The Canadian League: Making it in Montréal

[chey]

The Canadian League, announced in 2016 and launched in 2018, exists as the highest level of professional baseball in Canada and is widely considered to be the world’s second most competitive baseball league, after MLB (although I’m sure Japanese fans would disagree with that assessment). Originally founded as an eight-team circuit filled mostly with former indy ball players and minor league journeymen, strong support of the league by both fans and Canadian media has allowed it to grow rapidly. As of today, the Canadian League boasts sixteen teams (including three in American cities), four affiliated minor leagues and a level of talent which is closer to MLB than AAA.

Due to scheduling concerns in the early years, the CL was divided into two non-geographic sub-leagues — the Macdonald League and the Laurier League — with minimal interleague play. Each league is made up of an East and West division, and the two West Divisions and two East Divisions play an interleague schedule of two-game home-and-home series annually, with the rest of their 76 game schedule being made up of games against their own league.

The CL first expanded into American territory in 2020, welcoming the Anchorage Nanooks to the Laurier League West Division. After all, if the American League can have a team in Toronto, why should we be any less welcoming of our neighbours? The most recent round of expansion in 2022 saw two more teams join the league from Canadian-American border states: the Boise Gems and the New England Whalers based in Portland, Maine.

For the most part, Canadian baseball is very similar to its American counterpart. The rules are the same (although neither league employs the DH), and player roles are very similar. The mound was lowered after the inaugural season in an attempt to increase offence (for whatever reason, the caliber of pitching available to CL teams outstripped the caliber of hitting), but offence continues to lag a little behind that which you might see in an MLB season. Canada’s climate necessitates a shorter schedule (Opening Day is always Victoria Day, in late May, and the regular season runs through the end of August), but most everything else looks the same. MLB and the CL coexist happily, respecting each other’s contracts and even trading with each other fairly regularly; the MLBPA was obviously thrilled at the prospect of so many new jobs in North America, and the CL’s more player-friendly CBA earned them the union’s support in negotiations with the established American major leagues. Canadian players are eligible for arbitration after only a single full year of service time, and are eligible for free agency after three.

In terms of finances, everything in the CL is obviously a scaled down version of American economics. League payrolls range from $5-$15M, and most players are paid somewhere between $100,000 and $500,000, with a handful of stars earning seven figures. The league sees a lot of player turnover, due to both the quicker route to FA, the shorter average contract length (most deals run only 1-3 years), and the simple fact that most successful CLers will eventually leave the league for another shot at the big time; while a handful of stars have stayed and embraced the northern circuit, it’s not at all uncommon for a team to have to replace half of their 25-man roster in an offseason. For example, this year’s defending champs (the Goldeyes) are featuring ten new men on their active roster, after losing six key players to MLB teams eager to exploit the CL as a pipeline for fresh talent.

There are certainly names you’d recognize in this league: James Paxton joined the CL in its second season, returning to his hometown of Vancouver and leading them to a pair of Pearson Cup titles; Jorge Soler signed with Edmonton in free agency after being released by Kansas City, and quickly established himself as a world-beating slugger before returning to MLB with an eight-figure contract; Matt Olson was actually traded to Hamilton as a rental by the Oakland Athletics, and found that he so enjoyed life as the CL’s most fearsome hitter that he stayed in the league, inking a three-year deal with Anchorage in 2022. I love seeing familiar names thriving in my little league, but they aren’t my favourites.

The guys I get really excited about are the ones who never got a shot in MLB, but came to Canada and did well. SP Derek Gordon (brother of KC Royals player Alex Gordon) came to Edmonton for the league’s inaugural season, after washing out of the minors and toiling in the independent leagues, and quickly became the team’s ace. Most impressively though, he continued to dominate even as the players around him got better. Even up against hitters like Matt Olson, Derek has competed with the likes of Paxton for silverware year in and year out.

[chey]

The Montreal Joueurs have been the picture of consistency through the first seven years of the Canadian League’s existence. The same leadership core has been in place since the club’s founding in 2018: the roles of General Manager, Manager and Bench Coach have been held by the same three men since 2018. Unfortunately, that consistency shows up in the team records as well: only once in seven years has Montreal achieved a winning record, despite playing in what has probably been the country’s weakest division, the Laurier League East.

More damning than their weak sister division-mates, however, is the fact that Montreal is by far the wealthiest team in the league. It’s economic advantages are obvious: Montreal has a market twice as big as the CL’s next largest city, and nearly five times the Canadian League average. The club’s local media contract dwarfs that of any other franchise, and it’s fanbase is as rabid as it is large. Despite all of this, Montreal has sputtered along for nearly a decade without any real achievements to show. The name “Joueurs” has become synonymous with mediocrity, and it’s becoming hard to imagine the team emerging as the kind of powerhouse that they really ought to be. At least, until this morning.

