On Monday the Blue Jays signed the 49-year-old lefty Jamie Moyer, just three days after he was granted his release by the Baltimore Orioles. The Jays immdiately assigned Moyer to Triple-A Las Vegas, but, if he's eventually called up by the club, it would give them an impressive collection of players on the "wrong side" of 40.
"It would be pretty funny, huh?" said Blue Jays reliever Darren Oliver, 41. "I don't think that's happened in quite a long time, I'm sure."
If Moyer eventually ends up in Toronto, the Jays would be in possession of a trio of middle-aged players: Omar Vizquel, 45, Oliver and Moyer, giving them three of the six oldest players in MLB. For the record, only one other team — the Arizona Diamondbacks boast catcher Henry Blanco and reliever Takashi Saito — has as many as two players over 40.
Combined, the three have played 4,315 games over the course of 68 big league seasons. That's a lot of experience to impart upon a team that boasts a relatively young core. Between young up-and-comers like Ricky Romero, Brett Lawrie, and Henderson Alvarez, there might be something of a generational gap in the clubhouse. So leave it to the veterans to help out their younger teammates.
"Over the course of a game there's always something to watch," said Vizquel. "Whether it be the way a guy's running the bases or the way a pitcher's throwing the ball, there's always a conversation in the dugout about what you're seeing on the field."
The Jays' pitching staff is especially green. At 27, Romero is basically the veteran presence in the rotation, a fact that certainly isn't lost on Vizquel.
"I think [Moyer] coming in here can really help our young pitchers," said Vizquel, the former perrenial Gold Glover. "We've got a lot of young pitching, and I think he can really help these guys become even better."
As skills decrease with age, there's a certain kind of veteran knowledge that is gained. A pitcher might not be able to throw as hard, but he (hopefully) gains a better understanding of situational pitching, location and sequences, facets of the game that are often lost on younger players who may have the stuff to get away with mistakes. It's a part of the game Oliver, another crafty lefty, can certainly relate to Moyer on.
"You get smarter, you know your body," says Oliver. "You try to have a little bit more control of the strike zone as opposed to when you were younger."
It's the kind of lesson young pitchers like Alvarez, Romero, Kyle Drabek and Brett Cecil ought to take to heart. They may soon have one more voice in the clubhouse driving that point home.
