C’s owner Kerr craves more Blue Jays days, but fears a parting of ways
Vancouver Canadians owner Jake Kerr hopes his club remains under the Toronto Blue Jays’ umbrella next season, but admits it’s far from a sure thing.
The working agreement between Major League Baseball and its minor league farm teams is up for renegotiation in September, and the big-league clubs want to cut ties with 40 or so affiliates in a bid to cut costs as part of a new deal.
That plan would mean MLB teams such as the Blue Jays would have only four full-season farm clubs. The C’s have been fifth on Toronto’s development ladder since they started working together in 2011.
“I was assured in a conversation with Major League Baseball people some months ago, ‘You’re the last guys who need to worry. You’re in great demand,’” said Kerr, who’s on the Minor League Baseball (MiLB) board of trustees and acts as an adviser to their negotiation committee on the new agreement.
“There can’t be a very bad outcome. The flip side is we’re really happy with the Jays and it’s worked very well.”
The proposal going through would mean the short-season, single-A level that the C’s have played at since 2000 would be abolished and Vancouver would move to a full-season, single-A model. Under that format the C’s would jump from a 76-game schedule to something in the 140-game range.
Toronto’s full-season, single-A affiliate since 2005 has been the Lansing Lugnuts of the Midwest League. Lansing, Mich., is about a five-hour drive from Toronto. Vancouver is about a five-hour flight and that circles us back to tightening up budgets.
Toronto’s other farm clubs are in the east — the triple-A Buffalo Bisons, double-A New Hampshire Fisher Cats and advanced single-A Dunedin Blue Jays.
“There are compelling reasons for them to stay here,” Kerr said of the Blue Jays. “And then there’s geography.”
Kerr appreciates there are hardcore Toronto fans in Vancouver who would be miffed if the teams cut ties. He still believes most of the folks at Nat Bailey Stadium are there for the “overall experience.”
Kerr and fellow Vancouver businessman Jeff Mooney bought the Canadians in 2007. They were an Oakland Athletics farm club then. In 2010, the C’s announced attendance average was 4,068. In 2011, Vancouver became a Toronto affiliate and their announced average was 4,267.
The announced average has climbed since then. Blue Jays backers will say the affiliation is the reason. There’s also been seating additions at The Nat and the C’s improving their in-game experience. Last summer’s announced average was 6,210, a per game clip that outdid seven teams in the triple-A Pacific Coast League.
Kerr guesses there are “at least four major league teams” that would be a good fit with the C’s. He wouldn’t name them, citing a fear of tampering charges.
One of those clubs could be the San Francisco Giants, considering their current full-season, single-A team is the Augusta GreenJackets of North Augusta, S.C., and their short-season, single-A team is the Salem-Keizer Volcanoes, a Northwest League rival of the C’s that was on the 42-team chopping block list that Baseball America published in November. As well, the Giants’ owners include Jeff Mallett, who’s also one of the Vancouver Whitecaps’ owners.
A further fan fact is that Kerr happens to be a diehard Giants fan.
“I wondered if you’d remember that,” he chuckled, and that was the extent of his San Francisco comments.
The Tri-City Dust Devils joined the Volcanoes from the eight-team Northwest League on Baseball America’s initial list of teams in jeopardy. Baseball America pulled back from that in an April article, writing that “who is on and off of ‘the list’ has continued to change.”
Kerr says it’s been suggested a new C’s league could have six or eight teams and that he prefers eight.