Vancouver Canadians Nate Pearson

Vancouver Canadians fans won’t get to see Nate Pearson again but they will get five more seasons of watching Toronto Blue Jays prospects at Nat Bailey Stadium.

C's RecapCanada’s professional baseball teams will be together for four more years. C’s co-owner Jake Kerr announced at the team’s annual luncheon Friday that the Blue Jays will remain affiliated with Vancouver until the end of the 2022 season.

This marks the first four-year agreement between the two sides since the conclusion of the 2016 campaign. Under the Mark Shapiro regime, the Blue Jays and Canadians only signed a two-year deal in 2016 that was to conclude at the end of 2018. Player Development Contracts (PDC’s) are usually signed in two- or four-year increments with four years meaning that both sides are really happy with each other. Two years usually means one or both sides are biding their time for a better opportunity to arise. A prime example of this would be the Blue Jays leaving the Triple-A Las Vegas 51’s after a pair of two-year deals to join the Buffalo Bisons in 2013. That marked a return to the International League for the Jays after the Syracuse Chiefs dumped them as an affiliate after the 2008 campaign.

With only a two-year pact in place, there were some concerns that the C’s-Jays partnership would end after 2018. There was unfounded speculation that the Jays may have preferred to have all of its affiliates in the Eastern Time zone once again after having been with Vancouver since 2011. The big concern however was the deteriorating infield conditions at Nat Bailey Stadium that led to talk of possibly installing artificial turf on the diamond.

Thankfully, the field got a much-needed makeover in 2017 that earned the club’s groundskeepers a highly-coveted award. With the field issues resolved, the Canadians authored their own worst-to-first story in 2017 by winning its fourth Northwest League championship.

The PDC extension was the big news that came out of Friday’s luncheon in support of the Vancouver Canadians Baseball Foundation. The headliners at the event were Blue Jays general manager Ross Atkins, president-emeritus Paul Beeston and director of minor league operations Charlie Wilson along with Jays legend Lloyd Moseby.

Here is a recap of the day’s events courtesy of Twitter.

 

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Published by Niall O'Donohoe

My name is Niall O’Donohoe and I am an avid follower of baseball. My blog beginnings began in 2007 with Batter’s Box under the alias #2JBrumfield. The blog formerly known as Niall On Baseball, C’s Plus Baseball strives to deliver plus coverage of the C’s through photos, observations and interviews of the players striving to make it to the major leagues. If you like what you see here, please spread the word about CsPlusBaseball.ca through your favourite social media platform. This blog began just before the C's championship season in 2017 and the goal is to deliver awesome content about Canada’s only affiliated professional minor league baseball club. Thanks a million for being here!

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