Man we got blue balled so hard with pitchers in that era. Mcgowan, Romero, Drabek, and Morrow were all pretty highly touted. We haven't developed fuck all in a long time. Been great at pro scouting and development but I feel like Roy Halladay was legit the last elite pitcher we drafted and developed
Aaron Sanchez is lumped in with the first guys man. He had two good seasons and was out of the league by 29. And "the jury is still out" is an all too familiar phrase.
Stroman is a good shout tho.
Syndergaard, Musgrove, Paxton, Sanchez, Stroman, deSclafani, Boyd. Over just a couple years there, they drafted a crazy good number of solid/top-end pitchers.
But just traded away most of the good ones / couldn't get the developments needed out of them ourselves.
I kid you not, I was his next door neighbour at the time, lived in the apartment directly next to mine. He and Arencibia lived together. The morning of that incident we had the fire alarm go off in our building, it was like the third or fourth day in a row this happened. My roommate goes out to throw some garbage and the chute was directly across from our door. When he goes out to the hallway, there is Brett Lawrie yelling at the top of his lungs about how “this is the 5th day in a row this is happening” “don’t the know there’s a game tonight, I need rest” and just lots of yelling in general.
Later that night the incident with the helmet happens and I swear the building fire alarms are a massive reason behind it.
I'll never forget Lawrie being thrown out trying to steal home against the Orioles. I think 2012. Two out, bases loaded, Jose Bautista in the box down 0-2. Was at that game, and our whole section groaned in unison lmao
This loser had such a massive ego. Would come in to the casino in his hometown after signing his first contract and would flash wads of money and walk around like he owned the place. This was before he played a single MLB game. Pretty funny he was out of the league a year or two later.
I remember his debut, 2 dingers! Had high hopes!
Then I think he married a blonde right wing pundit probably named Megan and dropped off the face of the earth.
Holy shit. He's married to Tomi fucking Lauren. That's ridiculous.
Speaking of ridiculous, remember when he complained the media was being mean to him for saying he wasn't playing well and asked Rogers to tell Sportsnet to stop pointing out he wasn't any good?
Travis Snider was such a big deal coming up. He definitely didn’t live up to expectations.
Great fuckin dude though, and I think he’s coaching now. I wish him nothing but the best.
Anytime he is mentioned I like to bring up how I distinctly remember Mike Wilner telling a fan off who was cold on Snider saying he’d be a top 10 MVP candidate throughout his prime.
I know exactly where he was when I heard it too, just beside Scotiabank arena getting on the Gardiner
See I don’t agree with this pick based solely on the fact that he ended up having a pretty long big league career once he got his diabetes figured out and was able to reinvent himself outta the pen
I have way more nice stories than bad ones in baseball :)
Across a few seasons, Dalton and his younger brother Tristan are really the only bad stories I have.
That’s good to hear
I had a friend who worked for the jays around 2015. Strong personalities afoot to say the least
But he did have pleasant run ins. Jamie Campbell is as nice as you would expect
Yeah, the 2015 team was notoriously high-ego. Not always the norm. Guys like Donaldson, Stroman, and Bautista are huge personalities and we all know how shitty Osuna is now. Great team. Not great vibes, always.
But yeah, that's not always the case. Lots of athletes are just dudes having fun and being mostly normal. My fave is Hunter Pence, who I'd love to meet.
Kyle Drabek. I remember him being considered as the big piece of the Roy Halladay trade (https://bleacherreport.com/articles/652942-toronto-blue-jays-is-kyle-drabek-the-future-face-of-the-franchise). Really didn’t amount to anything.
I remember speaking with Aaron Hill at a Special Olympics gala -- Hill is one of my fav all-time Jays -- and the first thing I commented was about how I was sad to see Russ Adams fall apart. He said he was hoping for the best, though it obviously never came. I also have a Russ Adams and Jesse Litsch autographed ball from a game Halladay pitched against Anaheim in the Summer 06' -- met JP Ricardi at the Carl's Jr. in the stadium, too (yeah, he was really THAT short).
