Jesse Barfield

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Selected by the Blue Jays in the ninth round of the 1977 amateur draft, Barfield debuted in the Majors in 1981, hitting .232 in just 25 games. He was a regular the following season and hit .246 with 18 home runs and 58 RBI, including the first pinch hit grand slam in Blue Jays franchise history. He finished eighth in American League Rookie of the Year voting and solidified himself as a regular in the lineup for years to come.

In 1983, Barfield hit .253 with 27 home runs and 58 RBI. The following year, he increased his average to .284 with 14 home runs and 49 RBI. Barfield combined with George Bell and Lloyd Moseby to form what many analysts considered the best all-around outfields of the 1980s for the Blue Jays.

In 1985, Barfield batted .289 with an on base percentage of .369 and a slugging percentage of .536, which was 42 percent higher than the league average or adjusted OPS+. He hit for both power and speed, with 27 homers, 22 stolen bases, 22 assists and achieved 6.8 Wins Above Replacement. His batting average was a career-high, and he became the first Blue Jays player to hit 20 homers and steal 20 bases in the same season. That season Toronto reached the playoffs for the first time in franchise history. In his only playoff competition—the American League Championship Series (ALCS)—Barfield batted .280 with one home run, four RBI, and one stolen base.

Despite the Blue Jays' failure to defend their 1985 division title, Barfield enjoyed his best personal season in 1986. He collected career-highs in batting average (.289, tying the previous season), 40 home runs, 108 RBI, 107 runs, 170 hits, 35 doubles, and wRC+ (147). His 40 homers led the major leagues and set a team record that lasted one year. Also, Barfield won both a Gold Glove Award and a Silver Slugger Award, and he was selected to the American League All-Star team.

The 1987 season saw Barfield play in a career-high 159 games, hitting .263 with 28 home runs and 84 RBI. He also won his second Gold Glove that year. The following year, his average dipped to .244 with 18 home runs and 56 RBI. In 1989, he hit just .200 with 5 home runs (out of 16 total hits) and 11 RBI in 28 games before being traded to the New York Yankees for Al Leiter on April 30.

Barfield finished the 1989 season with the Yankees, and his average increased slightly to .240, with 18 home runs and 56 RBI. In 1990, he hit .246 with 25 home runs and 78 RBI, but he never produced quite like the club had hoped. In 1991, he hit just .225, although he produced 17 home runs and 48 RBI for a Yankees team that was one of the worst in recent history.

By 1992, injuries and general ineffectiveness forced his retirement at the age of 32, after he hit just .137 (13 hits in 95 at-bats) in 30 games. He was granted free agency on November 4.

While with the Yankees, Barfield was a resident of Tenafly, New Jersey.

In 1993, he played in Japan with the Yomiuri Giants, reuniting with Lloyd Moseby, but he batted just .215 in 114 games before he was released.

He joined the Houston Astros for spring training in 1994 and was projected to be the opening-day right-fielder, but injuries prevented him from making the team.

Career overview

Throughout his career, Barfield was a free swinger and racked up more than 140 strikeouts in each of five seasons (1985–1987, 1989, and 1990). For most of his time in the Major Leagues, his productivity overshadowed his strikeouts; however, by 1990, 1 in 3 Barfield at bats resulted in a strikeout.

Barfield was a career .256 hitter with 241 home runs, 716 RBI, and 39 WAR in 1,428 games. He was inducted in the Kinston Professional Baseball Hall of Fame in 1990.

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