This has ruined my day. I don't even know who they are going to replace him with. I had developed a deep rooted affection for AA. He's always been so genuine. This one stings.

Power. As in lower payroll? AA has never done much on free agency anyway. As in the ability to trade top prospects? As in the ability to pick scouts?

What if Shapiro isn't a fan of Gibbons? If I was president I would have said you can have another 5 years but you need to get a better coach.

Probably best for both sides - AA was not Shapiro's guy & would likely have been the fall guy if things went south - he leaves on a high note & will be back in an executive position soon - Shapiro gets to hire his guy & who knows, maybe he's better.

What a horrible, short-sighted, god-awful move. Executive of the year and they're going to let him go. Morons. Way to piss away all the good feelings you just generated over the past three months. I feel like rioting right now.

Blech. I'm telling myself the new guy could very well be good, but, BLECH. A major, unnecessary loss. Mark Shapiro is not good enough to justify this.

Wow. I sure didn't expect this.

There were a lot of warning signs -- and likely Shapiro would have needed to cede a big chunk of his responsibilities to keep AA.

I don't like this -- not for Shapiro at least. But life will go on and Shapiro could change the public opinion of himself quite quickly if he can keep David Price in Toronto.

Crazy week though.

Seems a shame to lose an Executive who seems to have figured out his philosophy and had a plan for winning baseball games. AA has the Jays setup for another run in 2016. Does Shapiro grab the bull by the horns or does he see it as a time to sell high to re-stock the cupboard?
According to a Rick Westmead source:
In their 1st & only meeting, new Jays prez Mark Shapiro scolded Alex Anthopolous & staff for trading so many top prospects this yr

Sounds like a philosophical divide as well as power.

according to a Rick Westhead source

Frustrating, but if it was over lost prospects I could understand where Shapiro is coming from. Seeing two top Jay prospects being key parts of the Mets and knowing it will cost the Jays around $50 mil a year to get equivalent production (Martin & Price). It all depends what your goal is. For us fans and AA this year it was winning. For Shapiro and Rogers it is probably profits.

I am a bit loathe to give Bob McCown a ton of credit, but he called this a long time ago. Rogers put the disasterous '13 season on AA, and have been actively looking for a replacement since.The optics stink, but what was to be done, really? From reading the tea leaves, they had Shapiro locked up long before the second half hysteria occured.

My guess is Shapiro assumes full control and does a 2-3 year housecleaning to cut payroll re-stock the farm system. I wouldn't be surprised to see Tulo gone by the new year(as Stephen Brunt has been speculating), with Jose and Edwin likely playing their last season in Toronto with a much younger and cheaper supporing cast.

Here are a few thoughts off the top of my head:

AA had an appealing personality and was able to fit the "local boy makes good" storyline. The Jays look to have lived through the AA learning years and it does seem like the Jays were just starting to benefit from this.

On the other hand there are lots of GM candidates who could do a decent job. AA did deliver a great 2015 second half and a good playoff run. But to compensate for that the Jays now have to be players in free agency, where they have never played with the big boys, and possibly live with down years after 2016 while they rebuild the system.

There are no perfect GM's, it is an intensely competitive position with 25 or so very highly qualified candidates. You just hope to be lucky and good.

I do think Rogers screwed this up. They started in 2014 with the oust Beeston mess and then this year when they hired Shapiro they reportedly gave him final say over all player moves. In doing so they prioritized Shapiro over AA and they might not have even realised what they were doing. AA essentially had final say under Beeston except where big dollars were involved so he looked on this as a demotion. By leaving with the team on top his resume looks better than if he left with the team rebuilding.

Shapiro gets no benefit from this years playoff run, his clock starts next season. So he probably was thinking in self interest when he criticized the dealing of prospects, it makes his job harder.

Shapiro's hiring was announced August 31 but I wonder when was the deal done? If you were a conspiracy theorist you could think the deal was done in July and it pushed AA into the big trades knowing it could be his final hurrah. It would also be easier for Rogers to justify giving Shapiro those powers in July, if it happened then, as AA was not in a strong position then.

That's enough for now. It is disappointing that AA is gone but its not the end of the franchise.