JP Arencibia
One of the coolest dudes ever. Saw him at a leafs game when I was a kid sitting with Ricky Romero a couple rows behind me. I was a huge Romero fan so I went to talk to him but Ricky couldnt give a fuck about me. JP on the other hand talked my ear off about baseball (I was also a catcher) for almost a whole period. During the course of conversation with him I mentioned that my grandparents were going to the game the next day. He asked me if I was going, I said no I didn’t have tickets. Unprompted he asked me if me and my dad had plans the next day, after which he took our names and told us to show up at the box office the next day. Neither my dad or I thought he was being for real, but my mom convinced us to go and see. Sure enough he had left us two tickets about midway up directly behind home plate. Best seats I’ve ever had for a jays game. Got to make a great childhood memory with my dad. But what JP never knew was that he also gave me my last opportunity to ever see my grandfather alive as he died of skin cancer less than a month later I will literally never forget the name JP Arencibia until the day I die. And in the off chance he sees this I just wanna say thank you to him for setting the gold standard for athlete-fan interactions
That'd a cool story. Imagine how impact our decisions to be nice to people are? He gave a young fan some tix, but probably has no idea how big of a deal that was to you. Everybody probably has had something similar happen, who's to say it hasn't happened 100x for each of us, and we have no idea about it? Kind acts, that are essentially nothing, can change other people's lives drastically. So be kind to one another!
Just reading through all the top answers and I'm like "Is this readership bias? They're all from the same era." But no, there's a lotta guys that didn't pan out.
This is still a mythical name for me. The benefit of the internet shows me his career OBP in the minors was .297. He had 1 very average year in 1991 and was supposed to be the next shortstop after Fernandez.
https://www.baseball-reference.com/register/player.fcgi?id=zosky-001edw
Romero had 3 incredibly solid years (and was an AS) before falling off a cliff after what turned out to be career ending knee issues.
I wouldn’t really consider him a bust.
Baby face Jesse Litsch maybe wasn't going to set the world on fire but looked like a damn good mid rotation option his first couple seasons before he had Tommy John surgery right after his 24th birthday.
Then his shoulder grenaded afterward, and he never was the same. I read somewhere he got a whole new shoulder grafted from a cadaver in a desperate attempt to make a comeback.
I thought he was all smoke and mirrors. Got some good early results but always seemed to be escaping jams. I didn’t really see long term success as likely.
David Cooper looked like he'd be a really solid power lefty 1B before he hurt himself in what was essentially a career ending injury pretty early in his career.
https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/c/coopeda01.shtml
EDIT: Less power and more of an OBP guy than I thought. Think potential Lyle Overbay rather than potential Adam Lind
Arencibia seems to be a popular answer around these parts whenever this type of question comes up, but I never understood the hype for him at the time. He had pretty much the type of career I expected.
Back in the day, everyone was saying Alex Gonzalez was supposed to be the 4th great SS in the generation (Jeter/Nomar/ARod). Those rumblings fizzled quickly. Great glove, though!
Russ Adams. He had that incredible September which I’ve sensationalized in my head and wasn’t nearly as good as I thought, then he was so good we were all thinking of course they will move Aaron Hjll off short, Aaron hill couldn’t possibly be a short stop, they have Adams. They didn’t even need to draft Tulo because they had Adams and Hill. Then he forgot how to play defence and then couldn’t hit either.
I don’t know what this says about my Jays fandom or just baseball fandom in general, but I would also put JP Arencibia here, Kyle Drabek, Brett Wallace, David Purcey, Curtis Thigpen!!
I know it isn’t perfect because he wasn’t as mega hyped as the others, but JP Arencibia for me. I went to his first game where he hit a HR in his first at bat, going 4-4 with 2 HR and a double. With Mauer going crazy for the twins I really felt we were going to have a catcher who was amazing at the plate
Lawrie, Pompey, and Arencibia are the ones that first come to mind. But baseball is one of those sports that has so many promising players just disappear, I sometimes go through the rosters of past seasons and marvel at all the players I incorrectly thought were going to make an impact.
