Whether fans in Toronto want to admit it or not, a glorious era of Blue Jays baseball likely came to an end when the Cleveland Indians celebrated the AL pennant at Rogers Centre last week.
Jose Bautista and Edwin Encarnacion, the sluggers who teamed up for parts of eight seasons to return a swagger to the Blue Jays organization and end a 22-year postseason drought, are both free agents. It's highly likely their time in Toronto is over. The club said it will make qualifying offers to both players, but it's expected they'll reject those offers in favor of greater riches on the open market.
If they do depart, both players will leave behind significant legacies in Toronto, having turned the Blue Jays franchise - and much of the city's sporting culture - on its head over the past eight years. There's no doubt Bautista and Encarnacion are two of the most iconic and important athletes in Toronto sports history; where they ultimately sit on Hogtown's list of sports royalty is a point of great contention. theScore's staff tried to bring some clarity to the situation and debated a list of the top 10 athletes in Toronto history, which includes both sluggers. Here it is, in no particular order:
Roberto Alomar
Though he spent just five years with the Blue Jays, Alomar's impact on the franchise is immeasurable. The second baseman became an instant fan favorite when he arrived in 1991 and was instrumental in the Blue Jays' back-to-back titles; he also hit what many consider the most important home run in franchise history in the 1992 ALCS. He's the only Blue Jay to have his number retired, and the only Hall of Famer to wear a Blue Jays hat on his plaque. - Simon Sharkey-Gotlieb
Mats Sundin
Mats Sundin is the greatest to ever suit up for the Toronto Maple Leafs - anyone who tells you otherwise is wrong. The Swede was the first non-Canadian captain of the club, and No. 13 left Toronto after 13 seasons as the Maple Leafs' all-time leader in goals, points, power-play goals, and game-winning goals. He added 70 points in 77 playoff games, good for second in the 100-year history of the club, and seven game-winning playoff goals - no one else has scored more than five. There's an old saying which best describes Sundin's time in Toronto: You don't know what you've got until Mats is gone. - Navin Vaswani
Joe Carter
Acquired with Alomar in December 1990, Carter spent seven seasons with the Blue Jays and made five All-Star appearances to become a franchise legend. He's most famous, of course, for his World Series-winning walk-off homer off Mitch Williams in 1993, a seminal moment in Toronto and Canadian sports history. Carter also made the final play of the 1992 World Series while playing first base. - SSG
Vince Carter
Whether Vince Carter will go down as the greatest Raptor of all time remains a contentious issue, especially among a segment of the fanbase that will never get over his ugly split from the franchise. But no one can deny VC's place as the Raptors' most iconic player - his legendary 2000 dunk contest performance put the Raptors, Toronto, and Canada on the basketball map in thunderous fashion. Given basketball's worldwide popularity, it can be argued that Toronto has never housed a bigger international sports superstar than Carter, whose Half-Man, Half-Amazing routine transcended borders and made him perhaps the face of the early 2000s NBA. - Joseph Casciaro
Doug Gilmour
Doug Gilmour's time in Toronto was short - he played only 393 games and was gone by 1997 - but he led the Maple Leafs out of the Harold Ballard-era darkness, the catalyst in their transformation back into a respectable team. Gilmour averaged a Maple Leafs-best 1.15 points per game - no one else comes close - and holds single-season records for points (127) and assists (95). In 1993, he won the Selke Trophy and finished second behind some guy named Mario Lemieux for the Hart Trophy. He captivated the city in the springs of 1993 and 1994 and averaged 1.481 points per game in four playoff campaigns with the franchise, including when Toronto came 60 minutes - and a performance Wayne Gretzky calls the game of his life - from the Stanley Cup Final. The man known as "Dougie" played for seven teams over his Hall of Fame career, but he's remembered as a Maple Leaf, and rightfully so. - NV
Jose Bautista
He was property of five organizations in one season, and struggling to keep a big-league job when the Blue Jays acquired him from Pittsburgh for journeyman minor leaguer Robinzon Diaz in August 2008. Two years later Bautista turned that deal into one of the steals of the decade when he hit 54 homers and began rewriting the Blue Jays' record books and changing the franchise. He became beloved for his trademark ability to channel anger into production - just ask Darren O'Day - and his legendary bat flip in the 2015 ALDS ranks only behind Carter as the team's iconic image. If he does leave this winter, he'll do so as arguably the greatest position player the Blue Jays have ever seen. - SSG
Wendel Clark
Wendel Clark was born in Kelvington, Saskatchewan, but he's from Toronto. Drafted first overall as a defenseman in 1985, Clark came along during a dark period for the franchise - from 1980 to 1990, Toronto won 30 or more games in a season only twice. But Clark gave people a reason to visit Maple Leaf Gardens. He scored, checked, and fought, but his give-it-all game came at a cost, and Clark played more than 66 games only once in his first nine seasons. It didn't matter to the city, which loved him unconditionally, and there was much uproar when he was traded - ironically enough - for Sundin after the 1993-94 season. Toronto's love affair with Clark would continue, though. No. 17 came home in a costly 1996 trade and again in 2000, so he could retire in blue and white. Clark's 34 playoff goals are a team record, and he's best remembered for destroying Marty McSorley after the defender took a run at Gilmour during the 1993 conference finals. That was Wendel. You mess with anyone on the Maple Leafs, you mess with Clark. - NV
Roy Halladay
The bright spot during the Blue Jays' years in the desert, "Doc" was known for his competitive fire as well as being arguably the best pitcher in baseball during his Blue Jays years. His teams never made the playoffs but Halladay drew people to Rogers Centre by himself; by the time he was traded in 2009, his legacy as the greatest pitcher in Blue Jays history - and perhaps the most universally beloved Blue Jay - was cemented. - SSG
Edwin Encarnacion
The man once derisively dubbed "E-5" by fans was brought to Toronto from Cincinnati as a throw-in, included in a trade only to make salaries work. After being outrighted to the minors and even claimed on waivers by Oakland, Encarnacion found a home at first base and broke out in 2012 with a 42-homer campaign. Since then, he's formed the backbone of the Blue Jays and has quietly gone about his business while spawning parrot memes thanks to his home-run trot. Encarnacion got his Kodak moment earlier this month when he walked off the Orioles in the wild-card game, a homer that's been dubbed the "bat drop." - SSG
Michael "Pinball" Clemons
The CFL's Argonauts, one of North America's oldest professional sports franchises, have fallen out of favor and become largely irrelevant in Toronto. Only Clemons, one of the league's great running backs and an ambassador for the game and his city, still transcends the franchise, even among casual fans. During his 12-year career the diminutive running back electrified Toronto with his record-setting play and infectious smile, and led the Argonauts to three Grey Cups in the 1990s while bringing life to the moribund franchise; he later won a fourth title as the team's head coach in 2004. Now an Argos executive, Pinball remains a civic icon and is beloved for his motivational speeches and dedication to Toronto, leading to occasional suggestions that he run for mayor. - SSG
That Bautista and Encarnacion can find themselves on a list like this while they're still active speaks volumes about the impact they've left on Toronto sports in just nine short years. While all good things must come to an end, their legacies in Canada's largest city will continue to live on, and it's very clear they'll forever be regarded as two of the greatest athletes to ever pass through the 6ix.
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