Jim Clancy, who made his Major League debut during the Toronto Blue Jays’ 1977 expansion season and spent 12 seasons with the club as a key member of its starting rotation, has died at 69.
The Blue Jays confirmed Clancy’s death in a social media post Monday. A cause of death was not given.
Clancy was selected by the Blue Jays sixth overall in the 1976 MLB expansion draft and made his big-league debut on July 26, 1977, against the Texas Rangers at Toronto’s Exhibition Stadium. He surrendered five earned runs over two innings in a 14-0 loss.
After going 4-9 in Toronto’s expansion year, Clancy played his first full season in 1978, posting a respectable 10-12 record on a team that finished last in the American League East at 59-102.
Clancy, along with star pitcher Dave Stieb, provided the bedrock for the Blue Jays’ starting rotation as the team became increasingly competitive. He was Toronto’s opening-day starter in 1981 and 1984.
The six-foot-four, 220-pound Clancy had a 16-14 record with a 3.71 earned-run average and 139 strikeouts in his 1982 all-star season as the Blue Jays finished out of last place in the AL East for the first time with a 78-84 record.
He went 9-6 with a 3.78 ERA in 1985 as the Jays won the division for the first time before falling in seven games to the Kansas City Royals in the AL Championship Series.
How durable was Jim Clancy at a different time in baseball history? He started more than 30 games 8 different times with the Blue Jays. He pitched more than 200 innings 6 times. He threw 73 complete games. In the early years, when the Jays didn’t have much, they had Clancy.
Clancy, who ranks second in Blue Jays history in starts (381), innings pitched (2,517), and complete games (74), signed with the Houston Astros after a disappointing 1988 season in Toronto, where he had an 11-13 record and 4.49 ERA as the Blue Jays failed to return to the playoffs for a third straight season.
He played his final campaign coming out of the bullpen with the 1991 Atlanta Braves. He earned his first-ever post-season victory in the third game of the World Series as Atlanta defeated the Minnesota Twins 5-4 in twelve innings.
Clancy finished the series with a 1-0 record with a 4.15 ERA, but the Twins won the series in seven games.
Over his career, Clancy had a 140-167 record with a 4.23 ERA and 1,422 strikeouts.
