When the Blue Jays formally announced the signing of Canadian catcher Russell Martin on Tuesday morning, they took the unusual step of releasing the news in both official languages.

It was presumably a nod to Martin’s Francophone heritage. The 31-year-old was born in Toronto but raised in Montreal and, like general manager Alex Anthopoulos, is fluent in both English and French. He even tweets like the federal government.

Considered among the top free agents in this year’s class, Martin will become the 21st Canadian to play for the Jays. But he is easily the most high profile and is set to lead the most Canadian Jays’ team in franchise history.

“Never before has the club boasted more than one everyday position player from Canada, and next year they could have three in Martin, Langley, B.C.-native Brett Lawrie and Mississauga’s Dalton Pompey.”

Speaking to MLB Network Radio on Monday, Lawrie said it was great for the team and for the country. “We’ve got three Canadians playing in the backyard now.”

The Jays have been promoting their Canadian bona fides and courting a national audience more than ever in recent years — via the cross-country Winter Tour, by re-emphasizing the maple leaf in uniform re-branding efforts and by establishing Canada Day as a ceremonial matinee game — and next season they will have more homegrown stars to celebrate than ever.

But do fans care?

Did the team factor in a boost in ticket sales when they offered Martin the second-largest contract in franchise history?

“Just having Canadians on the roster I strongly believe has zero financial value,” says Keith Law, ESPN baseball insider who worked in the Jays’ front office during the J.P. Ricciardi era. “Fans don’t show up unless the team is good. You have to win. You don’t get any extra points for having local players.”

But not everyone in the organization shared that view, Law said.

He recalled the club’s signing of Winnipeg native Corey Koskie and said there was pressure from the business side of the organization to sign Canadian players for marketing purposes.

“It was seen as valuable by various people in the organization,” Law said. “Personally I never bought into any of that.”

But Martin, Law points out, is different. He’s a great player who happens to be Canadian.

During Law’s tenure with the club there was no opportunity to get a marquee Canadian player like Martin, who offered marketing appeal while also making a major impact on the field.

Law said that Ricciardi believed there was some value in targeting Canadian players because they didn’t require the extra incentives of many of their American counterparts. The Jays already typically had to overpay free agents by roughly 10 per cent to mitigate the less favourable tax situation, he said.

Martin may have been drawn to the idea of “coming home,” Law conceded, but the main reason why the Jays landed him is because they were willing to offer a five-year deal when other teams weren’t.

That sentiment seems to be shared by Jays’ fans who spoke to the Star on Tuesday and characterized Martin’s Canadian-ness as merely a bonus.

“The fact that he’s Canadian is just maple-syrup-flavored icing on the cake,” said Andy Arias, a longtime fan who said what makes the Martin signing so exciting is his ability, not his passport. “It’ll give that little extra dash of magic to July 1st but ultimately the feeling I got yesterday was the same one I got after the Marlins trade — hope that this might be the start of something baseball fans in this city have all been waiting two decades for.”

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Jays’ top Canadians

(Ranked by games played)

Paul Quantrill – 386 games

Brett Lawrie – 345 games

Dave McKay – 287 games

Matt Stairs – 230 games

Rob Ducey – 188 games

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