The Toronto Blue Jays are serial bingers. Every few years their fan base gets fed up with the team owners at Rogers who habitually flip nickels like manhole covers. The management then spends furiously on some big-name free agents or on eye-candy trades to soothe the savage beasts.

There is some improvement— as there was in 2015-2017 under GM Alex Anthopoulos. The team makes the playoffs. Hopes are raised. Then the team slowly morphs back to what it always has done. Trying to pay a quarter for a dollar’s worth of production. Ask former GM Gord Ash how that works.

Rogers, God bless ‘em, is currently in the spend mode again. As MLB training camps set to open in a few weeks they signed Astros CF George Springer to a huge deal and traded for left-handed pitcher Steven Matz. They signed former Athletic infielder Marcus Semien. And they’ve added smaller fish by signing pitchers Kirby Yates and Tyler Chatwood.

Reports say they’re also trying to get No. 1 starter Trevor Bauer in a bidding match with the usual contenders in New York, Boston and L.A. If that fails, they’ll take one of the lesser arms still in play. Which is paramount for a team with just one reliable starter last season, Hyun Jin Riu. Without a better pitching staff Toronto will be afterthoughts in the AL East.

In the past, the Jays’ management has acted like the Joad family in Grapes of Wrath. No money, no chance, no hope to compete. Rogers portrayed itself as unable to keep up with the Yankees, Red Sox, Dodgers, Angels etc. in the spending department. It was frugality or bust.

Which might be acceptable if you were playing in the AL Central with just one major market as competition. But the Jays play in the AL East with the Daddy Warbucks of baseball. The Yankees and the Red Sox. It costs a lot to keep up with MLB’s version of hedge-fund managers.

The catch with their “poor-me" alibi is that metropolitan Toronto is now in the Top 5 metro markets in North America. While they act like a modest little Canadian town huddled by a big lake they’re in fact a financial colossus compared to Pittsburgh, Tampa, Seattle, Kansas City and Cincinnati.

What sets the Jays apart from their Big City compatriots is broadcast money. The Yankees, Dodgers, Red Sox and Cubs have transparent, rich broadcast contracts from regional networks. The problem for Blue Jays fans is that the broadcasters who might lavish money on the property are also the owners of the team.

Rogers operates the franchise by moving money from one pocket to the other. No one is really sure if the amount Rogers sends to its baseball team is commensurate with, say, the Yankees deal with YES network. So you don’t see a cause-and-effect situation where a new TV deal with Rogers spurs a spending spree. It’s all undercover.

When asked in the past, MLB says it won’t comment on the numbers, but it will say that teams must have broadcast deals that are in the average of contracts for markets their size across MLB. Because the TV sports networks in Canada are stakeholders in teams and leagues you won’t see much enterprise journalism looking into this angle. This story will not make you a BFF.

The other stumbling block for Rogers and its ball team is those pesky Tampa Bay Rays. With no resources, few fans and crappy old domed stadium they should be like their cross-state brothers, the Florida… no, Miami… no Florida… no, Miami Marlins. Hopeless losers.

The Rays trade away their best players as soon as they want money. Buh-bye David Price. See ya’ Evan Longoria. Ta-ta Blake Snell. But Tampa management has done something Rogers has talked a lot about without ever emulating. They churn out a string of prospects every year, salted with a few veteran pieces. Using pixie dust and gorilla glue the Rays won the AL pennant last year.

To put salt in the wound, the Rays swept the Jays in the 2020 playoffs. They’re the Moneyeball Miracle that the Oakland A’s were supposed to be (Oakland still does make a lot from a little, too.)

So maybe the Jays don’t need to spend like the Yankees and Red Sox? Well, before this latest eruption of spending the team was trying to do the Tampa trick. Build around cheap young stars such as Vlad Guerrero Jr., Cavan Biggio and Bo Bichette. There have been indications that, in a couple of cases, the formula is working.

But jt has to work before they all hit free agency. And they need their vaunted pitching prospects to produce. Your average Jays pitching prospect of late has had more health issues than the WHO. Hence getting Springer and trying to patch up a starting staff on the fly.

Time is ticking on this equation (Although ownership decided to re-up the puppet mister, CEO Mark Shapiro, for five more years!). Fans will be accept nothing less than a postseason berth. The only good thing for the Jays is the team is likely to be a Covid-19 travelling show again this year. With the border closed no one in the dugout in Buffalo will hear the boos.

Bruce Dowbiggin @dowbboy is the editor of Not The Public Broadcaster (http://www.notthepublicbroadcaster.com). The best-selling author of Cap In Hand is also a regular contributor to Sirius XM Canada Talks Ch. 167. A two-time winner of the Gemini Award as Canada's top television sports broadcaster, his new book Personal Account with Tony Comper is now available on http://brucedowbigginbooks.ca/book-personalaccount.aspx

It's An Old Formula: Springer Forward, Fall Back