RETURN TO TORONTO? JAYS BOSS OPTIMISTIC
Shapiro expects regular season to be a mix of Dunedin, Buffalo and Canada
When the Toronto Blue Jays play their home opener on April 8, the Rogers Centre will be dark yet again, as it has been since Sept. 29, 2019.
But by the time Canada's lone Major League Baseball team plays what it hopes will be meaningful games in late summer and early fall, Jays president Mark Shapiro has gone from hoping to being back at home to expecting it.
In an interview with Postmedia, Shapiro said he expects the Jays to go through a Dunedin-buffalo-toronto shuttle before the 162-game season is complete, but sees the downtown dome as the ultimate destination.
Recognizing the hurdles related to COVID-19 that kept the team outside of the country for 2020 are still in place, Shapiro still sees enough promise to make a strong pitch for a return later in the summer.
“I'm trying not to forecast what the scenarios are but am preparing for every scenario,” Shapiro said in a video interview from Clearwater, Fla., where the Jays were playing the Philadelphia Phillies on the weekend. “I would say my honest view is that I still expect our season to be some combination of Dunedin, Buffalo and Toronto.
“What has changed in my mind is I'm more optimistic we'll get back to Toronto. I'm not at all talking about getting back to Toronto with fans. But I do think getting back to Toronto seems like a more realistic possibility. It certainly seems like one you would ask for.”
Just how and when that ask is made will depend on how the next few weeks play out — and ultimately how the federal government chooses to handle Canada-u.s. border restrictions.
Like many, Shapiro is encouraged by the fact the vaccine rollout is finally picking up steam on both sides of the border. As well, he estimates all Jays players and staff should be vaccinated by May 1 — and being temporarily based in Florida, they won't have to jump a line to do so.
“I'm very deferential to public health,” Shapiro said. “I'm very hesitant to even make the ask, but what feels like a very strong possibility that vaccines are going to be accessible to our players and staff in just a matter of weeks certainly starts that.
“We have very strong protocols
that are not only in place, but our players have been incredibly respectful of them. We didn't have one (Covid-positive) case last season and we haven't had one case this spring. Not one. Not on intake and not since we've been here.
“That starts to give me reason to believe. Our desire has always been to be home. We'll likely make that ask for some point this summer. I don't know when, but for some point this summer.”
The prospect of playing games back in Toronto would be a welcome development, of course, and follows the NHL'S Toronto Maple Leafs, who have played games here, albeit exclusively against Canadian-based opponents.
“I certainly feel it's a year where we expect to be playing meaningful games late in the season and for every one of us — players, coaching staff, front office — to be able to play in what is truly our home will be incredibly meaningful, fans or not,” Shapiro said. “It would just be good to get back. It will be a big step in what will be a gradual return to normalcy.”
In Shapiro's mind, the fact that all in baseball should be vaccinated mitigates health risks and would have the Jays in a much stronger position than last summer when their bid to play at Rogers Centre was rejected by the federal government.
“I've always felt like something objective would have to change,” Shapiro said. “Now I see better numbers in the U.S., numbers that are improving and forecasting to dramatically improve. I
see herd immunity that could happen in a matter of months in the United States and I see an opportunity for all our players and staff to all be vaccinated.
“Those would give me good reason to say the U.S. is not a threat to public health of our fans and of our country.”
EXTENDED FLORIDA STAY
For now, the season will begin at Dunedin's TD Ballpark and Shapiro revealed it is a near certainty that the team will remain at its spring training home for longer than originally scheduled.
The Jays, in all likelihood, will remain in Florida until at least the end of May, well beyond the first two home stands, which was the timeline originally announced.
In a perfect world, the Jays would transition directly to Toronto, but a return to Buffalo's Sahlen Field for at least a portion of the schedule is more realistic.
The only question is when the first move will happen.
“We're going to engage and involve the players heavily in that decision,” Shapiro said.
“We probably went in thinking about two months (in Dunedin). Realistically, by the end of May and early June, the amount of rainfall and level of heat there gets beyond what our players would want to be a part of it.
“But a lot of that decision is going to be made in partnership with them and will involve where and when our next move would be.”
The Jays are currently selling tickets (at reduced capacity) for the first 12 home games at TD
Ballpark. The most likely scenario would be to add at least 10 more on an extended homestand from May 14-24.
The next home dates are from June 1-6 followed by a threegame series against the Yankees from June 15-17. A move north to Buffalo would likely happen for one of those series.
Speaking of Sahlen Field, where the Jays had the best home-field record in all of MLB last season at 17-9, Shapiro said the team will play in front of fans at the downtown Buffalo ballpark. In keeping with New York state government guidelines announced this past week, as many as 3,300 fans will be allowed into the stadium.
BIG BLUE MACHINE
When Shapiro signed a fiveyear extension earlier this year to remain as team president and CEO, it paved the way for him to finish what was started when the Jays hired him in 2015.
While he generally prefers to deflect attention from himself, Shapiro said it was always his goal to develop the Jays into a team with prospects for sustainable long-term success. The extension allows him to carry on.
“It's important to me personally,” Shapiro said. “I've never hidden the fact that I've wanted to be here. I have used the expression `finish the job' but that's not the right word. Continue the job and progress the job for sure.
“What we have always sought to do is build a sustainable winning team that every single year when we leave Dunedin, fans have an objective reason to believe that this team is going to playing not just meaningful games in September but into October and we're going to have a chance to bring a world championship back to Canada.”
So are the young Jays, accented in the off-season by free agents George Springer and Marcus Semien, getting to that point?
“We're either there or really close to there,” Shapiro said. “But I really want to build it together with our group to be a machine, one where we're churning out those opportunities and those teams year after year.
“I want to see what that looks like and what that can mean across the whole country. We scratched the surface and saw the potential of what that can look like in '15 and '16, but having to pull back on that so quickly, I think it's still an unknown of what that can look like.”
MODEL FRANCHISE
Shapiro isn't going to go so far as to suggest the Jays are the envy of MLB.
But he believes people around baseball have taken notice of the positive things happening around the team in the past couple of years.
“I don't think there's any question that people look at us as a team that is now, or is going to be, a force,” Shapiro said. “I get that from across the field — from people we compete against, to the objective kind of comments about our farm system, and having some move on to the major league core. That's a good combination to have.”