Blue Jays president Paul Beeston does not often speak out of turn. When he lets something slip, it’s usually a well-thought-out slip. So when he was asked about the February statement to season ticket holders that the club was ready to spend $120 million in payroll, he does not back off even in the wake of a .500 season. It’s time to start the process of returning to the World Series.

“That’s all in salaries, I’m talking the 40-man roster,” Beeston emphasized when offered the chance to backtrack. “I don’t know when we’re going to do it. It could be this year. It could be next year. It’s going to be when it’s the right deal that’s going to put us over the top.

“I’m talking salaries and I still believe once we do that — and we saw it this year — I believe there will be a much better buzz about the team, much more interest in the team and we know that from the point of view of getting the fans in here that we can make it economically sensible and that’s what we’re going to have to be. We’re not trying to do this thing on a one-year, one-out basis. We’re trying to do it on a sustainable basis and I believe the model works, the business plan works.”

There’s one special free agent out there this year in 25-year-old Japanese pitching star Yu Darvish. Late in the summer, it was reported that Jays GM Alex Anthopoulos and his right-hand man, Tony LaCava, were in attendance at one of the right-hander’s key starts for the Nippon Ham. If Rogers ownership was not aware of Darvish before that, it certainly is now, and there’s a real possibility of the Jays being in the thick of whatever happens with Darvish.

“I can answer it this way,” Beeston said, choosing his words carefully. “I think those people at Rogers who never heard of him before, now know this player is in existence.”

The Jays are not going to merely chase the elite teams of the AL East by trying to match them dollar for dollar. But Anthopoulos has set the table for the signing of a key Type A free agent, even if it means giving up a draft choice and elevating the payroll, and Beeston insists he and the GM will be ready to argue with Rogers about adding a big-name star. The first step, though, will be in the form of a team-building trade.

“Absolutely,” Beeston said when asked if that was the internal order of moves for bringing a winner back to Toronto. “That’s the position you want to be in. Then it’s tough. You better not screw up.

“It would have made no sense to just keep on increasing our payroll for players that are B free agents just so we could have names. If we have A free agents that’s a different story. Now you’re talking something completely different. My feeling is and will always continue to be that the mobility of the best free agents is always to contending teams and until we prove we’re there, we’re not going to get those. So, what’s the right way of doing it that way? You want those premier guys. You’ve got to be in the position at that point in time to offer them a winning franchise.”

Beeston feels the Jays are headed towards contention. They’re no longer about nostalgia. In fact, he insists that on the five occasions this summer when the Jays drew more than 40,000 to the Rogers Centre, he never once looked out over the throng and thought of the glory days of 1989-93 and two World Series.

“It’s not just the glory days,” Beeston said, dismissing the recent era of Flashback Fridays and retro uniforms. “It’s to give fans a good experience for that game. They say, ‘Boy, this was fun. The Jays showed up. They did what they did with a sense of style, a sense of class. But more important, the games were good and I’m coming back to one or two more games.’

“It’s not the past that we’re talking about now. That doesn’t mean we’re going to forget our past. But that’s 20 years ago. What we’d like to do is have another 10 years of being a competitive baseball team where we’re playing that last week where it means something and hopefully it leads to the playoffs and hopefully the playoffs can lead to the World Series, because that’s the goal.”

As for his own future with the Jays, Beeston denied persistent rumours that his own contract had been extended three years through the 2015 season. That rite of denial may be company policy for off-field employees. This summer, Anthopoulos also denied his own extension.

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“I’ve heard that rumour,” Beeston said. “ I have not re-upped to anything. I’m happy working with these guys because they’re a good group of guys. We’ll look at that at some point in time, but absolutely not. I saw that (rumour) at some point and I said, ‘The first I ever heard of it.’ Why would I only make it through 2015? What, they don’t want to win three in a row? So no.”

Say what? Brave words from a team that has not made the post-season in 18 years. You’ve gotta love it. The bravado has begun and it’s welcome after years of whining about the AL East.

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