Baseball's Canada All-Time Dream Team

Issue #199

I did a profile piece on Joey Votto soon after he announced his retirement in August. He was born in Toronto, Canada, in 1983. In looking at his career accomplishments, I consider him one of the three best MLB players born in Canada, but what about an overall Dream Team roster for Canadians? Here is what I came up with:

The top two position players are clearly RF Larry Walker and 1B Joey Votto. How you rank them could be debated: they played about the same number of games (Votto slightly more), and their OPS+ is very similar at 141 for Walker and 144 for Votto. Walker had 383 HR vs. Votto’s 356. Walker stole far more bases with 230 vs. only 80 for Votto, and he had nearly 200 more Runs and 200 more RBI. Yes, he played a lot of his career in Colorado, but Votto played his entire his career in Cincinnati—and while Great American is not Coors, it is a hitters' park nonetheless.

Votto's career OBP is higher as you might have guessed, but not by a huge amount at .409 vs. .400. Votto did walk a lot more, but Walker had a career .313 batting average vs. .294 for Votto. He was also hit by more pitches, 138 vs. 81. And lastly, they were both good defenders, with Votto taking home one Gold Glove Award at 1B, but Walker outshining him in that department with seven Gold Gloves in RF.

Either way, after those two super stars there is a big drop off amongst the position players—at least in terms of career numbers. Several others born in Canada had some great seasons though, such as:

• Vladimir Guerrero Jr.: AL All-Star in four of his first six seasons, and was AL MVP runner-up in 2021 when he led the AL with 48 HR, 123 Runs, .401 OBP, .601 SLG, and 167 OPS+.

• Justin Morneau: Four-time All-Star, AL MVP in 2006, and MVP runner-up in 2008.

• Jason Bay: NL ROY winner in 2004, three-time All-Star, and had four seasons with both 100+ Runs and 100+ RBI.

• Jeff Heath: played from 1936-49, two-time All-Star, with outstanding seasons in 1938 (.343 BA, 21 HR, 112 RBI, 18 triples) and 1941 (.340 BA, 24 HR, 123 RBI, 20 triples)

• Tip O'Neill: 19th century player (1883-1892) with a career slash line of .326/.392/.458 and a 144 OPS+. He led