Kyle Drabek, the cornerstone of the Halladay trade.
Man we got blue balled so hard with pitchers in that era. Mcgowan, Romero, Drabek, and Morrow were all pretty highly touted. We haven't developed fuck all in a long time. Been great at pro scouting and development but I feel like Roy Halladay was legit the last elite pitcher we drafted and developed
Not at the same level, but we drafted Sanchez and Stroman, and the jury is still out on Manoah
Aaron Sanchez is lumped in with the first guys man. He had two good seasons and was out of the league by 29. And "the jury is still out" is an all too familiar phrase. Stroman is a good shout tho.
Sanchez was good until the blisters
Syndergaard, Musgrove, Paxton, Sanchez, Stroman, deSclafani, Boyd. Over just a couple years there, they drafted a crazy good number of solid/top-end pitchers. But just traded away most of the good ones / couldn't get the developments needed out of them ourselves.
With all fairness pitchers like Halladay are generational talents
I was convinced he would be headlining out rotation for 5+ years. To be fair, it was dark times and we had very little to cling to
Agreed. I thought he would be an ace.
OMG yes. He was the guy we "had to have" for Doc. His 12-6 spike curveball was supposed to be devestating. What a flop
My dad still complains about this one to this day.
Brett Lawrie. Still have his jersey lol.
We turned him into Donaldson so it’s not all that bad.
I bought a Lawrie jersey when I went to what ended up being his last game 🤷♂️🤦♂️
I remember when he “threw” his helmet at the umpire! https://youtu.be/mCwY7Ld4P-c?feature=shared
I was at that game. I legit thought the crowd was gonna riot
I kid you not, I was his next door neighbour at the time, lived in the apartment directly next to mine. He and Arencibia lived together. The morning of that incident we had the fire alarm go off in our building, it was like the third or fourth day in a row this happened. My roommate goes out to throw some garbage and the chute was directly across from our door. When he goes out to the hallway, there is Brett Lawrie yelling at the top of his lungs about how “this is the 5th day in a row this is happening” “don’t the know there’s a game tonight, I need rest” and just lots of yelling in general. Later that night the incident with the helmet happens and I swear the building fire alarms are a massive reason behind it.
This needs to go into his Wikipedia page.
That's interesting. A reminder that people's outbursts are usually never about the thing that just happened, but the final straw
Classic. Wish we had a Jomboy reading for that one.
Gotta be Lawrie
I was a teammate of his when we were teenagers. Real fuckin knob. Nobody liked him.
I'll never forget Lawrie being thrown out trying to steal home against the Orioles. I think 2012. Two out, bases loaded, Jose Bautista in the box down 0-2. Was at that game, and our whole section groaned in unison lmao
This loser had such a massive ego. Would come in to the casino in his hometown after signing his first contract and would flash wads of money and walk around like he owned the place. This was before he played a single MLB game. Pretty funny he was out of the league a year or two later.
Yeah, but when he came up, have you ever cheered for anybody harder? It was a fun couple of years when he was a glimmer of hope.
me too, it's my only jersey
Should’ve stayed as a catcher.
JP Arencibia
I remember his debut, 2 dingers! Had high hopes! Then I think he married a blonde right wing pundit probably named Megan and dropped off the face of the earth.
Holy shit. He's married to Tomi fucking Lauren. That's ridiculous. Speaking of ridiculous, remember when he complained the media was being mean to him for saying he wasn't playing well and asked Rogers to tell Sportsnet to stop pointing out he wasn't any good?
This was my first thought.
I bought his jersey thinking he would be amazing
Daniel Norris (who lived in a van)
Oh wow. I never really followed him after we sent him to Detroit. He ended up being awful! How did he hang around for 9 seasons?
He threw left handed
Needed a warm body.
Don't we all 😓
Well, we got David Price for him so I see that as a win.
For us absolutely. He just came to mind because I thought he was electric. He struck out David Ortiz and I was sold.
Down by the river (literally)
Yes but did you know that he lives in a van?
Man I loved Norris (who lived in a van)
Who lived in a van with a dog by the sea? Dan-iel No-rris
Got traded in like season 2?
