Dave Collins turns 72 today. Unfortunately, we don’t have a picture of him in a Jays jersey.
Dave (they called him Davey a lot back then. I think if I were a Dave, I’d punch anyone who called me Davey) was with the Blue Jays for two seasons of a 16-yeah MLB career.
How we ended up with him was an interesting story. Collins came up with the Angels and played his first couple of seasons there. Then, the Mariners took him in the expansion draft. After a season, they traded him to the Reds, where he played for four seasons. He became a good player there. He had no power, but he got on base well and had speed. In the strike-shortened 1981 season, he hit .272/.355/.381 with 26 steals in 95 games (a bit of a down year for him). After that year, Yankees’ owner George Steinbrenner decided the way to win was with speed. Power hitters were out, and base stealers were in.
Being the boss, he got his way, and the Yankees signed Collins to a 3-year, $2.5 million contract, which was a fair bit of money back then. Pinstripe Alley picked it as the Yankees’ fifth-worst free agent contact in team history. Here is some of what they said:
After the Yankees lost the 1981 World Series to the Dodgers, George Steinbrenner decided that the team’s offense was focused on power a bit much and needed to develop their small ball game. Yes, fans, it was the accursed #TooManyDamnHomers trend before Twitter co-founder Evan Williams was even ten years old. As a result, Reggie Jackson’s time with the Yankees ended, and in came, among others, former Reds speedster Dave Collins. Following a few seasons of promise with the Angels and Mariners, the 29-year-old outfielder made a name for himself in 1980, stealing 79 bases for Cincinnati.
Even though he slipped to 26 steals in 95 games for the Reds in ‘81 and the Yankees didn’t have a definite position for him, Steinbrenner ensured that GM Bill Bergesch added Collins to his ‘82 “Bronx Burners” squad. It was bizarre from the get-go, with the Big Stein reorganizing spring training drills to focus on speed and just generally causing all sorts of idiocy. It turns out the big plan was a failure! (But please, go on about the “if the Boss was alive” nonsense.) The Yankees’ potent pennant-winning offense from ‘81 slipped to mediocre in ‘82, ending the year under .500. Collins only hit .253/.315/.330 with an 80 OPS+ and -0.7 WAR in 111 games, which were confusingly split among four positions, and he stole just 13 bases in 21 attempts.
I don’t think George considered building the team to suit your park.
Not surprisingly, the Yankees had a lousy season, and George decided that speed might not have been the way to build a winner.
After the season, Collins was shipped to the Blue Jays, Fred McGriff, Mike Morgan, and cash for Tom Dodd and Dale Murray. Murray was an average-ish middle reliever. Dodd played in 8 MLB games, none of them with the Yankees.
We picked up a future Hall of Famer in McGriff. He spent five seasons with the Jays, hitting .278/.389/.530 with 125 home runs, and then was part of the trade that brought us Roberto Alomar and Joe Carter.
Morgan had a disappointing 1983 season and was lost to the Mariners in the Rule 5 draft. However, he’d go on to have a pretty good MLB career, with 4.23 ERA in 597 games, 411 starts.
And Collins played two seasons with the Jays.
In 1983, he hit .271/.343/.328, making 31 steals in 118 games.
He had a better year in 1984, hitting .308/.366/.444 with 60 steals and 15 triples. The 60 steals is still a team record. The 15 triples are the second-most ever for a Blue Jay. Tony Fernandez had 17 in 1990.
In 1884, he was part of a complicated outfield platoon. Collins, a switch-hitter, would play left against RHP, pushing George Bell to right field, Willie Aikens to DH, and Jesse Barfield to the bench. Against lefties, Collins would sit, Bell would play left, Barfield would play right, and Cliff Johnson would DH. As the season went on, Barfield got more playing time.
Bell, Barfield, and Moesby were younger and better players, so the Jays traded Collins to the A’s and Alfredo Griffin for closer Bill Caudill. Caudill had one good season with us, a 2.99 ERA and 14 saves in 1985 and one awful season, 2 saves and a 6.19 ERA, before being released in April 1987.
Collins went from the A’s to the Tigers, Reds, and Cardinals before his career ended in 1990. Since then, he’s coached in the MLB and the minors and coached college and high school ball.
Career, he hit .272/.338/.351 with 395 steals (91 of them with the Jays, good for 10th on our all-time list, one ahead of Vernon Wells) in 1701 games, mostly in left field, but he also played right, center, and some first base.
Happy Birthday, Dave.