A Blue Jay from the Past: Brian Wolfe

Do you remember Brian Wolfe?

This is a new series for Blue Jays Nation called “A Blue Jay from the Past”. Each week, I’ll spin every Blue Jays’ season in the Wheel of Names and pick a player who played a significant number of games for the Jays, ideally a full season. This week, the Wheel of Names landed on the 2007 season, with the player we’ll look at in today’s article being Brian Wolfe.

The right-handed pitcher was selected in the sixth round of the 1999 MLB draft out of Servite High School in Anaheim by the Minnesota Twins. Wolfe played parts of his first seven seasons in the Twins organization, with his best minor league season coming in 2001 with their “A” team, where he had a 2.81 ERA in 160 innings pitched.

On Jan. 6, 2006, the Brewers traded Wolfe to the Blue Jays for Corey Koskie. In Wolfe’s first season with the Jays organization, he posted a 5.83 ERA and a 4.13 FIP in 66.1 innings pitched, or 29 appearances. After originally electing free agency, Wolfe re-signed with them before the start of the 2007 season.

In 2007, Wolfe started his season with the Syracuse Chiefs of the International League, where he had a 1.04 ERA and a 2.58 FIP in 26 innings pitched. He was called up to the Blue Jays later that season, finishing the 2007 season with a 2.98 ERA and a 4.43 FIP in 45.1 innings pitched, along with a 12.6 K% and a 5.2 BB%.

Wolfe pitched 20 games with the Jays in 2008, authoring a 2.45 ERA and a 3.86 FIP in 22 innings pitched. His 2009 season was his final in the big leagues, where he had an 8.22 ERA and a 7.47 FIP in 15.1 innings pitched.

The 2009 season was Wolfe’s final season in North America, but he played out the rest of his career in Japan. In 2010, he signed with the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters of the Nippon Baseball Organization. After four seasons there, Wolfe joined the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks, winning the Japan Series in 2014 and 2015.

Wolfe’s final three seasons were spent with the Saitama Seibu Lions before retiring after the 2018 season. Overall, Wolfe finished with a 3.43 ERA in 762.2 innings pitched in Japan, a long baseball career, even if his impact on Major League Baseball was minimal.