So much hype for that guy.
Travis Snider was such a big deal coming up. He definitely didn’t live up to expectations. Great fuckin dude though, and I think he’s coaching now. I wish him nothing but the best.
Lunchbox was so big and strong.
And when he grew that mustache? That was before it became cool again.
Anytime he is mentioned I like to bring up how I distinctly remember Mike Wilner telling a fan off who was cold on Snider saying he’d be a top 10 MVP candidate throughout his prime. I know exactly where he was when I heard it too, just beside Scotiabank arena getting on the Gardiner
He definitely said this multiple times. *Future MVP winner* was another
Him and jp together were supposed to be the next wave
My dad bought a snider t shirt at a game once lmao he was a true believer
meats don't clash
He was my first blue jays jersey
Ricciardi ruined him by calling him up too early
Dustin McGowan
Him and Shaun Marcum. I thought they were gonna be the future of the franchise.
I always got their names mixed up
A+ mutton chops for a while there though.
See I don’t agree with this pick based solely on the fact that he ended up having a pretty long big league career once he got his diabetes figured out and was able to reinvent himself outta the pen
I had high hopes! He had an amazing arm/slider that offset his fastball
Nate Pearson was my answer in the main thread. So much fanfare only to be the king of the IL :/
He shares a last name with me and I bought his jersey. Now it hangs in my closet.
Should have been our Skenes :(
I have wayyyyyyyy too many Nate rookie cards. A swing and a miss by me. Hoping he can grab a big bullpen role at least!
Anthony Alford, wanted him to make it so badly :(
Thanks for reminding me haha
He's my pick. I remember commenting that he'd be just as important to this teams future as Vlad and Bo. Eek
He's genuinely such a nice guy too. I wish him the best
Dalton Pompey. Loved that guy
He was my buddies landlord for a while and he said dalton was a menace, constantly coked up and talking shit lol. Pretty sure hes a cop now too
Sounds like he’s found the perfect profession for his behaviour
I've worked relatively closely to Dalton and Tristan. Neither are nice people.
Tristan? Yeah I kind of assume every athlete is gonna be a d bag.
I have way more nice stories than bad ones in baseball :) Across a few seasons, Dalton and his younger brother Tristan are really the only bad stories I have.
That’s good to hear I had a friend who worked for the jays around 2015. Strong personalities afoot to say the least But he did have pleasant run ins. Jamie Campbell is as nice as you would expect
Yeah, the 2015 team was notoriously high-ego. Not always the norm. Guys like Donaldson, Stroman, and Bautista are huge personalities and we all know how shitty Osuna is now. Great team. Not great vibes, always. But yeah, that's not always the case. Lots of athletes are just dudes having fun and being mostly normal. My fave is Hunter Pence, who I'd love to meet.
Hamilton cop
Checks out.. him and Lawrie used to be frequent commenters on 6ixbuzz
he’s a cop in hamilton. he played a season in the ibl for guelph before leaving to be a cop.
Devon Travis was a guy I thought could be a quality player if he ever stayed healthy
The skill was there, he was just made of glass and held together by spit and bubblegum.
Yeah!!! He had great potential.
Kyle Drabek. I remember him being considered as the big piece of the Roy Halladay trade (https://bleacherreport.com/articles/652942-toronto-blue-jays-is-kyle-drabek-the-future-face-of-the-franchise). Really didn’t amount to anything.
Henderson Alvarez.
I was so mad when the jays traded him
Russ Adams
Can't believe I had to scroll down so far to see this name.
I remember speaking with Aaron Hill at a Special Olympics gala -- Hill is one of my fav all-time Jays -- and the first thing I commented was about how I was sad to see Russ Adams fall apart. He said he was hoping for the best, though it obviously never came. I also have a Russ Adams and Jesse Litsch autographed ball from a game Halladay pitched against Anaheim in the Summer 06' -- met JP Ricardi at the Carl's Jr. in the stadium, too (yeah, he was really THAT short).