John Northey: "Frustrating, but if it was over lost prospects I could understand where Shapiro is coming from. Seeing two top Jay prospects being key parts of the Mets and knowing it will cost the Jays around $50 mil a year to get equivalent production (Martin & Price). It all depends what your goal is. For us fans and AA this year it was winning. For Shapiro and Rogers it is probably profits."

Shapiro is a sabermetric baseball guy. I think it was a combination of AA's short-sightedness with trading prospects the last three years and likely some kind of disagreement on how they view team building.

The Jays lost a ton of value on the Dickey and Marlins trades over the last three years, and that's not even factoring the future value they lost. Then AA did a double down and traded even more prospects this season. Shapiro likely wants to build a team on a smaller payroll that relies on the farm system rather than $20-30m annual contracts to players in their 30's.

I fully expect a smaller payroll over the next few years and a reliance on developing MLB talent internally. Bautista and Edwin are probably gone after 2016, and it wouldn't shock me if the Jays try to sell high on Tulo and Martin. Too early to really guess, but that's my initial feeling.

I don't care what he does I'm going to hate Shapiro unreasonably for his tenure. Sign Price, sign Davis win the series. I don't care.

Sad news. I'll be curious to see what happens if AA is gone. My guess is that Rogers will want to cut payroll to increase profitability, but then I've guessed this before.

AA was caught between a rock and a hard place. If he hadn't traded prospects, the Jays would have gone 83-79 again, and he would have lost his job.

Tulowitzki will be hard to move, if Shapiro wants to do this - doesn't he have a no-trade clause now?

When people complain about "lost value" from the 2013 Marlins & Mets trades, they conveniently forget the that the Jays went from being a going-nowhere team to World Series favourites to start the season. The process was solid. That the results were bad was not AA's fault. No one ever complains about Jeff Kent being traded for a rental pitcher.

SK in NJ: to me "...a smaller payroll over the next few years & a reliance of developing MLB talent internally" sounds a lot like a re-build which takes this franchise back to the .500 baseball days that we just left in August.

If your expectation is correct, then we would likely see both EE & Jose dealt along with Tulo & Martin, as I doubt either player would want to go back to .500 after having a taste of winning baseball.

I expect we will hear that Gibby will be let go very soon as well. Unsure how I would digest this. Gibby certainly has not distinguished himself as a master strategist, but on the other hand, he seems to have the players respect & seems to be a players manager. In the end, he's not a Shapiro guy so he's likely gone.

Awful news. It will be hard to replace AAs hard work and his continual commitment to find small advantages for his team, like acquiring relief pitchers to gain comp picks and punting picks to sign higher upside guys. The fans have shown they will support a winner. I think pressure is on this new regime to continue to build a sustainable winner moving forward.

Yes AA traded a load of prospects but at the same time, the cupboard is not empty. They have a TON of upside guy in the lower levels.

I am not surprised. Beeston in an interview on the CBC website alludes to Anthopoulos' successes and his public and private mistakes in the past.  I wondered what the private mistakes might have been and guessed that he might have said something to or about someone important at Rogers, perhaps concerning payroll parameter flip-flops.

I am of the view that both Anthopoulos and Shapiro are capable people and that it is a shame that they were not able to work out a way to work together.  I do not think that Shapiro would be so foolish as to do a tear-down in front of 2016 with the player personnel on hand.  There may be a time for that, but it is pretty clearly not now. I imagine that Shapiro will want to hire a GM fairly soon so that person can make a decision on John Gibbons' contract before the end of the year.  It may indeed be someone like LaCava or Tinnish.

Screw Rogers.

I do not think that Shapiro would be so foolish as to do a tear-down in front of 2016 with the player personnel on hand.

I agree with you - but we'll see whether he has been given marching orders from Rogers. I've underestimated Rogers' willingness to spend in the past, but that might have all been AA's doing.

I imagine that Shapiro will want to hire a GM fairly soon so that person can make a decision on John Gibbons' contract before the end of the year. It may indeed be someone like LaCava or Tinnish.

If Shapiro is going to call the shots, there's no real point in hiring a GM - they'll probably just promote from within.

At this point, I assume that Gibbons is gone. He was Anthopoulos's guy.

