SIMMONS: My all-time Toronto Blue Jays starting lineup in honour of 50th season

With team celebrating 50 seasons, Steve Simmons unveils his all-time Toronto Blue Jays starting lineup. Get ready to discuss and argue.

Published Jul 15, 2026  •  Last updated 20 minutes ago  •  9 minute read

From left: Dave Stieb, Roberto Alomar Jr. and Josh Donaldson are part of Steve Simmons' all-time lineup. Toronto Sun file, Getty Images

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Fifty seasons of Blue Jays baseball have gone by so quickly.

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One minute Doug Ault is hitting two runs on opening day in 1977 and the next minute a brash Dave Stieb is making his first of 412 starts for the Jays.

There is so much to remember: Seeing Jerry Garvin’s pickoff move for the first time. Watching Hector Torres hit the first grand slam in Jays history off Ron Guidry of all pitchers. Viewing Ron Fairly on television in Major League all-star game.

That was just from the first season of Blue Jays in Toronto.

The rest is almost a blur: The first playoff series came in 1985 and that painful final-week collapse was two years later. There was Pat Gillick and Paul Beeston, what a run they had. There was Lloyd Moseby playing centre field alongside Jesse Barfield and George Bell. There was manager Bobby Cox platooning Ernie Whitt and Buck Martinez behind the plate; Garth Iorg and Rance Mulliniks at either second or third base. Anything to get an advantage.

Where has the time all gone? The memories. The moments. The seasons full of baseball drama.

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There was that shadowy afternoon in Oakland when Roberto Alomar — his name and his history now banished from baseball and banished from the Blue Jays — hit the franchise-changing home run off Dennis Eckersley, the Cy Young Award-winning reliever. That began a series of Jays home runs that marked so much of the club’s history.

Ed Sprague hit the pinch-hit home run in Atlanta that changed the direction of 1992 World Series. That led to the famous Joe Carter “Touch ’em all Joe” homer off Mitch Williams one year later at SkyDome that won the Jays the 1993 World Series. A rare back-to-back in baseball history.

After that, there was the giant Jose Bautista bat-flip home run in Toronto against the Texas Rangers in 2015 and the extra-inning home run by his pal, Edwin Encarnacion, against Baltimore one year later. From opening day in ’77, it seemed home runs changed everything.

Vladimir Guerrero Jr., back when he was doing such things, hit that moment in time grand slam against the Yankees last October, and that was just days before George Springer would hit the Game 7 winner in the American League championship series that sent the Jays to the 2025 World Series.

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And then came Bo Bichette in Game 7, playing on one leg, hitting a three-run homer off Shohei Ohtani. The kind of homer that should have won the Series for the Jays.

In all, the Jays have been in the playoffs 11 times. Twice they won the World Series. Once they lost it. Five times they lost the American League Championship Series. Since their birth half a century ago, only five teams — the Yankees, Dodgers, Red Sox, Cardinals and Giants — have won more World Series than the Jays.

Sport is forever about who it affects, how it affects, personally and emotionally. Remember the first time seeing Carlos Delgado or Roy Halladay. Remember the first time realizing how Tom Henke, this tall man with glasses, changed everything. Remember the first time watching Devon White glide under a deep fly ball.

Remember the first time hearing Tom Cheek and Jerry Howarth or Fergie Olver saying “How about those Blue Jays?” Remember the first time realizing that yeah, that was really Rickey Henderson in left and Jose Canseco in right and Roger Clemens on the mound. Remember the first time trying to decipher what John Gibbons actually said. And didn’t we all try to throw partially underhand, partially sidearm, the way Tony Fernandez flipped the ball.

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Over 50 seasons, some 990 players have suited up for the Jays. Many of them gone and forgotten. Some of them impossible to forget. Purely personal, here is my Blue Jays all-time starting lineup. The arguments can begin now.

THE STARTING LINEUP

CATCHER: Russell Martin

The statistics are not coincidental. Where Russell Martin caught, teams won. The Blue Jays had missed the playoffs for 20 straight seasons when Martin was signed in the winter of 2015. They made the playoffs twice in his first two seasons here. The previous two years in Pittsburgh, the Pirates had been out of the playoffs for two decades as well. Then he got there. For two years, two playoff seasons. Ernie Whitt caught more games, had more hits, more home runs, than any Blue Jay. Pat Borders won two World Series and a surprising World Series MVP award in 1992 from behind the plate. Both are fine choices. But there was a magic about Martin with the Jays. He was a game changer. There are few of those in baseball. Honourable mention: Borders.

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FIRST BASE: Carlos Delgado

This is an easy one. Sometime in the next few years, expect Delgado to become the first homegrown hitter to be elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame. He leads the Jays all-time in so many offensive categories that matter: Home runs, RBI, doubles, runs scored, walks, OPS and slugging. He is the basically the leader everywhere offensively. Honorable mention: John Olerud.

SECOND BASE: Roberto Alomar

This choice makes the Blue Jays and many fans uncomfortable. Alomar’s name has been removed from the Level of Excellence and his history has basically been withdrawn from everything Blue Jays. But what you can’t remove are our memories: We saw the best player in franchise history. The difference-maker in the field and at the plate. Brilliance offensively and defensively. The player still recognized by the Baseball Hall of Fame and as one of the greatest second basemen to ever play. If you were fortunate enough to see Alomar’s five seasons with the Jays, you witnessed baseball magic. Honorable mention: Damaso Garcia.