News broke out of Montreal that the Joueurs had been sold for the staggering price of two hundred million dollars. Considering the fact that CL finances are rarely more than seven digits long, that kind of an offer must have been nearly impossible for the Bronfman family to turn down. The new owner, Montreal-born billionaire Pierre Karl Peladeau, took ownership of the team immediately following the end of the 2024 regular season (the Joueurs, of course, had not qualified for the playoffs), and made no secret of his plans for the franchise. His remarks to the press were brief and bold, highlighted by phrases such as:

“The city of Montreal, the fans of this team, deserve a winner. And I’m going to give it to them.”

In the days that followed, local media reported that Peladeau had a number of changes in store for his franchise, including the franchise itself. The Joueurs brand and its red-and-blue "M" logo would be retired, replaced with a new team identity meant to symbolize the rebirth of the club. There were apparently plans for a new stadium in downtown Montreal — the Joueurs were still playing in the now nearly 50-year-old Olympic Stadium — although it wasn’t expected to be completed before 2028 at the earliest. Most immediate, however, was the need for new team personnel. Peladeau had canned the entire front office and coaching staff within hours of purchasing the team, and new leadership was needed immediately if the franchise was going to come out of the offseason ready to achieve its new goal: winning the Pearson Cup in 2025.

[chey]

I got my start in baseball with the Chicago Cubs of the National League, working my way up from a summer intern job to Director of Player Development over the course of a decade. When news came out of a professional league in my home country — a league full of teams that would need staff of their own — I jumped at the chance, and was able to leverage my citizenship and major league experience into a role as GM and Manager of my hometown Edmonton Jackrabbits. My Jacks were immediately successful, reaching the playoffs in each of my first two years, but a series of conflicts within the organization — and disappointing back-to-back playoff defeats — led to my resignation after the 2019 season. I’d been offered a job with the expansion Anchorage Nanooks, and I took that opportunity to remove myself from the complicated politics of Edmonton baseball. The team I built in Edmonton would go on to win the Pearson Cup the very next year (and my replacement as Manager, Wally Backman, would ironically earn himself a job as skipper of the same Chicago Cubs that I came up with), but the run of success that was to come in Alaska more than made up for any bitterness towards my old franchise.

Anchorage made the postseason in its very first season as an expansion club — to date, the only CL expansion team to do so — and never looked back, easily qualifying for the Pearson Cup Playoffs in every year of its existence. My Nanooks achieved a five-year winning percentage of .618, winning the hyper-competitive LL West Division three times, leading the entire CL in run differential four times, and took home the coveted Pearson Cup as CL champions in 2022 and 2023. 2024 was another strong season for the ‘Nooks: we didn’t manage the threepeat, but still finished the regular season with the Laurier League’s best record and the best run differential in all of Canadian baseball.

After five successful years, though, I was ready to explore outside opportunities. Half a decade is a long time to spend with any team, especially one located in a small city in Alaska. My contract was up, and my successful track record would offer me plenty of options: in seven years with two franchises I’d never failed to make the playoffs, I’d accrued a win percentage of .619, and I’d been voted Manager of the Year five times. I’d gotten offers in the past that would have made me the highest paid executive in Canadian baseball, and in 2023 an expansion team had even offered me an equity stake in the franchise. I hadn’t been able to walk away from Anchorage then, but I was ready now. When I got the call from Peladeau offering me nearly a million dollars a year — MLB GM money — to take over his new franchise, well, it was pretty hard to turn down. Peladeau has deeper pockets than any other owner in the league, or at least he’s more willing to dip into them, and the two of us together could do something really special with this club. The budget offered to me removes any challenge in making the playoffs of course… but that’s not the goal anymore.

Peladeau is giving me carte blanche to spend, but he’s going to be expecting results to match. From this point on, any year that Montreal doesn’t win the Pearson Cup is an abject failure. Two of those in a row? I’m out of there.

[chey]

A brief aside: I'd like to thank the great modders in this community for making this league a reality. None of the logos or images used here are my creations, but rather the collective work of some great artists who give freely of their time.

I'd also like to thank Silvam14 for his work creating 3D models -- I play out every one of my teams' games, and thanks to him every club in the Canadian League has a unique stadium to call home.

And last but not least, Outlaw Jim put together the 16 team, 76 game schedule that I've been using for the last few seasons, and I can't thank him enough.