Jays-related takeaways from new CBA

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TORONTO — The lockout is over, and baseball is back with a few tweaks.

In the end, it was a 99-day pause on the business, but the MLBPA and owners eventually found a way to salvage the full 162-game slate, and a condensed spring training gets going almost immediately in Dunedin with many Toronto Blue Jays veterans already trickling in on Friday.

For the Jays, there’s one number that matters the most in the new Collective Bargaining Agreement: 12.

The long-expected expanded postseason is now reality and a club with legitimate World Series aspirations just got some help when it comes to qualifying for the dance, which is the necessary first step that eluded the Jays by a game last fall.

What an extra playoff team in each league will do for the sanctity of the 162-game schedule in the long run remains to be seen — 40 per cent of MLB teams will now qualify in a league that’s been traditionally top heavy in recent years — but there’s no doubt it’ll add to the September excitement down the stretch.

We may even get middling .500 teams in the mix, making it obvious that the new format is going to come with debate.

But for a team going toe-to-toe with financial powerhouses in New York and Boston, as well one of the best drafting and developing franchises residing in Tampa, the Jays now have a bit more margin for error.

Here are a few more Jays-related takeaways from the new CBA.

Lost in the details of the Competitive Balance Tax (CBT) going up, minimum salaries increasing, and the hot topic of the international draft was the fact the league will be moving to a more balanced schedule next season.

After years of AL East teams beating up on each other as the weaker Central and West looked on, that meat grinder will