Former Blue Jays center fielder Otis Nixon turns 66 today.
Nixon had a 17-year MLB career. He spent two of those years (well, just short of two years) with the Jays.
With the Jays, he hit .275/.362/.317 (it is hard to imagine an outfielder with a Slugging Average that low) with 2 home runs and 101 stolen bases (caught 22 games, so a pretty respectable success rate). His job was to get on base, and he did that well.
His 101 steals puts him seventh on the Jays’ all-time list. His 54 steals in the 1986 season has him tied for third (with Damaso Garcia) on the Jays’ single-season list (he is also tied for ninth for his 1987 season).
Otis had a total of 2.4 bWAR for the 228 games he played with the Jays.
Those two seasons could have been better ones for the Jays. We finished fourth and fifth in the AL East those years (considering we had Carlos Delgado, Pat Hentgen, Shawn Green and Roger Clemens (well in ‘97) on the team at the time finishing well under .500 seems almost unbelievable.
Otis was fun to watch on the basepaths, but he had no power at all, and despite his speed, his defense in center could have been better. He had the occasional terrific catch but didn’t always take the best routes to the ball and had a noodle arm.
Gord Ash traded Nixon to the Dodgers on August 12th, 1997, for Bobby Cripps, a catcher who never made it past Double-A.
Of course, my best memory of Nixon wasn’t when he was with the Jays. Nixon made the last out of the 1992 World Series, trying to reach base against Mike Timlin on a bunt single. Timlin made an excellent play on the ball and threw it to Joe Carter at first base. Joe set a world record for jumping (which he would break a year later). Otis hit .296/.321/.333 with 5 steals for the Braves in that series.
Nixon played for nine teams in his MLB career. He was one of those players contending teams figured would be the piece that would push them over. He did make it to the playoffs three times.
Nixon hit .270/.343/.314 in his career with 620 steals (16th all-time).
Happy Birthday, Otis.
It is Alek Manoah’s 27th birthday.
Alek had a very nice rookie season (finishing eighth in Rookie of the Year voting). And then his second season was better. He went 16-7 with a 2.24 ERA in 31 games, for a 6.0 bWAR. By bWAR that’s the 18th best season by a pitcher in Jays history.
His third season was terrible. Alek couldn’t find the windup that made him so successful. He had a couple of trips to the minors in there.
Manoah started the season okay last year but was injured at the end of May and had a hybrid internal brace procedure to repair the UCL in his right elbow in June. He’ll be out until at least mid-season this year.
Happy Birthday, Alek. I can’t wait to see you on the mound.