Smaj: "If your expectation is correct, then we would likely see both EE & Jose dealt along with Tulo & Martin, as I doubt either player would want to go back to .500 after having a taste of winning baseball."

I don't think Shapiro will do a tear down after a playoff appearance. The optics would look horrendous if they did that. What I expect it is for them to play out 2016 and then slowly start to retool after that.

Keep in mind that in 2017, Tulo/Martin will make a combined $40m, and Donaldson's arbitration figure will probably be around $15m (give or take). At that point, Martin will be entering his age 34 season (with 3 years to go) and Tulo his age 32 season (with 4 years to go). Bautista will be a free agent in his age 36 season, as will Edwin in his age 34 season. The Jays as currently constructed likely required a facelift after 2016 even if AA stayed on.

Whether intentionally or not, Alex sold the farm system for short-term gain and ran as soon as he was able to so he didn't have to deal with the aftermath. Very Gillick-esque, minus the track record of sustained success.

For Rogers, the playoff experience has had a significant impact on the broadcast side. I can't imagine that a tear-down would be popular with the broadcast side of Rogers either. 

Lacava was National Crosschecker for the Cleveland Indians in 2002. Wonder if he build any kind of relationship with Shapiro during that time.

Shapiro has a lot of projects and liasing with Rogers will be demanding. I doubt he wants the GM role.

I wouldn't be surprised if AA stepped aside for Tinnish or Lacava and is looking for another challenge. He might have decided that he'd had enough of calling the President in the middle of the night to approve trades. He may have been peeved at not getting the President job.

Too many possibilities for now. Best to stay patient and see what unfolds.

If Shapiro does a tear-down now, that pretty much kills the team forever. Think I'm exaggerating? - look at Montreal. And it would be even more inexcusable, given that the franchise clearly can carry a large payroll and that good results clearly generated massive revenue for Rogers (you've seen those TV ratings?).

Which is why I don't think Shapiro will tear-down the team now. The Jays had arguably the best team in baseball this year. The window may be short for this offense (Bautista, EE, Martin) at an elite level, but you have to hope it extends to next year. If I was Shapiro, I'd be pretty pissed about the pitching situation this offseason - internal options haven't developed well (Stroman excluded), many others were traded - needing 3 starters for next year, who either come from the pen (and won't be able to throw enough innings, and decimate a pretty average pen as it is) or free agency (everyone gets to bid on free agents, who will almost always take the most money). Yick.

It's a good team that needs to find a way to be great again, and AA was right to go for it this year, but it was probably their best shot. I say that not to be negative, but simply to acknowledge it is unlikely the Jays are this good again, and making it to the ALCS is pretty damn good.

What a disaster! This will become a PR nightmare for Rogers and they will deserve every bad thing that happens to them. I wonder how many players ask for trades?

The Miami deal was for Josh Johnson, the fact that he turned into an ugly pumpkin is immaterial. The initial ask was Justin Nicolino, Adeiny Hechavarria and Jake Marisnick. At that time, Josh was one of the very best in the game and others were interested. One salary dump later by Miami and the eyes of the World were on the Blue Jays, but it also was on Rogers. That's when it got painful, because until then Rogers could hide until they needed a Press Release. That's when A.A. became expendable.

For those people who have no alternative to Roger's as a supplier of their media in one form or another, my apologies.

I find this mind-blowing. We finally reach a place where we have a very competitive chance of winning, and now we pull the rug out from underneath the architect, even though he just brought in massive amounts of increased revenue? Shocking, bordering on unfathomable.

Leave it to Rogers to mess up a situation that was almost impossible to mess up. Think of all the goodwill they've now p!ssed away with the diehard fans such as those here at the Da' Box. And the biggest question is, why? I'm sure we'll find out the details in some big tell-all piece several months from now, but as things stand today I'm dumbfounded at why they chose to shoot themselves in the foot.

absolutely pathetic and embarassing.

Wow, just dreadful. AA is better than Mark Shapiro IMO, and at first blush, it is very easy to hate on Rogers for bungling the hiring of a president for over a year now. 