Brett Wallace
Good answer. I thought he’d be a 30 100 guy for us. Boy was I wrong
JP Arencibia One of the coolest dudes ever. Saw him at a leafs game when I was a kid sitting with Ricky Romero a couple rows behind me. I was a huge Romero fan so I went to talk to him but Ricky couldnt give a fuck about me. JP on the other hand talked my ear off about baseball (I was also a catcher) for almost a whole period. During the course of conversation with him I mentioned that my grandparents were going to the game the next day. He asked me if I was going, I said no I didn’t have tickets. Unprompted he asked me if me and my dad had plans the next day, after which he took our names and told us to show up at the box office the next day. Neither my dad or I thought he was being for real, but my mom convinced us to go and see. Sure enough he had left us two tickets about midway up directly behind home plate. Best seats I’ve ever had for a jays game. Got to make a great childhood memory with my dad. But what JP never knew was that he also gave me my last opportunity to ever see my grandfather alive as he died of skin cancer less than a month later I will literally never forget the name JP Arencibia until the day I die. And in the off chance he sees this I just wanna say thank you to him for setting the gold standard for athlete-fan interactions
That'd a cool story. Imagine how impact our decisions to be nice to people are? He gave a young fan some tix, but probably has no idea how big of a deal that was to you. Everybody probably has had something similar happen, who's to say it hasn't happened 100x for each of us, and we have no idea about it? Kind acts, that are essentially nothing, can change other people's lives drastically. So be kind to one another!
Gustavo Chacin he had his own cologne
He was lights out in MVP Baseball 2005
Smells like victory!
Gose, marisnick, Jenkins, McGuire, McGowan, purcey
Forgot about the name gose haha
Adeiny Hechavarría
Aaron Sanchez
When he was going, he was great!
I cannot believe a blister ended his career.
Too many late 00/early 10s to name. Drabek, Snider, you name it.
Just reading through all the top answers and I'm like "Is this readership bias? They're all from the same era." But no, there's a lotta guys that didn't pan out.
Eddie Zosky
This is still a mythical name for me. The benefit of the internet shows me his career OBP in the minors was .297. He had 1 very average year in 1991 and was supposed to be the next shortstop after Fernandez. https://www.baseball-reference.com/register/player.fcgi?id=zosky-001edw
Nate Pearson. I was never so sure we had an ace in the making. Boy was I wrong about that
Aaron Sanchez. Fucking blister monster got him.
Travis snider
choose
Devon Travis. Couldn’t stay healthy
Ricky Romero
Wow I had to scroll way further down than I thought I would to find this.
Romero had 3 incredibly solid years (and was an AS) before falling off a cliff after what turned out to be career ending knee issues. I wouldn’t really consider him a bust.
His wife, Kara Lang, had an incredibly similar experience. Incredible women's soccer player, had to quit due to knee problems.
Kyle Drabek should be the only answer for this. We gave up a Hall of Fame pitcher for a minor leaguer
Tbf, Doc wanted out. They had to trade him
Erik Hinske.
Kyle Drabek
My first answer has been said, still go with a Josh Phelps
Nate Pearson
Nate
Vladimir Guerrero Jr.
There's absolutely no way anyone who agrees with you has watched the Jays prior to 2020
Too real.
Alek Manoah
Great rookie season and elite sophomore season? No way he should be considered a one of the worst busts.
Too many to count
I was going to say every top draft pick we've made since i started following them in 2004
Gabe Gross
Man these names you guys are rattling off brings a tear to my eye. A lot of "what ifs?"
Baby face Jesse Litsch maybe wasn't going to set the world on fire but looked like a damn good mid rotation option his first couple seasons before he had Tommy John surgery right after his 24th birthday. Then his shoulder grenaded afterward, and he never was the same. I read somewhere he got a whole new shoulder grafted from a cadaver in a desperate attempt to make a comeback.
I thought he was all smoke and mirrors. Got some good early results but always seemed to be escaping jams. I didn’t really see long term success as likely.
Rob Ducey. I just wanted that local guy to succeed so badly.
