With the most exciting group of September call-ups in sometime being announced a few days ago it seems to be a good time to look back at what the Blue Jays did once the calendar turned to the ninth month in the last few seasons. Most of the time Alex Anthopoulos and the Blue Jays front office refrain from aggressively promoting the team's top prospects once rosters expanded, but this year they basically said YOLO aka "I want to keep my job" and decided to promote anyone they thought could inject some excitement into the final month of the season.
In 2013 the team called up pitchers Kyle Drabek, Ricky Romero, Jeremy Jeffress, Luis Perez, and catcher Mike Nickeas as well as activating Dustin McGowan from the disabled list after he missed all of August. It wasn't the prettiest set of promotions as most of the pitchers got torched in relief roles, expect for Jeremy Jeffress who impressed by not allowing a run in nine appearances. Drabek and Romero both received limit chances to make an impression and they certainly didn't capitalize. For Romero, the poor performance essentially sealed his fate as a lost cause that could no longer get any hitters out.
A year prior in 2012 the Blue Jays didn't really make much noise in the September call-up department, just bringing back players who previously been optioned to the minors earlier in the year. These players included Brett Cecil, Anthony Gose, Joel Carreno and Yan Gomes (sigh). Gomes went 7-19 in September, but was still traded to Cleveland for Esmil Rogers where he went on to be very good at baseball.
The 2011 season was probably the most exciting in terms of recent September promotions as Canadian Adam Loewen came up to the team along with Kyle Drabek, Danny Farquhar, Brad Mills, and Chad Beck (his debut), plus the return of Dustin McGowan after an absence of three years. Loewen didn't impress and his at-bats in September of 2011 were the last he's seen in a major league uniform. Drabek flashed some nice stuff, but got absolutely torn apart in an outing against the Angels which left a bad taste in everyone's mouth. Chad Beck fooled everyone by not allowing a single run in three outings before eventually flaming out in 2012. Brad Mills was Brad Mills and made one bad appearance in September before being traded for Jeff Mathis in the offseason. Farquhar didn't leave much of an impression, which is a shame considering how well he is performing in Seattle these days.
In 2010, Kyle Drabek got his first promotion to the big leagues and earned three starts in September pitching pretty average. J.P Arencibia made his return to the Blue Jays after his first short initial stint in August and went 0-15 with seven strikeouts, which probably should have set off a few alarm bells. Shawn Hill, a Mississauga native like Dalton Pompey, made some starts in September as well but was released following the season. There was a few other Triple-A players promoted as well, but they didn't make much noise at the major league level.
Looking back, the recent September call-up history of the Toronto Blue Jays isn't the most exciting thing to examine in the world but that is partly due to the fact that the Blue Jays haven't been very aggressive in promoting their young players to the majors at the end of the season. This year the thinking seems to have changed and it certainly makes it more exciting for the fans. Hopefully we see more than just Dalton Pompey running from first to third during the rest of the month though.