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SHORTSTOP: Tony Fernandez

Fernandez couldn’t quite get used to not being a Blue Jay. He was traded away in the famous deal for Joe Carter and Alomar in 1991, but returned to win a World Series in ’93, came back in ’98 and again in 2001. The pencil-thin Fernandez, forever hunched over at 6-foot-2, has the most hits in Blue Jays history with 1,583. He also has a career batting average in Toronto of .297, back when batting average meant more than it does now. He won four straight gold gloves for the Jays in the late ’80s. Sadly Fernandez passed away at the young age of 57 in the winter of 2020, the victim of kidney disease. Honourable mention: Bo Bichette.

THIRD BASE: Josh Donaldson

Josh Donaldson arrived with the Blue Jays — on the field and off the field — like a winter storm clanging in the midst of summer. He was different, disruptive, aggressive, argumentative, supportive, hugely talented and would only tolerate winning. No time for anything else. Few Blue Jays over 50 seasons had this kind of impact. He won the American League MVP in 2015 — only the second time a Toronto player had won — and he led the Jays to an American League East crown. Donaldson only played four seasons for the Jays, but his first two were beyond spectacular. Honourable mention: Kelly Gruber.

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DESIGNATED HITTER: Edwin Encarnacion

Paul Molitor was probably the best pure hitter the Blue Jays ever had. Even at the advanced ages of 36, 37 and 38, Molitor hit .315 in his three seasons with the Jays and later was a first-ballot entry into the Baseball Hall of Fame. But he played just 376 games at DH for the Jays. Edwin Encarnacion played first base, third base and DH for his eight seasons with the Jays. He ranks third all-time in Blue Jays home runs, third in OPS, second in slugging. He was the DH for 424 of his 999 games with the Jays. His wild-card-winning, extra-inning home run against Baltimore in 2016 is one of the grand moments in club history. Honourable mention: Molitor.

LEFT FIELD: George Bell

I went to spring training in Arizona to interview Bell the year after he left the Blue Jays for the Chicago Cubs. He stiffed me on the first day. He stiffed me on the second day. On my third attempt, he finally sat down to talk. He told me I have five minutes. I asked one question and turned my tape recorder on. Forty-five minutes later, we shook hands and he stopped talking. That was Bell. Feisty. Angry. Opinionated. Talented. Singular. Occasionally selfish. The first Blue Jay to win the MVP. The first Rule-5 pickup to do anything like that. Honourable mention: Shannon Stewart.

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CENTRE FIELD: Devon White

The Blue Jays have had so many outfielders over the years, but only one true artist. White didn’t just play centre field, he danced his way in the outfield, painting pictures like few have ever painted before. He was like Randy Moss running a pass pattern in the direction of baseballs hit. He didn’t play that long here and he didn’t put up huge offensive numbers, but if you saw him glide through the outfield, you knew you were seeing something original and special.  His World Series catch, which should have resulted in a triple play, will live forever. Honourable mention: Vernon Wells.

RIGHT FIELD: Jose Bautista

Joe Carter hit the home run never to be forgotten. He will get the statue soon to be established outside Rogers Centre. Bautista hit a different home run at a different time, with a bat flip that puts him in the conversation for greatest Blue Jays player ever. Bautista is second behind Delgado in Jays home runs, 85 ahead of Carter. His OPS in Toronto was .878 compared to Carter’s .781. The biggest difference between Bautista and Carter: Wins above replacement. Bautista’s total with the Jays: 38.4. Carter’s total: 8.5. Honourable mention: Carter.

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STARTING PITCHER: Dave Stieb

Picking between Stieb and Roy Halladay is like having to answer the question ‘which of your kid’s do you like the best?’ They were both so different yet so spectacular. Stieb’s earned run average through 15 seasons was 3.42. Halladay’s ERA through 12 seasons was 3.43. The 2,873 innings Stieb pitched for the Jays is a number that will never be equalled. Stieb was brash and difficult, but immensely competitive and judgmental. Halladay was super serious, just as competitive, singular like few Jays have ever been. My pick is Stieb for longevity and consistency. He was a big part of that turning point in Blue Jays history from expansion team to contender. Halladay never pitched a playoff game for the Jays. Honourable mention: Halladay.

RELIEF PITCHER: Tom Henke

The Blue Jays were in crisis mode of sorts in the mid 1980s. They had all this talent. They had fine starting pitching. But they didn’t have anyone to pitch the ninth inning. They tried nine different closers over two seasons — with Bill Caudill, Gary Lavelle, Dennis Lamp. Roy Lee Jackson, Jim Acker, among then. Then Henke arrived partway through the 1985 and everything changed. For that season and the seven that followed, Henke established himself as an all-time great Blue Jay. He finished with 217 saves, almost 100 more than any other Jay. That number, like Stieb’s innings pitched, may never be caught. Honourable mention: Duane Ward.

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MANAGER: Cito Gaston

He has a record no one will likely match in the history of the franchise: He was manager for two World Series champions. The only championships the club has ever won. He was the right man, right place, trusted, forthright, mostly quiet. Years later, when players talk about him, they do so with a reverence, many calling him the best manager they ever played for. He wasn’t much for publicity or photo ops or anything that would get him noticed. He managed just one team in his career, never got an opportunity to manage anywhere else. Honourable mention: Bobby Cox.

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