When is right time for Jays to toast?

Should the champagne wait for division title?

• The Blue Jays have a playoff spot within their grasp, with a celebration likely in the next few days. Their primary goal, of course, is nobler — winning a division championship.

So should they save their bigger party for the bigger accomplishment? Not likely. The question was making the rounds in the clubhouse on Friday, the first day it was mathematically possible for the Jays to clinch a wild-card berth. It would have taken an unusual and perhaps unlikely confluence of events: a Toronto win combined with losses, in separate time zones, by Minnesota and the Los Angeles Angels.

By their questions, some media types seemed to intimate a sense of proportion was in order: a more subdued party for the wild card, with a full-blown bash for clinching the division.

Dioner Navarro offered a succinct suggestion for the wild-card celebration: “Keep it short and simple.”

That, he suggested, was the way Tampa Bay played it in 2008, when Navarro was the Rays’ catcher.

“We had a little celebration,” he said. “Obviously it was the first time ever that the Rays had clinched a playoff berth. It was really exciting, but our main goal was to clinch the division.”

Others who were there remember it as more than a little celebration. Joe Maddon, who was their manager then, believed that every playoff achievement should be celebrated to the hilt. Some say the wild-card party was even bigger than the one that followed the Rays’ division clincher.

Of course, it is impossible to quantify, or regulate, such things. But when the Jays lock down a wild-card spot, there will be no holding back. And why should there be? There is no guarantee of winning the division, and a wild-card game could end in disappointment.

“I think the guys want to celebrate. It’s been so long,” manager John Gibbons said.

But if the stars happened to align at 1 a.m. on Saturday, roughly the time when the Angels’ game would likely end, Gibbons and Navarro admitted they would not be celebrating. The manager said he would be asleep in advance of Saturday’s 1 p.m. game against the Rays at the Rogers Centre. Navarro said his family is in town; the party would have to wait.

“You c an’ t plan those things, man, they just happen,” Navarro said.

Troy Tulowitzki, who went to the playoffs twice with the Rockies, agreed.

“Any time you get in, whether it be a wild card, it should be acknowledged,” he said. “It doesn’t happen all the time, especially with some guys in this locker room that have never been there before. It shouldn’t be, Like, ‘Oh, this is easy to get here,’ because it’s not. So I think it definitely should be celebrated. How much, I’m not sure. I think that’ll just depend on what happens … ”

“Whatever emotions fall out there, it is what it is,” Tulowitzki said. “I think there are some teams out there, like, ‘That’s not our main goal. Our main goal is the World Series.’ But everybody plays it different. There’s no right or wrong way.”

Seven Jays have played in the postseason. At 26, Kevin Pillar is one of the younger Jays looking forward to enjoying the experience for the first time. He said he hasn’t heard any discussion about what sort of celebration should ensue when they clinch the wild card.

“Ultimately, our goal was to make the postseason,” Pillar said. “It’s been a long time for this franchise to get back there, so I think there’d be some sort of celebration. But we’ve got our eye on the bigger prize, and I think that’s when you’ll see guys really celebrate is when we lock down the division.”

Entering Friday, the Jays had 10 games to realize that goal. At the same time, everyone in the clubhouse understands the significance of reaching the postseason for the first time since 1993, and what that means to a new generation of fans.

As Gibbons observed, “The fact that you just get there, you’ve accomplished a goal.”