That said, I do disagree with the posters suggesting this means a tear-down and a smaller payroll.  The team is both profitable and a hugely valuable media property for Rogers.  Rogers seems pretty incompetent right now, but these are smart people running a huge organization - even if their handling of hiring a president was inept and bush-league, why would they want to sabotage the most positive energy the city has felt for the Jays in over 20 years? Alright, they may not care whatsoever for 'goodwill' but they certainly do when it translates into sell outs, playoff revenue, and a huge spike in viewership and merchandise sales. 

Given that the whole team is back next year outside of the starters, and that we have lots of payroll space to fill the rotation, it makes no sense to rebuild now, although a post 2016 rebuild might, depending on how this year plays out. 

I recall a bunch of the players speaking positively of AA this year, and feel like he was seen as part of the team in the stretch run and the playoff celebrations.  This might buy Gibbons some rope (and that's assuming that Shapiro doesn't like Gibby - he very well might).  It's a tougher pill to swallow for the players to have both of their key leaders replaced by an outsider following a highly successful season. 

this is still a fun team to watch but it will likely be a less-fun front office.  no more ninja GM!  the baseball nerd in me was looking forward to AA's plan to fill out the rotation and restock the farm.  we have seen tear-down AA,. farm builder AA and go for it AA - I wanted to see him do the Brian Cashman thing for once.

Also, I guess I need to pay more attention to Mark Shapiro now - anyone with a good sense of the guys accomplishments / strengths / weaknesses?

We know he can piss off a fan base.

boggles my mind that people care more about prospects traded than having the best roster in baseball on an affordable payroll.

if Shapiro feels the same then we are screwed.

For historic reference...
An interview with Alex Anthopolis May 25, 2009 (months before being hired as GM)
http://www.battersbox.ca/article.php?story=20090525135257789

From 2009 Alex Anthopolis lays out his vision...interesting to see what we all had to say then...
http://www.battersbox.ca/article.php?story=20091107163524374

I'm sure we'll find out the details in some big tell-all piece several months from now, but as things stand today I'm dumbfounded at why they chose to shoot themselves in the foot.

Well, Beeston and Anthopolous will be able to give all the info to Bob Elliott in, oh, 3 days.

This is spectacularly bad PR from an organization that has built up a great deal of goodwill over the past 3 months, after years of fans questioning Rogers' commitment to spending to field a winner. While this might not have much to do with the payroll (I've heard a story of Ed Rogers making grand promises during the playoff run) from AA's perspective, but I think it has everything to do with AA flat-out not trusting Ed Rogers. He probably helped push out Nadir Mohamed, he schemed for probably a year on how to replace Paul Beeston (and maybe committed tampering in the process), and then made unknown promises to Shapiro to bring him north of the border. AA probably feels like he deserves more leeway, and walked away before his reputation could be tarnished.

So much for building on being Canada's team. Hire another American and make it impossible for the bilingual Canadian to stay.  Gross mismanagement by Rogers.

If this had happened six months ago, most people would have been fine with it. The record from 2009 until that time shouldn't be ignored.

Whether intentionally or not, Alex sold the farm system for short-term gain and ran as soon as he was able to so he didn't have to deal with the aftermath. Very Gillick-esque, minus the track record of sustained success.

When Gillick left after 1994, the club had two of the best young players in the game (Olerud and Alomar) and three of the better prospects in the game (Delgado, Shawn Green and Gonzalez with Shannon Stewart having an Anthony Alford quality season in the low minors and Chris Carpenter looking good in his first pro season after being a first draft pick). In addition, there were pitchers at the major league level who would be of some assistance (Guzman, Hentgen, Stottlemyre, Woody Williams and Al Leiter.  Gillick had sent away Karsay, Herrera, Kent and Thompson in the deadline deals of 92-93, but It was nothing like the present for future dealing of Anthopoulos over the past 2 years.  Ash/Wilken drafted very well to supplement the system and there was enough talent for the team to have been a contender for many years, but Ash's acquisition record outside of the draft was pretty bad and led to the failures of the late 90s/early aughts.

When a re-build happens here, it may be more difficult.   

McCown says he will spill all the details today at 4PM.

the idea that AA "sold the farm" when we have Stroman, Osuna, Travis, Sanchez, Pompey, Hutch, and stacked lower level minors talent is just silly.

