Spending some time in the Music City for his sister-in-law’s birthday just prior to spring training gave Blue Jays centre fielder Kevin Pillar an excuse to catch up with an old friend.

It’s the same familiar face the rest of Toronto will get to renew acquaintances with over the next two days, even if he won’t be taking the mound.

Things are quite simple for R.A. Dickey now.

After signing a one-year deal with a club option for 2018 with the rebuilding Atlanta Braves to play his age-42 season close to his Nashville home, Dickey is transitioning to a new chapter in life, one that Pillar got a glimpse of in February.

“I called R.A., just to catch up with him and he invited me over to his house with my wife and my brother and my sister-in-law,” Pillar explained. “We went over there and he showed us his house he just got out there, his land, and we got to catch up. It was cool.”

Dickey’s four-season tenure with the Blue Jays can best be described as polarizing.

Mainly due to the significant package it took for then-GM Alex Anthopoulos to acquire the knuckleballer from the New York Mets, Dickey never quite lived up to the enormous expectations most held for a player who was coming off winning the 2012 National League Cy Young Award.

“I think it comes down to how you evaluate R.A., and, I think, that's going to define the results of this trade for us,” Anthopoulos said after the trade was finalized in December of 2012. “We evaluate him as a front-of-the-rotation starter.”

That season is still far and away the best of his career, as he led the league in strikeouts, finished with a 20-6 record, posted a 2.73 ERA and accumulated 5.0 wins above replacement.

Of course, the package going back to Queens was headlined by Thor, better known as burgeoning 24-year-old ace Noah Syndergaard, then an A-ball righty, and catcher Travis d’Arnaud, another top prospect whose progress has been stalled by injury.

Simultaneously watching Syndergaard develop and Dickey struggle to keep the baseball from hitting the seats inside Rogers Centre — he gave up 114 home runs in four seasons — was tough.

“I think he got unfairly treated, one, because of coming off the Cy Young, and, two, what Syndergaard has become,” Pillar said. “Those were, obviously, factors that were unforeseen. If our front office would’ve known Syndergaard was going to become the guy he’s going to be, we probably don’t make that trade. But we were also in kind of a win-now mode.”

They came close, appearing in two straight American League Championship Series, but Dickey wasn’t included in last year’s run, left off the postseason roster as his days in Toronto wound down.

“I’ve tried to hold it lightly, but it’s hard, in particular because of the relationships,” Dickey said when the season ended at the hands of the Cleveland Indians. “The relational component to this is something that most people on the outside of this room don’t really get, but that’s the thing that’s most valuable to me, all the relationships I’ve been able to establish and grow over time here. That’s hard for me. That’s going to be the most difficult part.”

Time has passed, Dickey is a Brave, and the Jays are now trying to dig themselves out of an early-season hole.

Dickey took his turn Sunday in the Atlanta rotation, throwing seven innings against the Miami Marlins, so he won’t see his former team during the home-and-home series this week.

He’ll still be the centre of attention, though.

“I remember first getting here and he kind of introduced himself to me and really made the effort to show he was willing to help with questions or anything I might need because he’s been around a while,” Jays right-hander Joe Biagini said.

“I just enjoyed watching him throw a knuckleball. I used to stand behind the catcher when he was playing catch or throwing a bullpen, just to watch it.”

Pillar called him a “father figure” type and a lot of younger players gravitated towards the quirky, well-read veteran.

“What people don’t understand about R.A. is he’s a super funny guy,” Pillar said. “Part of it was because he was the oldest one in the room and wanted to be involved with the younger crowd and up on the language and hip hop and stuff.

“Anytime I got a day off or the one time I was on the DL, he was always the guy I wanted to sit next to in the dugout because you never knew what was going to come out of his mouth, and it was always funny. Hearing his old high school basketball stories ­–­ just a very funny guy. He’ll tell you: Hoosiers, Chuck Taylors and three-pointers.”

Blue Jays pitching coach Pete Walker believes Dickey’s time in Toronto should be remembered for his availability.

He made 130 starts in four seasons, posting a 49-52 record and a 4.05 ERA.

Not world-beating numbers, but good enough to pitch at the back end of just about any major-league rotation.

Even 200 mediocre innings is hard to achieve at this level.

“A competitor,” Walker said of Dickey. “He had his share of tough games, but he took the ball every five days, gave us a ton of quality starts and a lot of wins here. For some people, it didn’t live up to that Cy Young standard that he had in New York that one year, but he was great for us and you could count on him to give us an opportunity to win a ballgame every time out there.”

Say what you want about the inconsistent knuckler, the haul needed to get him, or the personal catcher situation with the also-departed Josh Thole that forced Russell Martin’s bat out of the lineup, Dickey played a role and provided value.

Expectations clouded the true picture.

“I think people have this bad taste in their mouth of R.A. because of the fact Russ didn’t want to catch him or couldn’t catch him, and Thole had to catch and it took Russ out of the lineup sometimes, or the amount of home runs he gave up, but I think people forget this was a guy who never missed a start when he was here,” Pillar said. “He made his 30-35 starts and pitched damn near 200 innings every year.”

Mat Latos

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