Baseball America salutes Vancouver Canadians as a top minor league organization

The Vancouver Canadians’ resilience is being officially recognized.

The Nat Bailey Stadium club has been named a Baseball America’s 2025 Bob Freitas Award winner, pegging the Toronto Blue Jays’ high-A farm team as one of the best organizations in all of the minor leagues this season. The Worcester Red Sox nabbed the triple-A honours while the Rocket City Trash Pandas took the title for double-A.

It’s the second such win for the C’s, who also captured a Freitas Award in 2011.

They led the six-team Northwest League in attendance (4,212 per game) this summer and saw massive gains across their social media platforms, including recording a 172 per cent jump in engagements and a 70 per cent boost in impressions.

They had a vast array of special promotions this season, including tributes to South Asian Heritage and the famed Vancouver Asahi team, and both of those featured the C’s donning specialty jerseys. There was also a pair of Dog Days of Summer games at the Nat which brought over 500 dogs to the ballpark.

And the C’s did all that in the midst of the Nat being an active construction zone all season due to upgrades needed to meet new facility standards from Major League Baseball. Parking spots at the ballpark were taken up by temporary structures, and there was a two-story building down the first baseline that was a job site the entire campaign.

There were days the hard hats must have outnumbered the ball caps at the stadium.

“It means everything,” C’s general manager Allan Bailey said of winning the Freitas. “You look at all the work that everyone here at the office put in. Dealing with all the obstacles we’ve had the past couple of years, and then to be recognized like that is something special.”

The temporary structures are gone now, and Bailey says the building on the first base side should be fully functioning for opening day next season, which is April 7. It will house various amenities for the players, and the rooftop will have seating for fans. It replaces the 400-seat barbecue section that was there previously. The C’s had to shut that down midway through 2024 season to begin the upgrades.

The Nat celebrates its 75th birthday next July.

“It’s going to be amazing,” Bailey said of having the full ballpark available next season. “It’s going to be great to have all this construction stuff past us.

“The fans have been awesome. When I spoke at our World Series viewing parties, I thanked everyone for their patience. It hasn’t been easy, and especially with the temporary structures taking up parking and making things more challenging for everyone coming to the ballpark.”

The World Series parties were among the highlights of the C’s season overall. They have been a Toronto affiliate since 2011. This Blue Jays team that took the Los Angeles Dodgers to seven games in the MLB championship featured four C’s graduates on its roster, and most notably rookie right-hander Trey Yesavage, who was pitching in Vancouver in May.

The C’s are the second rung on the Blue Jays’ four full-season team development ladder, and Yesavage pitched for all four of those farm teams this summer on his way to getting called up to the big club.

As well, Toronto manager John Schneider had the same role with Vancouver for three seasons on his way to his current spot in the majors.

The Blue Jays’ success did impact the C’s, as evidenced by the fact that 4,056 of their new 11,660 followers on Instagram this year were added during Toronto’s final two months of the campaign.

Teams across minor league baseball have had to make improvements to their ballparks. With the Northwest League, the Spokane Indians were the lone club that was compliant to the new facility standards to start this season. The Hillsboro Hops are in the midst of building a new stadium, and it’s slated to open next season.

Neither the city, which owns the ballpark, nor Diamond Baseball Holdings (DBH), which owns the team, have answered questions about how much the upgrades at the Nat have cost. Postmedia’s Dan Fumano reported in March 2024 that an internal city memo had the renovations expected to come in at $20 million.

The city forwards all inquiries about the upgrades to DBH, the New York-based company that bought the team from local businessmen Jake Kerr and Jeff Mooney in April 2023. DBH owns 48 of the 120 affiliated minor league teams. Worcester is another of their clubs.

DBH did make a statement about the C’s winning the Freitas, explaining: “Allan Bailey and the entire Canadians front office have navigated an ambitious period of change with exceptional vision and care, all while delivering a first-class experience for players and fans. What this organization accomplished amid major facility upgrades is extraordinary, and the continued devotion of C’s fans has elevated The Nat into one of the most vibrant environments in our sport. We are thrilled to see Vancouver recognized with this well-deserved honour.”

SEwen@postmedia.com