The amount of young talent AA added to this organization is unreal.

Love him or hate him, Bob McCown operates on a different level than other sports journalists. He has strong relationships Beeston and others Rogers executives. He's also dropped an interesting hint on twitter that this was more AA's doing than Rogers: "Rogers didn't get rid of AA! It was entirely the opposite. This story has many tenticles."

Tenticles?  Is that a cross between testicles and tentacles?

Happy birthday to R.A. Dickey and Jesse Barfield. 

Love him or hate him, Bob McCown operates on a different level than other sports journalists. He has strong relationships Beeston and others Rogers executives. He's also dropped an interesting hint on twitter that this was more AA's doing than Rogers

We'll see. Ultimately, I think AA should have Shapiro's job. It may be Alex's decision to not want to be a part of the new hierarchy (even with a lucrative contract), but that hierarchy should have been his to shape in the first place.

Im guessing that AA wanted more power, and a bigger budget than Rogers was willing to give. Safe to say he wanted at least $150 mil a year to spend and demanded a high salary for himself. Not to mention being allowed to max out in amateur spending every year too.

My guess is Shapiro looked at the deals since 2013 and sees the loss of an ace, a star catcher, a solid defensive shortstop, and a few more young pitchers who might have filled in the rotation nicely and kept the payroll reasonable going forward. Instead we have $40 mil in CA/SS for a few years on guys who are on the wrong side of 30, with Travis the only likely starter in the majors who is sub 25 with Pompey the only other possibility. Pillar is 26, Revere & Goins 27, Thole, Carrera, Smoak all 28, and Donaldson 29.

Pitching is young but losing Castro & Norris & Boyd hurts.

"The idea that AA "sold the farm" when we have Stroman, Osuna, Travis, Sanchez, Pompey, Hutch, and stacked lower level minors talent is just silly."

No. Not silly. He sold the farm. By Baseball America's rankings, he traded away prospects numbers: 1 (Norris), 3 (Hoffman), 8 (Urena), 9 (Castro), 13 (Labourt), and 15 (Lugo). When you consider that prospects 2 (Sanchez), 6 (Travis), and 7 (Osuna) were key parts of the major league club, and number 5 (Pentecost) was injured, he pretty much emptied the cupboards.

I must have missed the trading of Urena with all the fireworks.  I was pretty sure that he was playing for the Lugnuts into September.

D'Ah! That's right. Got carried away there. Sorry.

Really, our farm was strong enough to make the sales. And he brought back guys in Donaldson and Tulowitski with plenty of term.

The farm will be fine. In hindsight, I would have preferred having Ross and Kimbrell under contract right now than the prospect of losing/resigning Price, but that is the only deal that has made us currently weaker.

Who knows?  Osuna and Sanchez may end up adding more value than Norris, Boyd, Syndergaard, Castro, Nicolino, Labourt, Henderson Alvarez and Hoffman.  Anthopoulos was dealing from a position of strength, but he did go an awfully long way with it.  I do think that Stroman is the best of the lot and keeping him through all of this dealing is a definite plus. 

I assume that somebody at Rogers has an Excel spreadsheet or something that compares 2013/2014 profits to 2015 profits, and that can calculate what 2016 profits would be with a higher or lower payroll.

I think that's what the bottom line will be. If the Jays/Rogers can sell more tickets, merchandise, and TV ads with a larger payroll, then the Jays will have a larger payroll.

I don't criticize AA for selling the farm, if that's what he did. The team's offensive core isn't getting any younger, and the Jays don't have anybody to replace Bautista and EE on the farm. And they didn't trade away anybody who could replace them.

This sucks. Would harshen my buzz if i had one.

Canada's most hated company strikes again. The National Post has the usual BS statement regarding contract impasses from Ed R. Nice going, Ed & Mark!

One positive thought I have is that Shapiro must believe in at least short term success - that he wants to get credit for. In other words if he let AA have this team for another year he'd never be able to muscle him out.
If not a positive belief in human nature, maybe we get entertaining baseball for a year or two. You'd think Rogers owners are motivated to support him with as many$ as they can short term anyways. My theory will crack apart if it comes out that AA ran when he saw next year's budget.

