Blue Jays at White Sox, May 27-29

So far, against the AL Central, the Jays have managed to improve their Run Differential while their Won-Loss record has gotten worse. (Like there was a chance I wouldn't gleefully point that out!)

The Not-So-Handsome One described the 1985 and 1987 teams as "elite" the other day. This took me aback - I certainly didn't think about them like that in the moment. This may largely be a question of semantics - one person's "very good" is another person's "elite" - but for me to consider a team "elite," I think I'd want them to win at least 100 games and/or blow away their division by at least ten games. The Blue Jays have never done either of these things.

It's a very tough neighbourhood they live in, of course. But the other teams have found a way. Since 1977, the Yankees have had ten 100-win seasons (they are, of course, the focus of evil in the modern world.) Baltimore did it in 1979, 1980, and 2023; Boston won 108 games in 2018; even Tampa Bay, who didn't get serious about fielding a competitive team until fifteen years ago, managed to win 100 games in 2021. In the years since 1977, the Blue Jays are one of just three AL franchises who have never won 100 games (the White Sox and Rangers are the others.)

The Blue Jays biggest final margin atop the division is 7 games, by the 1993 champs and the unloved, uncelebrated 1991 team. Every other AL team has had a more decisive win of their own division, and almost all of them have done it more than once. (Even Tampa Bay.) Oakland and Seattle are the only AL franchises who have only topped the Jays best margin once, but both occasions were pretty convincing - Oakland won by 13 games in 1988, Seattle by 14 games in 2001.

Again, this is largely a question of semantics, a matter of one's taste in adjectives, but to my mind the Jays have never had an elite team. They have had some very good teams and have won a couple of championships - which is surely more important, and something not everyone else has been able to do in these last 46 years. Seattle's 116 wins and 14 game margin atop the AL West in 2001 didn't mean all that much in the end.  But the Blue Jays have never blown away their division.  it's not just that they've never won their division by 10 games; they have never even led the division by 10 games, not once. Ever. (The biggest lead was 9.5 games, for three days in August 1985. Then the Yankees got hot.) That season was one of three times when the Jays essentially led the division from wire to wire - the 1991 team's biggest lead was 8 games, the 1992 team's biggest lead was just 5 games. You can't sit back, get comfortable and relax when you're always one bad week away from being back in a dogfight. They've simply never had a dominant team.