“Which team poses the greatest threat to your winning of the World Series?”

The question would have been a joke any other year, but on Tuesday it was asked in earnest and nobody was laughing.

As expected, it was a very different “state of the franchise” event for the Blue Jays at the Rogers Centre on Tuesday evening, as the club hosted its annual reception for season-ticket holders.

Roughly 1,500 people attended this year, making it the largest crowd since the inaugural event in 2002.

“It certainly has a different feel, doesn’t it?” team president Paul Beeston said, by way of introduction to the tightly packed crowd spread across four sections in front of the home dugout.

After the club’s most dramatic off-season in two decades — in which team payroll has grown by half with the acquisition of former all-stars R.A. Dickey, Jose Reyes, Josh Johnson, Mark Buehrle and Melky Cabrera — the event was more of a love-in for fans than a chance to grill team brass.

The questions, though pre-screened, were not asking when the Jays would spend like the league’s heavyweights or acquire the pieces to become a bona fide contender, and there were no requests by the team for more patience from a fan base that has already shown plenty.

Although GM Alex Anthopoulos said he liked to use the event to manage expectations, Tuesday was actually a time for heady optimism before this most hotly anticipated season. Spring training opens in a week and ticket sales are “up dramatically,” according to Beeston, who refused to elaborate with specifics.

Beeston said he believes the club’s attendance could top 3 million this year, “depending on how we come out of the gate.”

Last year, the Jays’ attendance was 2.1 million, and the team hasn’t had 3 million fans walk through its turnstiles since the record-setting seasons of the early 1990s.

This, of course, would have been a very different event had Anthopoulos not orchestrated such a dramatic off-season.

Beeston admitted he was aware not only of the fans’ disappointment following a disastrous 2012 — marked by underperformance and injury, but also homophobic slurs , allegations of a lousy clubhouse culture and the embarrassing departure of ex-manager John Farrell — but also their anger.

“We’ve got a trust with them now and the reality is we’ve got to deliver on that trust.”

Beeston also reaffirmed a promise he made at last year’s gathering — that the Jays would make the post-season in two out of the next five years.

“We always said we would spend the money when the opportunity was right,” he said. “The opportunity was right this year, the deals were right and I think now is the time for us to go out there and play and return the fans’ support.”

Anthopoulos said the team’s revamped lineup is about building a perennial contender, not one that will make a quick run at the post-season and then rebuild. “We are trying to get this organization back to where it was.”

Beeston echoed the sentiment: “Your goal is not to win one year,” he said. “Your goal has got to be something that’s sustainable. You build an infrastructure that’s going to keep you there for years to come. I think that’s what Alex has done.”

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Beeston, Anthopoulos and manager John Gibbons addressed a number of other issues during the hour-long event and with reporters beforehand:

On the order of the starting rotation: Gibbons announced that Dickey will get the start on opening day, followed by Brandon Morrow, Buehrle, Johnson and Rickey Romero. He explained that the reigning Cy Young winner should get the first start, and he liked the mix of righties vs. lefties and hard-throwers vs. soft-throwers.

On grass replacing artificial turf at the Rogers Centre: “I don’t think there’s any question that our goal, that our intention, is to get grass in here,” Beeston said, to loud cheers. “The question is when and how we do it.”

He said the CFL Argonauts remain an obstacle, because they would have nowhere else to play at the moment.

“We have to consider them. . . . We are working with them, but our goal is to get grass.”

On whether ticket prices will go up in future seasons: “Let me put it this way, you hope not,” Beeston said. “But I don’t think they’re going to go down.”

The Jays have not raised ticket prices in four years, and Beeston said if attendance goes up, the prices could stay steady. But he made no guarantees. “The longer we put it off, the better.”

On the renewed PED allegations against Melky Cabrera: Anthopoulos said there was “no new information” regarding Cabrera in last week’s report by the Miami New Times , which also implicated Alex Rodriguez, among others. “There wasn’t anything new from our standpoint,” the GM said, adding he is confident Cabrera will not face any further suspension.

On potential competitions in spring training: “This is the least amount of competition we’ve had, at least since I’ve been here,” Anthopoulos said. Maicer Izturis and Emilio Bonifacio will compete for the everyday second base job, though Izturis is the frontrunner. Josh Thole and Henry Blanco — who have both caught Dickey’s knuckleball — will compete for backup catching duties. There will also be competition for jobs at the front end of the bullpen.

On who will be the team’s closer: Gibbons said Casey Janssen has earned the closer’s job, and that Sergio Santos remains a question mark after missing almost all of last season.

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