Blue Jays affiliated baseball on the West Coast lives on.

According to an official statement released by the team today, the Blue Jays’ four minor-league affiliated under MLB’s new player development structure will be the Buffalo Bisons, New Hampshire Fishers Cats, Dunedin Blue Jays, and Vancouver Canadians.

Buffalo and New Hampshire will remain as the team’s Triple-A and Double-A affiliates while Dunedin will shift to becoming a Low-A affiliate along with the entire Florida State League. The Jays ultimately had a choice to roll with either the Lansing Lugnuts or Vancouver Canadians as their High-A affiliate, and they chose the latter.

This is a huge win for Blue Jays fans in Western Canada and a huge loss for those who want to shout about how Mark Shapiro hates Canada on the internet.

It probably would have made more logistic sense for the Blue Jays to keep Lansing over Vancouver because it would have put all four of their affiliates fairly close together, but it’s great to see the organization prioritizing keeping an affiliation in Canada. Having baby Blue Jays play for the Canadians is key in ensuring that Canadians on the West Coast become fans of the Blue Jays rather than fans of the Seattle Mariners.

Meanwhile, Lansing will become the High-A affiliate of the Oakland A’s. Earlier in the off-season, it was rumoured that Vancouver would shift to Oakland’s system, so, with the Jays keeping Vancouver, the math adds up here.