—he posted a 5.13 ERA in 14 starts before being sent to the minors.
After the season, we lost him in the Rule 5 draft, and he never pitched in the majors again.
Happy birthday, Joe.
Joe Panik turns 36 today.
Joe spent the 2020 season and the first half of 2021 with the Blue Jays. He played 83 games, hitting .235/.318/.325 with 3 home runs.
But the best thing he did for us was bring Adam Cimber (who had a couple of good seasons with us) and Corey Dickerson when we traded him to the Marlins. It seemed like a significant return for an aging utility player.
He’s now retired.
Happy birthday, Joe.
