CENTURY CLUB: Are Blue Jays built for first 100-win season in franchise history?

ST. LOUIS – The longest season in North American professional sports tends to sort out the winners from the losers, the dominant from the doormats.

True, navigating 162 games of Major League Baseball is fraught with the swerves attached to wild swings in form, injuries and misfortune. But entering a third consecutive season with sky-high expectations, could the Blue Jays soar through the rarefied air of 100 wins for the first time in franchise history?

After almost six weeks of what was a productive spring training, it’s about to get real for the Jays. The team was to finish off its Grapefruit League schedule in Clearwater, Fla. on Tuesday then fly here to this baseball boom city for a Wednesday workout at Busch Stadium prior to the season opener against the reigning NL Central champion St. Louis Cardinals the following day.

External expectations for the Jays are high, but matched and more internally from what has the makings of an elite mix of young talent and proven veteran experience.

Given that the prime goal exiting camp is to capture the American League East, a mission that could require joining the century club, it’s a reasonable target to set, albeit seven or eight games higher than most oddsmakers have tabbed for the Jays season win total.

“Knowing this group and what guys are about, (100 wins) is very attainable,” new centre fielder Kevin Kiermaier said in a recent interview in Dunedin, Fla. “If we stay healthy and with the balanced schedule, I like our chances. I’m going to do everything in my power to motivate guys as best I can.

“If we can keep each other in check and say look, we’re playing for October and the more we win, the more we will buy into each other. If we get that from one through 26 on the roster and are adamant about that, it will be amazing what this group can do.”

The potential certainly exists for great things from a group that has continuously matured and added veterans like Kiermaier, Brandon Belt, Chris Bassitt and Daulton Varsho.

But 100 wins?

The club record is 99, set way back in 1985 followed by the 96 put up in 1987 and 1992.  This is a team that has only cracked the 90-win barrier eight times in franchise history. Worth noting, however, is that two of those came in the most recent seasons – 92 last season and 91 the year prior – the first time the Jays have topped 90 in back-to-back seasons.

The group we saw in Florida for most of spring training appeared supremely driven to take a big leap forward from the one that had to go the wild-card route last season and paid the price.

Much has to go right for a team to get to the century mark, but when manager John Schneider replaced fired Charlie Montoyo this past July, the Jays went 46-28 for the remainder of the season. That, mathematician friends, projects to a 101-season.

“We’ve been close the last two years,” said outfielder George Springer, who was part of the 2017 World Series champion Houston Astros team that won 101 regular-season contests. “A lot of games we let slip away as a team, but that goes back to us doing little things, the things that can be the difference between a win and a loss.

“I believe we are capable, but this is a hard league and hard division. I think we’re capable of doing it, but if you look around the league and see the teams that win a hundred games, it’s hard to do.”

Hard, yes. But impossible? No.

In the past four full seasons (leaving out the COVID-shortened 2020), 14 MLB teams have reached or surpassed the 100-win mark. Four of those have come from the AL East – the 2021 Tampa Bay Rays (100), 2019 New York Yankees (103) and the 2018 Boston Red Sox (103) and Yankees (100.) Thanks in part to a torrid start, the reigning division champion Yankees reached 99 in 2022.

There is a sense that the Yankees are there for the taking – especially given their injury-riddled spring. And with the balanced schedule meaning the Jays will see more of the mediocre AL Central and less beasts of the East, opportunity is right in front of them.

“I’d love to set the tone and go out there and try to win the division,” said Kiermaier, who was part of that powerful Rays team in 2021 and will patrol centre field for the Jays. “We’re trying to take the next step. Everyone knows (winning the division) is important. That’s the goal.

“We have to let our play do the talking. These guys have always had high expectations, but let’s do something different this year and really scare teams. We’re playing for October and we want the division.”

It doesn’t hurt that the Jays find themselves in a sweet spot of young talent and veteran savvy, a competitive window that has been flung wide open.

“I think that we expect this team to win more games than it won last year,” Jays president Mark Shapiro told the Toronto Sun. “I’m not going to limit us.

“When you have special groups, special teams, special years, there is a dynamic that forms that causes them to overcome challenges, adversity and setbacks that naturally come up over 162-game seasons.

“I believe and how that this will be the kind of group that has that special year.”