My First Cards

You could make a good argument that Otto “The Swatto” Velez is one of the best Blue Jays ever. Through 2009, He has the 5th highest OPS+ in Blue Jays history for players who’ve had at least 1,500 PA’s in a Toronto uniform. His .372 OBP ranks him 6th in Blue Jays history. In fact, from 1976-1981, he had the 17th highest OPS+ in the entire AL among players with a minimum of 1500 PA’s. He was even the Blue Jays first ever DH. Yet, most people have probably never even heard the name Otto Velez.

The biggest reason people don’t know this guy, is that he only averaged 87 games a year during his 6 seasons in Toronto… at a time when the Blue Jays were still developing. I have to assume he was riddled with nagging injuries because he was just too good to be used in a platoon for 6 years, but I haven’t been able to find any information on that yet.

Anyway, 1982 was not a banner year for Otto The Swatto. He only played in 28 major league games, his smallest amount since 1975 when he played for the Yankees. His batting average dipped to an awful .192, though his OBP was still a fine .354. That’s pretty amazing actually. I mean, how many people bat sub-mendoza line, but still get on base better than some All-Star’s? I know it’s a small sample size, but you get the idea…it’s a big difference. Anyway, Otto also wasn’t slugging anymore in ’82, as his slugging percentage dropped 135 points from .404 in ’81 (which was his lowest since ’76) to .269!

The final home run of his major league career came on May 14th, leading off the 2nd inning against Texas pitcher Jon Matlack. After that at-bat, he’d finish the season hitting .133 (4 for 30).

Otto played a few games for the Blue Jays AAA team in Syracuse that season too, which is interesting because the last time he played in AAA it was also for Syracuse, when Syracuse was part of the Yankees organization. He’d end his major league career in 1983, at the age of 32, playing for Cleveland. Otto’s final major league game came on Sunday, August 7, 1983. He went 1 for 2 & scoring a run in a victory.

Besides his major league service time, he played winterball in the Puerto Rican league for years, finishing his baseball career in ’84-’85 with Santurce. He’d been playing in Puerto Rico since the early 1970′s, when he was in the Yankees organization. During these years, he got the chance to play with some Hall of Famers such as Gary Carter and Mike Schmidt, as well as players like Luis Tiant.