Toronto Blue Jays: From AL East basement to verge of baseball immortality

The fact that Blue Jays are one win away from baseball immortality may come as a shock to fans who experienced what was a thoroughly demoralizing year that preceded this dream season in 2024.

In December of 2023, Toronto appeared to be on the verge of landing, perhaps, the biggest free-agent prize in the history of the sport in Japanese two-way sensation Shohei Ohtani.

Under 24 hours later, Ohtani posted a Dodgers logo on Instagram, indicating that he was signing a 10-year, $700 million deal with Los Angeles and not coming north of the border.

Blue Jays fans were crushed, turning Ohtani into a villain for life in the city.

That disappointment would set the tone for the Jays' 2024 campaign. They would finish dead last in the American League East at 74-88.

The frustration from the 2024 season would carry on into the offseason, where the Blue Jays would once again come up short in two high-profile free agency pursuits.

Slugger Juan Soto, coming off of a third-place finish in AL Most Valuable Player voting with the New York Yankees, passed on Toronto's offer to head to Queens and join the New York Mets on an eyewatering 15-year, $765 million contract.

In an even crueler turn, hurler Roki Sasaki, the most prized Japanese talent to be posted since Ohtani himself in 2017, also left the Blue Jays at the altar to sign with the Dodgers.

If that all weren't bad enough, there was the matter of Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Bo Bichette.

The team's homegrown stars were heading into the final seasons of their respective contracts with the possibility of both entering into the last days of their Jays tenures growing more and more likely.

Guerrero's announcement that he didn't intend to negotiate during the season seemingly placed a deadline on a potential deal that came and went without any movement.

Last winter Ross Atkins added Anthony Santander, second baseman Andres Gimenez, new closer Jeff Hoffman and a 41-year-old Max Scherzer, (who only made nine appearances in 2024) assured fans he would improve the team on a moribund season didn't hold much water. Fans weren't about to drink the Kool-Aid.

Flash forward seven months and it turns out that Kool-Aid was delicious.

Atkins, roundly mocked at the time, was right. Springer found the fountain of youth and posted a 166 wRC+, third-best in the AL, and a career-high 161 OPS+.

Healthy again until very late in the season, Bichette notched a team-leading 181 hits.

Utilityman Ernie Clement became indispensable with timely hitting and a slick glove.

Catcher Alejandro Kirk returned to All-Star form and emerged as one of the best framers behind the plate across the majors.

And then there was Guerrero. The talisman and face of the franchise, the 26-year-old first baseman had another All-Star season, but it was what happened on Apr. 9 that seemed to firm up the idea that the Jays' fortunes could change.

Despite the self-imposed preseason deadline, Guerrero agreed to a 14-year, $500 million extension with the team, pledging his future to the organization he first joined at the age of 16.

You certainly cannot quantify something as nebulous as a vibe shift, but something was different. Firm roots were planted and a team that had the potential to feel transitory no longer did.

That feeling became tangible as June turned to July as the Jays swept the Yankees at home in a four-game set, their first such sweep in franchise history, to overtake the Bronx Bombers atop the AL East.

It was a lead that they would never relinquish as they went on to capture their first division title in a decade before dispatching the Yankees in the Division Series and coming from behind to ensure that the Seattle Mariners remained the only team in the majors to have never reached a World Series on the back of a Springer home run for the ages in Game 7 of the Championship Series.

The improbable chance for immortality for the 2025 Toronto Blue Jays comes on tonight on Halloween.

People across the country will pause their trick-or-treating to live and die with every pitch and watch the game with bated breath.

Yoshinobu Yamamoto, who carved the Blue Jays up in a complete-game performance in Game 2, stands in their way and represents as tall a task as any they've faced this October.

But betting against this team now seems like a fool's errand.

Exceeding expectations is just what this team does and has done over and over again. Aaron Judge found that out. Cal Raleigh did, too.

Ohtani is learning it in real time.