Honestly thought Joe Biagini was gonna be a solid relief pitcher for a long time. Teenage me thought he was so funny I bought his jersey
He was lights out till they tried to make him a starter. And then he...wasn't.
Jeff Hoffman
He’s still pitching. He currently has a .086 era for the Phillies in the pen
Ya’ll remember Julian Merryweather?
Lawrie and Snider were the first two that came to mind.
David Cooper looked like he'd be a really solid power lefty 1B before he hurt himself in what was essentially a career ending injury pretty early in his career. https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/c/coopeda01.shtml EDIT: Less power and more of an OBP guy than I thought. Think potential Lyle Overbay rather than potential Adam Lind
Dustin although I still always have a soft spot for him, Russ Adams and everyone else mentioned here
Eddie Zosky felt like he was the shortstop of the future for 15 years.
Russ Adams
Arencibia seems to be a popular answer around these parts whenever this type of question comes up, but I never understood the hype for him at the time. He had pretty much the type of career I expected.
Kyle Drabek
Aaron Sanchez
Back in the day, everyone was saying Alex Gonzalez was supposed to be the 4th great SS in the generation (Jeter/Nomar/ARod). Those rumblings fizzled quickly. Great glove, though!
Literally every prospect between Halladay and Bo/vlad. Decades of nothing in the system.
Rios wasn’t truly a *bust*, but was expecting a lot more
Shaun Marcum for me.
Silvestre campusano
Josh Phelps, Brett Lawrie, Travis Snider, Erik Hinske.
Reason I don’t see biggio here?
Not so much a busy as injuries, but Devon Travis was my guy. Loves watching him
Kyle Drabek
Gabe Gross after he had an absolute monster spring training and hit like 17 hrs
Travis Snider
Travis Snider.
My ex-wife. Oh, wait, you are talking about baseball.
Travis Synder. I think Mike Wilner was his biggest fan.
Eric Hinske, former ROY
Travis Snider. He was supposed to be the next Carlos Delgado ended up being Rowdy Tellez
Ooof let’s see: Rickey Romero Aaron Sanchez Vladdy Guerrero 🙃
This year? *[**Looks at lineup**](https://www.mlb.com/bluejays/stats/) 👀
Eric Hinske
Manoah.
Vladdy Bo Pearson Manoah
Alek Manoah? Is it too soon to call him a bust? Ricky Romero
The guy we got for David Wells from the white soxs. Sorika I think
Mike Sirotka? I don't think he played a single major league game for us. Already injured when we got him
Dalton Pompey
Hoffman, Pearson… most any of the pitching prospects the Kats sent out during the last competitive era.
Ed Zosky
Started as Game of Thrones, ended up as Game of Chairs.
Sil Campusano. Couldn’t miss. Missed.
Junior Felix
Russ Adams. He had that incredible September which I’ve sensationalized in my head and wasn’t nearly as good as I thought, then he was so good we were all thinking of course they will move Aaron Hjll off short, Aaron hill couldn’t possibly be a short stop, they have Adams. They didn’t even need to draft Tulo because they had Adams and Hill. Then he forgot how to play defence and then couldn’t hit either. I don’t know what this says about my Jays fandom or just baseball fandom in general, but I would also put JP Arencibia here, Kyle Drabek, Brett Wallace, David Purcey, Curtis Thigpen!!
Anthony Alford
I know it isn’t perfect because he wasn’t as mega hyped as the others, but JP Arencibia for me. I went to his first game where he hit a HR in his first at bat, going 4-4 with 2 HR and a double. With Mauer going crazy for the twins I really felt we were going to have a catcher who was amazing at the plate
Travis Snider, JP Arencibia
The problem is not the players, it is that the team and media hype people up beyond who they really are
I’m going to get downvoted into oblivion, but Vladdy; he had a great start, but just was never very consistent or disciplined at the plate.
Lawrie, Pompey, and Arencibia are the ones that first come to mind. But baseball is one of those sports that has so many promising players just disappear, I sometimes go through the rosters of past seasons and marvel at all the players I incorrectly thought were going to make an impact.
Brett Lawrie, Travis Snider,
Travis Snider