Check out the Blue Jays’ new facilities

This story was excerpted from Keegan Matheson’s Blue Jays Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox

There’s a whole world underneath the bleachers at Rogers Centre that you don’t see.

It’s a beehive of activity on game days, with golf carts and work vehicles buzzing around as stadium staff prepare the concrete behemoth for another day. At the heart of all of this is the Blue Jays’ clubhouse, which is about to undergo a massive overhaul during phase two of the stadium’s $300 million renovations.

The clubhouse will be expanded significantly this offseason. It will be the biggest home clubhouse in baseball, and Mark Shapiro believes it will also be the best. This process has already started with some of the amenities around the clubhouse, including the weight room.

Here’s a look at the work that’s already been done, and why it matters to the players.

A 7,900 square-foot weight room

This new room is fully customized for the Blue Jays and roughly three times the size of their old one. It’s also another great example of a primary challenge the Blue Jays are facing throughout these renovations: concrete.

Rogers Centre has held up like that reliable old car that just keeps humming past 400,000 kilometers, but concrete isn’t flexible. That’s why you see two large concrete support structures cutting through the weight room, but the Blue Jays have designed around them, making them look like more of a feature than a bug.

“It’s limiting if you let it be limiting, or it’s an opportunity if you look at it like an opportunity,” Shapiro said.

For head strength and conditioning coach Scott Weberg, it’s “a dream come true”. Weberg notes that the Blue Jays embraced the fact that this weight room is underground and a little grittier, incorporating that into their designs.

Housed in the sprawling room of branded equipment is every weight and machine you could imagine, plus a closed-off “cardio theatre” with 18 machines. There’s also a 1,000 square-foot mat for movement and flexibility exercise along with a turf track that stretches 48 yards at its longest point. Much of the influence came from NCAA football programs -- particularly Michigan -- where their facilities need to accommodate large numbers of athletes efficiently.

Add in a recovery and meditation space, and this facility has been used heavily by the Blue Jays’ roster.

“When they come here and they become a Blue Jay, we’re not afraid to give them everything they could possibly need to be great,” Weberg said.

Fresh cuts

Down a ramp from the weight room, you’ll find the Blue Jays’ own barbershop. Inside, players will find Joshua Diamante, who owns the popular Throne Barbershop in Toronto. His shop was already home to plenty of local pro athletes, so the Blue Jays are taking that to their players.

Diamante wants the barbershop to feel like a “sanctuary” for players, with its two chairs and sharp interior designed to represent Toronto. Bo Bichette and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. can miss a week without a cut, but if you’re a Blue Jays player who’s trying to keep a fresh fade, Diamante is your guy.

Family first

Across the hall from the barber is the Blue Jays’ family room, which is essentially divided into two areas. First, you’ll walk through a family lounge that looks like a room from a luxury penthouse. It’s where partners and families can gather for a drink, socialize pre-game or wait for their partner later. This weekend alone, they held three baby showers in there.

Through another door is a kid’s dream. The downstairs level is for the younger crowd, with endless toys and tables surrounding a slide, ball pit and treehouse. Up a set of stairs, for the older kids, you’ll find couches and televisions with Nintendo Switches and PlayStation 5s. Families spend plenty of time at the park, and in free agency, families talk.

Brand new bullpens

Toronto’s raised bullpens have been a topic already, obvious to anyone watching the game on TV. The rebuild itself is impressive, though, giving the relievers their own facilities during the games with workout equipment and a lounge underneath the bullpen itself.

“The bullpen is a team within a team,” Shapiro said, “and we’re giving this team its own space instead of just a holding tank.”

These factors matter when the Blue Jays are trying to lure a free agent, especially if that person has a partner or young kids who will come with them. Nothing matters as much as money and a winning team, but since the Blue Jays have those in place, factors like these can win a lot of tiebreakers in their favor.