The biggest thing the Blue Jays can take away from the NBA/NHL

If the Blue Jays front office has been paying attention to the NBA and NHL seasons this year, they may want to tweak their offseason approach just a bit.

What I mean by that is that unfortunately the Covid-19 pandemic continues to sweep across the world with its latest variant, and it’s still having a significant impact on major sports in North America. As a result we’ve seen a pile of NHL games postponed over the last few weeks, specifically for the Canadian teams trying to navigate new rules that are changing by the week. There have been a ton of players that have contracted the virus and/or landed in the Covid protocols, which has left some teams pretty thin.

Over in the NBA the league has been doing whatever they can to keep the schedule going, including granting several “hardship exceptions”. That means that rosters have expanded for many teams, at least as far as allowing GMs to sign enough players to 10-day contracts in order to field a roster. For example, the Toronto Raptors played a game in the last week of December with only four of their normal rostered players dressed. It’s not often you see a TV promo of “tune in to watch Chris Boucher and the Raptors tonight”.

What does any of this have to do with the Blue Jays? My point is that the Jays should enter the 2022 season with the understanding that this pandemic will continue to impact them. Some things are out of their control, like whatever regulations the Federal government puts in place for teams crossing the border, or the number of fans allowed in the stands at the Rogers Centre, but there are a few things they can prepare for.

Specifically, I think the Blue Jays need to stack as much depth as they can throughout the minor leagues. I realize that’s easier said than done, and there are only so many roster spots throughout the MiLB system, but there needs to be a legitimate focus on having as much MLB-ready talent as possible. That’s specifically the case in the bullpen, where we saw a revolving door of arms and injuries in 2021.

What I don’t want to see is the Blue Jays lose a stretch of games because their pitching staff gets hit with a Covid outbreak. They are going to have to navigate times like that because of injury, as any team does of the course of a 162 game season, but preparing for what feels like an inevitability seems pretty prudent to me.

I realize I might be overthinking this a bit, but I’d point to last season as evidence of the importance of one or two games. The Blue Jays ultimately missed the playoffs by one game despite winning 91, finishing just behind the Red Sox and Yankees who each collected 92 wins. It’s hard not to replay a few different moments throughout the 2021 campaign and think about how they could have made up one or two games, and hopefully avoid similar breakdowns during the upcoming season.

What I’m talking about here might only mean signing two or three extra pitchers to MiLB deals, which seems pretty insignificant in the grand scheme of things. However, as I think about how the ongoing pandemic could impact the Blue Jays again in 2022, this might be something they can do to try and get ahead of it, at least in an area where they have some sort of control.