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TORONTO — Months of speculation and uncertainty for those involved came to an end Wednesday, alongside baseball’s minor leagues as we knew them.

Since news broke of a significant restructuring of Minor League Baseball last year, both those inside the game as well as invested fans scattered across small North American outposts have paid close attention with their fingers crossed.

This week, as MLB teams try to fix their on-field rosters at the big-league level, there was finally some clarity for the large number of people twisting in the wind when all 30 clubs announced their four minor-league affiliate invitations.

For the Blue Jays, it’s a positive outcome, as the one ugly downside to all of this could’ve been losing its only Canadian affiliate in Vancouver.

A handful of reports had already broken up the Jays and the Canadians, but, instead, Wednesday’s final announcement will see Nat Bailey Stadium hosting full-season High-A baseball in the coming years.

It’s a nice development for baseball fans in British Columbia, as they’ll now get a parade of elite Jays prospects making their way through High-A, a level that is very rarely skipped and features a 132-game schedule.

“The Blue Jays value the opportunity to continue strong associations with these four franchises,” the club wrote in a release. “Foremost among them, the Blue Jays share a close affinity with the Vancouver Canadians and baseball fans in Western Canada. As this country’s only Major League Baseball team, the club takes great pride in maintaining a west coast presence, introducing future Blue Jays players to Canadian fans, and helping grow the game nationally.”

With the whole plan scrapping short-season baseball, the rookie-level Bluefield Blue Jays club that Vladimir Guerrero Jr. started his minor-league journey with in the summer of 2016, is no more.

Same with the Lansing Lugnuts, previously the first full-season stop for prospects in the Low-A Midwest League.

With Vancouver shifting to High-A, the Jays are now logistically set up better than ever with their lowest rung on the affiliate ladder — a player’s entry into pro baseball — now the Low-A Dunedin Blue Jays.

From now on, Jays prospects will essentially move from honing their skills on the newly-redeveloped complex backfields to TD Ballpark for A-ball games.

After that, it’s up to Vancouver, and then off to Double-A New Hampshire and Triple-A Buffalo, two affiliations that have been around since 2004 and 2013, respectively.

While MLB clubs believe streamlining the minor leagues and dropping from 162 franchises to 120 overall will allow them to become more efficient with player development — a movement from organized games to more controlled backfield situations as a development tool is the reason — there’s the obvious sting of more jobs lost across the sport.

For the Jays and Canadian baseball fans, however, Wednesday’s news was as positive as it could have been on a day 42 minor-league teams were officially informed they no longer exist in MLB’s world.

 

JAYS STILL BEING PATIENT

Not counting loose connections to teams, it’s been a quiet start to hot-stove season around baseball.

More than five weeks into free agency, only a handful of pitchers have signed, and just five of the top 50 free agents on this list are off the market.

At some point soon, the necessary domino will fall like it does every year, but there’s so much financial uncertainty for all involved that it’s hard to know what to expect.

For the Jays, being in on the entire top tier of the market to some extent — Trevor Bauer, J.T. Realmuto, George Springer, D.J. LeMahieu — could leave them playing a waiting game that might get uncomfortable if other alternatives start to sign.

“(We’re) trying to balance the best deal we can possibly get versus not losing a good deal versus some other permutation in there,” Blue Jays assistant GM Joe Sheehan said. “(We have) some interest in getting stuff done to just make our team better, while the chances are there to do that, but at the same time not being reckless and not being too aggressive. Trying to strike that balance.”

 

VLADDY MAKES DWL DEBUT

Intent on proving he can still be an option at third base heading into his age-22 season, Vladimir Guerrero Jr.’s winter of work got started Tuesday night with the Escogido, a club he suited up for as an 18-year-old in 2017-18.

While Vladdy Jr. debuted as the designated hitter, going 0-for-4, the Dominican Winter League club reitered that he’ll be their third baseman.

“I came to Escogido to play third base and to prepare to play third,” Guerrero told MLB.com, speaking with media in Spanish on Tuesday. “That’s one of the main things I’m here for. I’m going to focus on third. Next year, I’m going back to my third base.”

As for the Jays, they’ll just sit back and monitor their corner infielder’s play and hope he gives them a surprising third base option when he arrives at spring training in February.

How they address the third base position this off-season after Travis Shaw was non-tendered will be a good indicator of how realistic even a part-time move back to the hot corner will be for Guerrero.