December 10, 2023

By Kevin Glew

Canadian Baseball Network

Some Canadian baseball news and notes from the past week:

-The St. Louis Cardinals traded slugger Tyler O’Neill (Maple Ridge, B.C.) to the Boston Red Sox on Friday for pitchers Nick Robertson and Victor Santos. The Cardinals had recently tendered a 2024 contract to O’Neill (who is projected to make $5.5 million in 2024) but with a surplus of outfielders, the Cardinals made it known that he was available. A third-round pick of the Seattle Mariners in 2013, O’Neill played parts of five seasons in the M’s organization before being dealt to the Cardinals for left-hander Marco Gonzalez on July 21, 2017. The Junior National Team and Langley Blaze alum made his major league debut with the Cardinals in 2018. His finest campaign came in 2021 when he batted .286 with 34 home runs and had a .912 on-base plus slugging percentage (OPS) and captured his second consecutive National League Gold Glove in left field. Since that season, O’Neill has endured two injury-riddled campaigns. This past season O’Neill persevered through injuries to bat .231 with nine home runs and 21 RBIs in 72 games. The 28-year-old also went 8-for-13 (.625 batting average) for Canada at the World Baseball Classic. O’Neill will join fellow Canadian Nick Pivetta (Victoria, B.C.) on the Red Sox.

-Congratulations to Cleveland Guardians slugger Josh Naylor (Mississauga, Ont.) who was selected as the winner of the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame’s Tip O’Neill Award, as the top Canadian player, on Thursday. On top of the outstanding offensive numbers Naylor put up during the season, another reason Naylor was recognized by the Canadian ball hall was his charitable work. This past week, Naylor was helping out the Shoebox Project with the Ontario Blue Jays. The Shoebox Project fills shoeboxes with gifts for women in emergency shelters and temporary housing in the Greater Toronto Area. The project’s goal is to give gifts to women and show them that others are thinking about them during the holidays.

-Fergie Jenkins (Chatham, Ont.) will be a coach at the Hall of Fame East-West Classic to be played in Cooperstown on May 25. The game will be a tribute to the Negro Leagues All-Star Game. “The greatest legends of Black baseball demonstrated their talent and desire for four decades at the annual Negro Leagues East-West All-Star Game,” reads an ad for the event. Russell Martin (Montreal, Que.) is one of the players who will participating. You can read more about the event here.

-Thirty-nine years ago today, the Montreal Expos traded Gary Carter to the New York Mets in exchange for Hubie Brooks, Mike Fitzgerald, Herm Winningham and Floyd Youmans. “The first day I reported to the Expos, [owner] Mr. Bronfman said the first thing I want you to do is trade Gary Carter,” said former Expos GM Murray Cook (Sackville, N.B.) in his Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame conference call in 2014. “And boy, that was a bombshell, but it was a matter of his contract being rather onerous in the opinion of the ownership.” Cook says it was difficult to deal Carter, who had been signed to a lucrative seven-year, $15-million contract in February 1982. In fact, the New York Mets were the only team with interest that could afford the all-star catcher. “It turned out that I made that deal with [Mets GM] Frank Cashen and [Mets assistant GM] Joel McIlvaine in the stairwell at the winter meetings [in Nashville at the Opryland Hotel] because that was the only place we could get together without the media being aware of it,” shared Cook.

-The whole Shohei Ohtani to Toronto watch on Friday was reminiscent of the Blue Jays’ pursuit of right-hander Yu Darvish back in December 2011. At that time, I was blogging for CBC and was similarly following every rumor. Darvish had been posted by the Nippon Ham Fighters of the Japan Pacific League and teams were bidding to secure the rights to talk contract with him. And it while it was J.P. Hoornstra, a Dodgers Nation blogger, who reported falsely that Ohtani had chosen to sign with Toronto, it was Kevin Gray, of the New Hampshire Union Leader, who incorrectly reported in December 2011 that the Blue Jays had won the bidding rights for Darvish. Here’s the blog entry I wrote it about back on December 20, 2011.

-After nine seasons with the Toronto Blue Jays, left-hander Jimmy Key signed a four-year, $17-million contract with the New York Yankees on this date 31 years ago. The Blue Jays had tried to re-sign him, but general manager Pat Gillick had a strict policy of not offering more than a three-year contract to pitchers. The Blue Jays had offered Key a three-year, $12-million deal. Key’s 116 wins as a Blue Jay are 32 more than any other left-hander in franchise history, while his 3.42 ERA is tied with Dave Stieb for the lowest career ERA by a starter who has thrown at least 500 innings with the club. In seven post-season appearances for the Blue Jays, Key was 3-1 with a 3.03 ERA. He was also the winning pitcher in the Blue Jays’ 1992 World Series-clinching Game 6 against the Atlanta Braves.

-On this date in 1996, right-hander Mike Johnson (Edmonton, Alta.) was selected by the San Francisco Giants from the Toronto Blue Jays in the Rule 5 draft. The Giants then flipped Johnson to the Baltimore Orioles on the same day. Johnson made his major league debut with the O’s on April 6, 1997 when he pitched four innings in relief of Mike Mussina in his club’s 9-3 loss the Texas Rangers at The Ballpark in Arlington. Taken in the 17th round of the 1993 MLB draft by the Blue Jays, the 6-foot-2 right-hander had pitched parts of four minor league seasons in the Blue Jays’ organization before landing with the O’s. He was dealt to the Montreal Expos on July 31, 1997 and proceeded to pitch parts of five seasons with the Expos. He continued to toe the rubber in the professional ranks until 2010. Johnson was also a member of the Canadian national team that won gold at the 2011 Pan Am Games. Since hanging up his playing spikes, he has become a highly respected coach in his home province and is the director of the Parkland Baseball Academy.

-It was three years ago today that the Arizona Diamondbacks selected right-hander Zach Pop (Brampton, Ont.) in the Rule 5 draft. The D-Backs then flipped him to the Miami Marlins. Chosen in the 23rd round by the Blue Jays out of Notre Dame Secondary School in Brampton, Ont., in 2014, Pop opted not to sign and headed to the University of Kentucky. After three collegiate seasons with the Wildcats, the young right-hander was chosen in the seventh round of the 2017 draft by the Los Angeles Dodgers. He made five scoreless appearances in Rookie ball for the Dodgers that year and allowed just one run in 19 games out of the bullpen in High-A the ensuing year before he was dealt to the Baltimore Orioles as part of the package for Manny Machado that July. He spent parts of two seasons in the O’s organization before he was taken by the Diamondbacks in the Rule 5 draft then flipped him to the Marlins. The Junior National Team alum spent the entire 2021 season in the big leagues with the Marlins, posting a 1-0 record and a 4.12 ERA in 51 appearances, striking out 51 batters in 54 2/3 innings. The Blue Jays acquired him from the Marlins on August 2, 2022 and he developed into a reliable middle reliever for the club, posting a 2-0 record and a 1.89 ERA in 17 appearances. In a combined 35 regular season games between the Blue Jays and the Marlins in 2022, he went 4-0 with a 2.77 ERA and fanned 25 in 39 innings. This past season, the 27-year-old right-hander recorded a 6.59 ERA and struck out 14 batters in 13 2/3 innings in 15 relief appearances for the Blue Jays.

-Looking for the perfect Christmas gift for the Canadian baseball fan in your family? You’ll likely find it in the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame’s annual Holiday Silent Auction which ends tomorrow at noon E.T. There are rare bobbleheads, ticket packages and all sorts of autographed memorabilia up for bids. Here’s a link to the auction.