Jesse Lee Barfield is a former Major League Baseballright fielder. He batted and threw right-handed. Barfield is considered to have had "by far the best outfield arm of the 1980s". He led American League outfielders in assists for three consecutive years. Along with George Bell and Lloyd Moseby, Barfield starred in what many analysts considered the best all-around outfield of the 1980s with the Toronto Blue Jays. In 1985, he achieved a relatively rare combination with at least 20 each of home runs, stolen bases, and outfield assists.
Career
Toronto Blue Jays (1981–1989)
Selected by the Blue Jays in the ninth round of the 1977 amateur draft, Barfield debuted in the Majors in 1981, hitting.232 in just 25 games. He was a regular the following season and hit.246 with 18 home runs and 58 RBI, including the first pinch hit grand slam in Blue Jays franchise history. He finished eighth in American League Rookie of the Year voting and solidified himself as a regular in the lineup for years to come. In 1983, Barfield hit.253 with 27 home runs and 58 RBI. The following year, he increased his average to.284 with 14 home runs and 49 RBI. In 1985, Barfield batted.289/.369/.536, which was 42 percent higher than the league average or adjusted OPS+. He hit for both power and speed, with 27 homers and 22 stolen bases. Further, as a defensive standout, he recorded 22 outfield assists and netting 6.8 Wins Above Replacement. His 1985.289 season batting average was a career-high, and he became the first Blue Jays player to hit 20 homers and steal 20 bases in the same season. That season, Toronto reached the playoffs for the first time in franchise history. In his only playoff competition—the American League Championship Series —Barfield batted.280 with 1 home run, 4 RBI, and 1 stolen base. Despite the Blue Jays' failure to defend their 1985 division title, Barfield enjoyed his best personal season in 1986. He collected career-highs in batting average, 40 home runs, 108 RBI, 107 runs, 170 hits, 35 doubles, and wRC+. His 40 homers led the major leagues and set a team record that lasted one year. Also, Barfield won both a Gold Glove Award and a Silver Slugger Award, and he was selected to the American League All-Star team. The 1987 season saw Barfield play in a career-high 159 games, hitting.263 with 28 home runs and 84 RBI. He also won his second Gold Glove that year. The following year, his average dipped to.244 with 18 home runs and 56 RBI. In 1989, he hit just.200 with 5 home runs and 11 RBI in 28 games before being traded to the New York Yankees for Al Leiter on April 30.
Barfield finished the 1989 season with the Yankees, and his average increased slightly to.240, with 18 home runs and 56 RBI. In 1990, he hit.246 with 25 home runs and 78 RBI, but he never produced quite like the club had hoped. In 1991, he hit just.225, although he produced 17 home runs and 48 RBI for a Yankees team that was one of the worst in recent history. By 1992, injuries and general ineffectiveness forced his retirement at the age of 32, after he hit just.137 in 30 games. He was granted free agency on November 4. While with the Yankees, Barfield was a resident of Tenafly, New Jersey.
Final years
In 1993, he played in Japan with the Yomiuri Giants, reuniting with Lloyd Moseby, but he batted just.215 in 114 games before he was released. He joined the Houston Astros for spring training in 1994 and was projected to be the opening-day right-fielder, but injuries prevented him from making the team.
Career overview
Throughout his career, Barfield was a free swinger and racked up more than 140 strikeouts in each of five seasons. For most of his time in the Major Leagues, his productivity overshadowed his strikeouts; however, by 1990, 1 in 3 Barfield at bats resulted in a strikeout. Barfield was a career.256 hitter with 241 home runs, 716 RBI, and 39 WAR in 1,428 games. He was inducted in the Kinston Professional Baseball Hall of Fame in 1990.
Later life
His elder son, Josh, is a former infielder with the San Diego Padres and Cleveland Indians. Another son, Jeremy, was selected by the New York Mets during the 2006 draft. Jeremy opted to attend San Jacinto Community College instead and was drafted again in 2008 by the Oakland Athletics. He spent eight seasons in the Athletics' and Colorado Rockies' minor league systems and two independent leagues before joining the Boston Red Sox organization in 2017. On August 22, 2006, the Associated Press reported that Jesse Barfield was taken to a hospital after he suffered a head injury when he was allegedly shoved down a flight of lower stairs by his son, Jeremy, during a family argument. The incident also resulted in Jeremy's arrest on a Class A misdemeanor charge of family assault. In 2007 and 2008, Jesse Barfield served as a color commentator for Blue Jays games on CBC. Currently, he works at Competitive Edge Sports in The Woodlands, Texas.
