Kirk LaPointe: Hope returns to Toronto baseball

When I last wrote about the Toronto Blue Jays, I was dead wrong. All signs pointed then to a mismanaged organization in serious retreat, about to lose its two most prized homegrown players. They were spurned and unable to attract name-brand free agents; watching team upon team surpass them. I was not alone in predicting a miserable season-ending managerial locker cleaning, from the coach all the way up to the front-office boss—as the saying goes, it’s not like you can fire all the players. What no one could predict then—outside of, perhaps, a kind spouse of a Blue Jays employee pretending across the forlorn dinner table that brighter days loomed—was what would happen in late May. Just as loyalists were about to resign themselves to finding Plan B for summer eveningsseveral things clicked into place all at once. They could pitch. They could hit. They could beat good teams. They could stop beating themselves. They could contend. No-name players we’d assumed would be inconsequential—Addison Barger, Davis Schneider, Eric Lauer, Nathan Lukes, Tyler Heinemen, even Ernie Clement—were stealing games. Established players we’d wondered if they might ever return to form—George Springer, Bo Bichette, Alejandro Kirk, Myles Straw—were playing like All-Stars (Kirk was one officially). And the Jays were doing it largely without the players we were counting on—Vladimir Guerrero Jr. (also an All-Star through fan voting) was little more than meh, Chad Green was surrendering pivotal home runs in relief, Daulton Varsho was injured, Bowden Francis was the struggling pitcher of old, newly acquired Anthony Santander was a slug more than a slugger before his injury, and defensive star Andrés Giménez was, well, not an offensive one. Now, the Jays sit atop the notoriously competitive American League East division by two games, slightly more than halfway through the 162-game regular season. It’s the first time they have been in this situation at the All-Star break since 1993, coincidentally, the last time they won the World Series. But let’s not go all giddy. Let’s savour the moment and hope it is more than a moment. The Jays are Canada’s team and should be treated as such No team is marketed across Canada the way the Jays are, even if we have lived in Canada without the World Series as long as we’ve lived without the Stanley Cup. The owner, Rogers Communications, carries nationally all but a handful of games that wind up on Apple TV+, the players tour Canada in the off-season to promote the brand, its High-A minor-league team often has games that are more than 90 percent sold out in Vancouver, and fans flood into Seattle, Detroit, Minneapolis, and Boston for away games when we’re not boycotting America. Still, far more often than is fair, the team is treated like a minor market instead of baseball’s fifth largest, behind only New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Philadelphia—one, even, that represents an entire country. We’ve mentioned Canada’s salary tax disadvantages , but the major reason players don’t sign with the Jays is ostensibly because they have been a mediocre franchise for three decades. Winning attracts more winners—the players who believe they will soon play for a championship. But that is usually preceded by drafting and building upon a pool of prospects. In this regard, the Jays have been prone to trade them for presumed quick fixes that rarely panned out for the roster and depleted the cupboard for the next deal. One of the Jays’ two marquee prodigies, teen signing Bichette, is in the final year of his contract before he is eligible to be a free agent. Guerrero Jr., their other marquee prodigy, is the more accomplished and celebrated of the two—the face of the franchise, born in Montreal after all, when his playing father was an Expo. After an agonizing period of negotiations, he has signed for $500 million US for 14 years, extending beyond this season and into 2039. It’s less than what it would have cost to rebrand the franchise if he’d fled. Losing him would have been the biggest sports blunder in Canadian history since we let Wayne Gretzky skate south. Bichette, one of baseball’s most consistent hitters until last season’s freakish mix of a misplaced swing and a batch of injuries, bet on himself in the final contract year and has resumed his trajectory—extraordinarily clutch in hitting with runners on base. There are hints he might extend his stay as a Blue Jay, which might be too much even for a delusional Jays fan to hope for. Hope: the word has a way of returning to a sports fan’s vocabulary. Now, no one—today, anyway—has Toronto as a serious World Series contender, even as the AL East leaders. Los Angeles, Houston, Detroit, Chicago, and the two New York teams all appear better equipped. But that can change when the teams in contention enter essentially a second season in August. Mark Carney may have his August 1 trade deadline with Donald Trump, but rabid Jays fans know the real trade deadline is July 31, when player-swapping is done and playoff-seeking intensifies. The patient leash shortens on shabby pitching and anyone offering regular swing-and-miss at-bats. The nurturing of tired arms and legs is scorned. In the season’s final weeks, scoreboard-watching is a sport of its own. This July is the most pivotal month for the franchise in a decade. Its last postseason win was way back in 2016, when it lost in the AL Championship series to Cleveland. Fans will remember its 2015 heist of Josh Donaldson in the off-season and Troy Tulowitzki and David Price at the deadline, albeit to modest avail. Even with trades at the deadline, the Jays have since been swept in playoff games in 2020, 2022 and 2023. The schedules next month will test whether the Jays are legit or just passing through hope’s neighbourhood. Series with the Dodgers, Tigers, Cubs, and Yankees could wipe the smiles from the fans’ faces fast. The Jays may yet prove me right, but for the time being, it’s thrilling to be dead wrong.