What Must the Blue Jays Do to End Three Decade World Series Wait?
There is an entire generation of Blue Jays fans who haven’t yet experienced the thrill that comes from watching their team win the biggest prize in baseball. The years between the late 1980s and early 1990s were glory days for the team, but that well ran dry and has remained so for the entire three decades since,
After Toronto’s last World Series victory in 1993, the team didn’t make the playoffs until 2015. Since then, the Blue Jays have only claimed two more appearances in the postseason tournament, both of which were Wild Card spots.
You’d be curious, then, to learn that Toronto’s baseball team has been flagged as sixth-favourite to win the World Series in 2022, coming in just behind fifth-faves, the Atlanta Braves. The Blue Jays betting odds might seem slightly high for a sixth-placed team, but any team that, no matter how well-positioned, hasn’t looked capable of challenging for the World Series since the early 90s will be hampered by that fact.
Of course, everyone from the team’s President, Mark Shapiro, down to the janitors who clean the Rogers Centre want to prevent this statistic from gaining further traction, but what needs to happen for the MLB Vegas Odds to be in favor of the Canada’s only Major League Baseball team?
Bodog has an idea.
Manager Changes
For much of the Blue Jays’ history, the team has seen a conveyor belt of head coaches pass over it. Some have even been recycled, returning to Toronto for a second innings.
The longest continuous managerial tenures of the team is five years, which were John Gibbons between 2013 and 2018 and Cito Gatson between 1992 and 1997.
A few broke similar records, like Mel Queen and Tim Johnson, who managed to move along in under a year.
The latest casualty of the Blue Jay’s revolving door of coaches was Charlie Montoyo, a former player who had a brief spell in MLB. He started with the team in the 2019 season and earned AL Manager of the Year after guiding them to the playoffs.
Nonetheless, after declining in performance in the 2022 season, the Blue Jays gave him the boot and replaced him with John Schneider as interim manager.
To turn things around – or rather, to keep the team rolling on a single trajectory – Toronto desperately needs stability and continuity in this area so that other, long-standing performance issues can be addressed. Players can only be further demoralized when a new boss turns up every season.
Recent Post-Season Lessons
The Blue Jays had a rough start to the season this year. They have, however, managed to turn things around with a 54-43 record by late July, leaving them second in the AL East.
That difficult start was partly because they allowed their division rivals to get an early lead, which seems to be a recurring problem we’ve seen for the team.
Toronto also continues to have a shortage of quality relievers to keep in the bullpen. While it’s great to have star talent starting, you need to have depth if you want to maintain performance through the entire game.
As long as these issues remain weaknesses, the Blue Jays will likely continue to underperform and miss the playoffs disproportionately more often than they make them. If they manage to get their house in order and summon a visit from the ghost of mojos past, Toronto could soon burst forth from the pack and find themselves celebrating like it’s the 90s all over again.
Key Players to Bring Glory
From what we’ve seen in the Blue Jays season so far, Toronto needs more depth on its roster in order to progress. That’s not a pot-shot at any individual player, either; they do have a perfectly good set of players who are capable of bringing them ultimate success: think Bo Bichette, Matt Chapman, and José Berríos.
Bichette is the team’s No. 2 hitter. Earlier this month, he had a .259 batting average. That was a touch short of the .298 he managed last season as an All-Star, but there’s time to live up to his former stats and create more opportunities for Guerrero Jr., Hernández, and Kirk.
Chapman is currently performing below what we know he can achieve, because his past record shows that he has it in him. Berríos’s ERA of >5 this season is above his career average of 4.17, and it indicates that he has room for growth in the remaining games this year.
MLB Betting: Main Threats
Despite the problems the Blue Jays have had this season, they still have perfectly respectable World Series odds, thanks in part to the fact that they have enjoyed an impressive turnaround in recent weeks and have one of the easiest schedules for the rest of the regular season – at least on paper.
MLB odds at Bodog have set Blue Jays at +1200, making Toronto the sixth favourite, with these three teams the biggest challengers for the title.
LA Dodgers (+350)
The LA Dodgers were World Series winners in 2020 and enjoyed a good run in the playoffs last year. They’ve continued this performance in 2022 with a 64-32 record and don’t look like they plan on slowing down. Only one team has performed better this season, so they remain a threat to the Blue Jays’ chances.
New York Yankees (+375)
The New York Yankees are in a similar position to the Blue Jays. After their World Series win in 2009, they struggled to make much of an impact.
That’s all changed today as the team is the best performing in the entire league, topping the AL East with a 66-32 record. They will almost certainly stand in the way of the Blue Jays getting to the finals of the playoffs, so it will be a big challenge for Toronto.
Houston Astros (+500)
The Houston Astros won their first and only World Series in 2017 and have been up at the top of the MLB ever since. They are another team with a strong regular-season record of 64-34. Topping the AL West, they’ve almost certainly earned a spot in the playoffs and pose a serious threat to the Blue Jays’ chances of progressing.
Toronto have struggled for success for 30 years, but despite the managerial turmoil, they could be in a position to finally get out of that rut this season, and the Blue Jays betting odds prove it. Right now the odds for Toronto are an absolute steal, so don’t waste a minute to fill out a betslip and claim them. Our glory days may be coming back, baby.