A Blue Jay from the Past: Otto Velez

Do you remember Otto Velez?

This is “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 Toronto Blue Jays, ideally a full season. This week, the Wheel of Names landed on the 1980 season, with the player we’ll look at in today’s article being Otto Velez. Last week, we looked at Cliff Politte.

Velez signed with the New York Yankees as an amateur free agent in late 1969. The Puerto Rican native made his big league debut with the Yankees in 1973, playing parts of four seasons with them, where he only had 303 plate appearances in 105 games. Overall, he slashed .228/.366/.354 with six home runs.

The Blue Jays’ first season in the league was in 1977, meaning an expansion draft in late 1976. From the Yankees, they selected Velez, and he broke out afterwards. In his first full big league season, Velez slashed .256/.366/.458 with 16 home runs in 434 plate appearances for a 123 wRC+. In 1978, he hit nine home runs in 300 plate appearances while slashing .266/.380/.488 for a 133 wRC+.

Velez’s 1979 season was the best of his career, slashing .288/.396/.529 with 15 home runs in 325 plate appearances, giving him a career-high 146 wRC+ and 2.6 fWAR. In 1980, Velez slashed .269/.365/.487 with a career-high 20 home runs in 417 plate appearances for a 126 wRC+ and 1.7 fWAR.

His 1981 season was his final in the big leagues, slashing .213/.363/.404 with 11 home runs in 302 plate appearances for a 120 wRC+ and 0.7 fWAR. Unfortunately, his play continued to regress in 1982, hitting one home run in 65 plate appearances before being released by the Jays. Velez signed with Cleveland in 1983, playing just 10 games and retiring after the season.

The Puerto Rican native was one of the better players in Toronto’s early days and was nicknamed “Otto the Swatto”. In 1980, four of his 20 home runs came in one day, as he hit a solo home run, a two-run home run, a three-run home run, and a grand slam in a doubleheader against Cleveland. This is known as the “home run cycle”, and it’s never happened in the big leagues in one game.