Baseball

All-Star Gazing
Blue Jays slugger Carlos Delgado has blasted off to a stellar start

Blue Jays first baseman Carlos Delgado was taking ground balls before an exhibition game against the Yankees this spring when he waved hello to New York manager Joe Torre, who was watching from the first base dugout. "See you in April," Delgado said, referring to Toronto's first scheduled series against the Yankees.

Torre, who will serve as manager for the American League All-Star team next month, responded, "I'll see you in July, too."

"It was nice that he said that," Delgado, who has never played in an All-Star Game, says now, "but if I don't do my part, it won't matter what he says."

Through Sunday, Delgado, a lefthand-hitting, 27-year-old slugger, had done more than enough to make Torre look prescient and himself an early MVP candidate. He led the league in home runs (24), slugging percentage (.741) and on-base percentage (.451); was second in runs (55); was tied for second in RBIs (63); and was sixth in hitting (.349). Nevertheless, it appears Delgado, seventh among American League first basemen in fan voting, will need to be a manager's choice to make his first All-Star team. "I'd like to see him do it," says Blue Jays manager Jim Fregosi, offering Delgado's 1999 numbers for added support (.272, 44 homers, 134 RBIs, 113 runs), "if only so the rest of the baseball world sees what kind of a player this guy is."

Whiplashed pitchers have long known of Delgado's power, but this season he has developed into a more complete batter as well as a clutch one. "I remembered him being a dead-pull hitter," says Marlins catcher Mike Redmond, who watched Delgado rip four hits, including an opposite-field homer and a double, in three games against Florida earlier this month. "Now he uses the whole field."

Indeed, half of Delgado's home runs this season had been to center or left. On June 7 he beat the Braves by hammering a grand slam to left. Two days later he jump-started Toronto's 13-3 win over the Expos with a two-run rocket to left center in the first, after Montreal had taken a 1-0 lead in the top of the inning. "He's to the point where he doesn't try to yank everything," says former Blue Jay and current Dodger Shawn Green, a close friend who still speaks to Delgado several times a week "He'll take what the pitcher gives him."

"A year ago everybody shifted to the right side against him" says Toronto general manager Gord Ash. "You can't do that anymore."

Fregosi credits that versatility as a hitter, along with Delgado's increased patience—he'd walked once every 6.4 plate appearances this season, compared with once every 7.9 last year—to "natural maturity," but Delgado has also been helped by new hitting coach Cito Gaston, who managed Toronto when Delgado made his major league debut in 1993. Says Tampa Bay's Fred McGriff, who played under Gaston on the Blue Jays for two years, "With Cito, Toronto hitters are going to have a good idea of what's coming."

After last season Delgado was intent on signing a one-year contract so he could test the free-agent market this fall; amid rumors that he would be traded, he agreed to a three-year, $36 million deal, but only after Ash included a quirky clause that allows Delgado to demand a trade after this season if he doesn't like the Blue Jays' prospects. If he asks out and Toronto can't swing a deal by Feb. 15, Delgado will become a free agent. "Both sides got what they wanted: Carlos has a year to assess our team, and we can get something in return if he's traded," says Ash, who four weeks before the signing had shipped fan favorite Green to the Dodgers. "It was important for the team and to let fans see someone who wants to play here."