Blue Jays should find getting out of the AL East a little easier this year
Advertisement
Read this article for free:
or
Already have an account? Log in here »
To continue reading, please subscribe:
Digital Subscription
One year of digital access for only $205*
- Enjoy unlimited reading on winnipegfreepress.com
- Read the E-Edition, our digital replica newspaper
- Access News Break, our award-winning app
- Play interactive puzzles
*First annual payment billed as $205.00 + GST for one year. This annual subscription will automatically renew at $233.00 + GST every 52 weeks (10% off the regular annual price of $259.35). Offer available to new and qualified returning subscribers only. Cancel any time.
To continue reading, please subscribe:
Add Free Press access to your Brandon Sun subscription for only an additional
$1 for the first 4 weeks*
- Enjoy unlimited reading on winnipegfreepress.com
- Read the E-Edition, our digital replica newspaper
- Access News Break, our award-winning app
- Play interactive puzzles
*Your next Brandon Sun subscription payment will increase by $1.00 and you will be charged $17.95 plus GST for four weeks. After four weeks, your payment will increase to $24.95 plus GST every four weeks.
Read unlimited articles for free today:
or
Already have an account? Log in here »
Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 08/04/2022 (1635 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
If the high-profile additions of Kevin Gausman and Matt Chapman weren’t enough to get fans excited for the upcoming year, there’s another reason to feel optimistic about the Blue Jays’ chances in 2022: an expanded post-season format.
Major League Baseball has increased the number of playoff teams from 10 to 12. The two division winners with the best records in each league will receive byes through the first round while the third will join three wild-card teams in best-of-three series.
If this system had been in place a year ago, the 91-71 Jays would have made the post-season with three of their divisional rivals, instead of finishing one win shy of a play-in game. The Jays don’t even need to improve this season to have a shot, they just have to avoid taking a step back.
“Going in, you’re always trying to win your division and punch your ticket that way,” said Jays starter Kevin Gausman, who spent the first six years of his career with Baltimore. “But it definitely adds an element to some of those teams that are really good and are just in a really good division and get the short end of the stick every year. Now it gives those guys a chance.”
That’s especially true in the American League East, which is consistently one of baseball’s toughest divisions. The Yankees and Red Sox are among the league’s highest spenders every year while the Rays have become the gold standard for small-market teams. Year in and year out, there’s no harder path to the post-season, a reality the Jays know all too well.
The addition of more playoff teams should help even the playing field, as will next year’s move toward a more balanced schedule. Instead of teams in the AL East beating up on each other 19 times a year, they’ll spend an equal amount of time feasting on everyone else. That could create a scenario where there are multiple post-season teams consistently coming out of the East, sometimes as many as four.
While the new format provides a security blanket for contending teams, it won’t change their objective. There is still plenty of incentive to win the division because it means skipping the wild-card series and moving straight into a divisional round. For teams a bit further down the standings, it should lead to more meaningful games being played in the second half.
“It’s the same for everybody,” said Jays manager Charlie Montoyo, whose team finished just behind Tampa Bay, the New York Yankees and Boston last season. “We’ll see what happens in April and we’ll go one month at a time. But two more teams are two more teams. If that was last year, we would have been in.”
That’s true, but going back 15 years, the 2021 version of the Jays are the only one that would have benefitted from the change. Perhaps that’s why Jays president Mark Shapiro supported increasing the number of playoff teams to 14, a format proposed by the league during recent CBA negotiations but rejected by the players.
It’s a topic bound to be revisited. The 14-team format would have resulted in the Jays making the post-season four times from 2007-11. Instead, they didn’t qualify once during that span despite finishing .500 or better each of those seasons.
“I’m disappointed it’s 12, not 14, but I do think it’s important for the game to have more fan bases watch meaningful baseball in August and September,” Shapiro told the Star recently. “I’m interested to see what the consequences are on the trade deadline.
“I think it puts a little more emphasis on the club you build in the off-season. There won’t be as many options to address it in July. I’m excited about that. I think that’s an important addition, and I would love to see a move from 12 to 14 at some point.”
This is shaping up to be the year of great expectations for the Jays. They’re not only projected to be a contending team, they’re a popular pick to win the AL East. That hasn’t been said often over the last three decades, but it’s not without precedent. In 2013, after a blockbuster multi-player trade with the Miami Marlins, the Jays were crowned the winners of the off-season and were expected to run away with the division. Instead, they struggled out of the gates and their season appeared over by mid-May.
The Jays used to be in a position where everything had to go right for them to make the playoffs. Under this new format, especially with a team as talented and deep as this one, the margin for error is much bigger. Perfection is no longer required, being really good will work just fine.
Gregor Chisholm is a Toronto-based baseball columnist for the Star. Follow him on Twitter: @GregorChisholm or reach him via email: gchisholm@thestar.ca