How the Blue Jays went from fledgling franchise to mature World Series contender

A half-century of Toronto Blue Jays baseball? Believe it.

The franchise that made its debut on a snowy April day in 1977, is back at it this Friday, marking the beginning of its 50th season in Major League Baseball (MLB).

Few years have had the build-up that this one has. Losing a closely fought World Series to the Los Angeles Dodgers last fall means the team has what fiery veteran pitcher Max Scherzer calls “unfinished business.”

With the Blue Jays set for their season opener against the Athletics tonight at Rogers Centre, here’s a look at their journey from rookie expansion team to a mature franchise whose recent run has reignited fan hopes for the future.

The Blue Jays won just 54 games in their inaugural 1977 season, finishing at the bottom of the American League (AL) East division. They lost more than 100 times that year.

“There were no expectations of great success,” said veteran journalist Allen Abel, who covered the team’s first game and recently reconnected with some of those Day 1 players.

What to expect from the 1977 Blue Jays

Still, Abel says the arrival of the Blue Jays was a big deal for the city, and fans were content to see MLB games being played in Toronto, no matter how poorly the team performed.

The team stayed in the division cellar through the 1982 season. And while Toronto managed to draft some future talent during this early period, Abel says there wasn’t a lot of it for a while.

Abel, who covered the team’s early years for the Globe and Mail and also worked for CBC later in his career, recalls penning a 1978 column about a Toronto minor league affiliate in Medicine Hat, Alta.

He notes that only one player on that roster — Lloyd Moseby — went on to stick with the Blue Jays in the long run.

Toronto saw its first winning season in 1983 and followed it up with another in 1984. The ballclub notched 89 wins in both years.

The Blue Jays took a leap forward in 1985, with a 99-win season. That year, the team captured its first division title and went into the playoffs to compete against the Kansas City Royals in the American League Championship Series (ALCS).

Toronto lost in seven games.

The following spring, broadcaster Jerry Howarth believed Toronto had a shot at holding onto the division crown — though nothing was guaranteed in the tough AL East.

“The three teams to beat are the Tigers, the Blue Jays and the Yankees,” he told CBC ahead of Opening Day in 1986.

All three would be beat, it turned out — as the Boston Red Sox took the division and won the ALCS, but lost the World Series when a ground ball got past Bill Buckner.

Toronto, meanwhile, finished fourth in the division.

The Blue Jays won an impressive 96 games in 1987, but faltered in the final week of the season to finish two games behind the Tigers.

For veteran sports journalist Howard Berger, the team’s unravelling that year amounts to “the lowest point” in franchise history, given how late Toronto lost its lead over Detroit.

1988 was another swing and a miss for Toronto, when it came to making the post-season.

The Jays get eliminated in 1987

Starting in 1989, however, Toronto went on to win four division titles in five years, along with two American League titles and back-to-back World Series championships in 1992 and 1993.

Berger covered the Blue Jays during their dominant run and vividly recalls the gradual build-up to their big wins.

That includes when Toronto started bringing in top talent — like the trade that brought in Roberto Alomar and Joe Carter ahead of the 1991 season.

Berger was also in Atlanta for Game 6 when Otis Nixon grounded out to Mike Timlin, who threw to Joe Carter to end the game that won the Blue Jays their first World Series title on Oct. 24, 1992.

The Jays, of course, famously repeated as World Series champions in 1993, when Carter hit a walk-off home run to beat the Philadelphia Phillies, also in six games.

“Those were the real halcyon years,” said Berger.

Toronto Blue Jays win baseball’s World Series in 1992

That impressive run came to an abrupt halt in 1994, when a strike-shortened season saw Toronto finish with a 55-60 record.

Toronto would not see another season where it won more games than it lost until 1998 — when the Jays finished third with an 88-74 record.

Despite that winning record, they didn’t make the playoffs that year and wouldn’t do so again until 2015.

During this period, some great players — including franchise home-run leader Carlos Delgado and ace pitcher Roy Halladay — spent years in Toronto waiting for a playoff run that never came.

José Bautista was the heart of the team that flipped Toronto’s playoff fortunes in 2015 — and in dramatic fashion after the organization made some splashy mid-season trades.

“A lot of people don’t really remember that they were a .500 team before the trade deadline,” said Melissa Couto, a former sports reporter who covered the team’s from 2015 to 2020.

“All of a sudden, you get Troy Tulowitzki and you get David Price, and you go on this massive run.”

The Blue Jays finished the season with a 93-69 record and captured Toronto’s first division title since 1993.

Next came the win over the Texas Rangers in the American League Division Series (and Bautista’s famous bat flip), followed by a crushing ALCS loss to Kansas City.

In retrospect, Couto says that outcome felt worse than when the Jays lost the ALCS to Cleveland in 2016. “It just seemed like 2015 had all of those iconic moments,” she said.

Toronto later made brief appearances in the playoff wildcard rounds in 2020, 2022 and 2023, but the disappointment over the 2015 loss has lingered for Couto, even more than when the Blue Jays fell short of a World Series title last fall.

“The way that 2015 ended, I felt more disappointed with that than I did last season,” she said.

The Blue Jays face high expectations this season given their 2025 run — and they may be hard to meet.

“I worry a bit about the Blue Jays now,” said Berger, noting that even team president Mark Shapiro has said they can’t just run it back, the same way they did last year.

Couto agrees. “It’s really hard to replicate that level of success.”

Nevertheless, the Blue Jays spent the off-season getting ready to take another run at a title, bringing in new talent to its roster to the tune of more than $300 million US in fresh contracts.

Toronto will have to manage the inevitable setbacks that come with the 162-game baseball season, like the ailments and injuries that have left three starting pitchers — José Berríos, Shane Bieber and Trey Yasavage — off the roster to start the year.

The team will also be without outfielder Anthony Santander for much of the season, as he recovers from surgery.

Despite these challenges, Couto sees reasons for optimism — pointing to some core players who are proven difference-makers for Toronto.

“I think any time you have Vlad in your lineup … good things happen,” Couto said, also highlighting George Springer’s ability to deliver in the clutch.