Players who had 30 steals in a season with the Blue Jays | Immaculate Grid Answers for Grid 121 | August 1, 2023

Are you hooked on Immaculate Grid, the daily trivia game from Baseball Reference? We sure are! We’ll warn you right now—this blog post contains spoilers. But if you’re looking for a little help with today’s grid (or you already filled it out and want to know who else qualified) read on.

To fill out today’s grid, you need to choose players who had 30 steals in a season with the Blue Jays. There were 15 players with 30 steals for the Blue Jays. Here are some examples:

Rajai Davis

Rajai Davis focused on baseball in college. A well-rounded athlete whose biggest asset is his speed, he was drafted in the 38th round of the 2001 amateur draft by the Pittsburgh Pirates. Davis was signed by scout Charlie Sullivan and made his pro debut that summer. Originally a second baseman out of school, he was converted to the outfield. He hit .262/.364/.274 for the GCL Pirates that year with 11 steals in 14 tries. He also went 1 for 12 with two walks for the Williamsport Crosscutters. In 2002, Rajai returned to the lowest level, going at a .384/.436/.554 clip for the GCL Pirates with 24 steals in 30 tries. He was 0 for 4 with Williamsport and 6 for 14 with 6 walks for the Hickory Crawdads. An off-year may have knocked him out of baseball but instead he dominated that season. Davis led the Gulf Coast League in batting average, OBP, hits (86), at-bats (224), total bases (124) and extra-base hits (25, tied for the lead with Joey Votto). He was one point behind the slugging leader, Hanley Ramirez. He made the GCL All-Star team, but at 21 was old for the level and did not make Baseball America’s list of the league’s top 20 prospects. The league did not pick an MVP but Topps named him the GCL Player of the Year.

Shannon Stewart

Shannon Stewart was an outfielder and one of the most free-swinging lead-off hitters in the game. At Southridge High School in Miami, FL, he was a three-sport standout in track, baseball, and football. As a senior, he was an All-Dade County selection in baseball. As a junior, he was an All-Dade County selection in football.

Drafted by the Toronto Blue Jays in the 1st round (19th pick) of the 1992 amateur draft, Stewart made his major league debut on September 2, 1995. He fluctuated between the majors and minors over the next several seasons, eventually finding a place in the everyday Blue Jay lineup by the end of 1997.

Homer Bush

Homer Bush batted a scorching .380/.421/.465 in 45 games (71 at bats), then made two pinch running appearances in the Fall Classic. Homer was part of the Yanks offering to the Toronto Blue Jays for Roger Clemens prior to the next season, along with pitchers Graeme Lloyd and David Wells. In his lone season of regular activity, 1999, Homer hit .320/.353/.421 in 128 games. His bat cooled considerably in 2000 and he was gone from the bigs after 9 games back in the Bronx in 2004. A regular at Yankee Old-Timer’s Day festivities, he resurfaced in the game as a coach for the Eugene Emeralds in 2014.

In 2022, he managed the Mahoning Valley Scrappers of the MLB Draft League and in 2023 was appointed manager of the Staten Island FerryHawks of the Atlantic League.

His son, Homer Bush Jr. was drafted by the San Diego Padres in the 4th round of the 2023 Amateur Draft.

Otis Nixon

Otis Nixon stole more bases in the 1990s than anyone else.

He first caught attention with some great seasons in the New York Yankees minor league system in the early 1980s. In 1980, he scored 124 runs in 136 games for the Greensboro Hornets of the South Atlantic League, thanks to an OBP of .412 and 67 stolen bases. In 1981, he stole 72 bases for the AA Nashville Sounds, maintaining an OBP of .413 in spite of a .251 batting average, as he drew 110 walks. In 1982, between Nashville and AAA Columbus, he stole 107 bases, drew 108 walks and scored 90 runs. This was the height of the 1980s stolen base era, as Rickey Henderson set the single-season major league stolen base record, while Vince Coleman would set the minor league record the following year. He returned to Columbus for a full season in 1983 and stole another 94 bases in 138 games, hitting .291 and scoring 129 runs while drawing 96 walks. He was clearly ready to start in the majors at that point, but his teams focused on his weaknesses rather than his strengths: he had almost no power (his last professional homer had been hit in 1980 and he had never collected as many as 20 extra-base hits in a season) and he had never reached the magic .300 mark as a hitter. As a result, it would take him a number of years to establish himself as a major league regular.

Lloyd Moseby

Lloyd Moseby was signed as a 1st round pick in the 1978 amateur draft by the Toronto Blue Jays and scout Wayne Morgan. He played only 2+ years in the minors, hitting .300 and slugging .500 at every stop.

Moseby played 12 years in the majors, mostly with the Blue Jays. He was sixth in the American League in batting with a .315 average in 1983, led the AL in triples with 15 in 1984 and was named to the All-Star team in 1986.

Moseby had both power and speed, so he was in the top five in Power/Speed Number five times in his major league career. The similarity scores method shows Andy Van Slyke, a contemporary, as the most similar player.

All 15 Players

You can see all 15 players with 30 steals for the Blue Jays on Stathead. Good luck with your grid!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 1st, 2023 at 9:27 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.