Beyonder, imagine if all 15 prospects made the MLB team, we'd have no prospects left!

Irrational thought, what has gone right since we switched the banner mid-playoffs? huh? huh? No? Okay.

Sigh. Are we going to be in a situation where the president is going to micro-manage the GM?

I live in Seattle and that is the case here. If I was AA, I would leave too. You are not ever put in a position to succeed. Just handcuffs.

Sigh...

Hopefully, they do something this year. I have a feeling it will be another 22 years.

I want my Expos back...Toronto teams just suck sometimes...

Not to worry, JB21 and #2JB (that Bautista and Brumfield have the same initials surely presages the apocalypse).  The banner will be changed forthwith so that Pink Floyd's "Money" is running non-stop on one side and Kanye West's "Power" is running non-stop on the other side.  Bautista's bat will remain suspended in space...

Huge overreaction on this board. Nobody knows what happened yet most on here want to crucify Shapiro.

Bottom line is this: AA built his success around 2 guys form the Ricciardi era - Edwin and J-Bau. He was the one who dropped Edwin for assignment before claiming him back...and I don't want to hear that JP was straddled with Edwin, point is, our team is built around him and he wasn't picked up by AA.

AA, imho, made all of the trades AFTER he learned that he was going to likely be replaced. Trades worked out great, and now AA is the saviour of Toronto baseball.

What I don't understand...Shapiro is a real talent and he should get the opportunity that Alex had. He left a good gig to come to Toronto for a reason. I expect bigger payrolls and massive in-stadium improvements.

What I really don't understand...does AA honestly think that he will have more autonomy at a better baseball club than he had here? He was spoiled and protected by Beeston, and he can;t possibly think that he will have more power in LA with Friedman and their stud GM...please...maybe AA is being selfish.

So many unanswered questions, but one thing is clear to me - Shapiro doesn't start on a bad foot in my books because the Jays may very well be better off without Alex.

If it becomes clear that Alex left because the Jays are going in the wrong direction then fine...but which that is not yet clear.

Move by move I think Shapiro has done as well in Cleveland as AA has here, and he's done it with less resources. Both have made bad moves, both have made great moves...Alex just did most of his after Shapiro was hired as replacement/boss.

"Rogers didn't get rid of AA! It was entirely the opposite"

We shall see. If this is really true it would alter my opinion, but I'll have to see what the context is.

Lylemcr, I think AA wants his Expos back too.

I read that AA wanted to report directly to Rogers, and not to Shapiro. Shapiro wanted AA back, and offered him a long-term deal. Sounds like Shapiro has been thrown into a pretty awkard situation.

Apparently the front-office and coaching staff are all being retained. I thought for sure Gibby would be gone, replaced by Manny Acta.

Your Gold Glove finalists are here.  They include Russell Martin, Kevin Pillar and Mark Buehrle.  The most striking omission, to my mind, would be Lindor, who is clearly superior to all three shortstop nominees (Bogaerts, Escobar and Gregorius).  Maybe he didn't play enough of the season to merit consideration.

He didn't Mike. And apparently Mike Napoli, who played something like 10 more innings at his position, qualified.

Also, MIKE NAPOLI was nominated for a gold glove.

Donaldson didn't get a nomination.  He is probably better than Longoria and Beltre, but obviously not as good as Machado.

Longo, probably. Beltre, I don't know.

"No. Not silly. He sold the farm. By Baseball America's rankings, he traded away prospects numbers: 1 (Norris), 3 (Hoffman), 8 (Urena), 9 (Castro), 13 (Labourt), and 15 (Lugo). When you consider that prospects 2 (Sanchez), 6 (Travis), and 7 (Osuna) were key parts of the major league club, and number 5 (Pentecost) was injured, he pretty much emptied the cupboards. "

ridiculous.

the young talent we have is better than what we traded, and we have far more of it.

Huge overreaction on this board. Nobody knows what happened yet most on here want to crucify Shapiro.

Hear, hear!

Not to mention 5 of the 10 players he mentioned are still on the Blue Jays.

You're answering a very different question than the question of whether AA sold off the farm. I can (and do) like the talent we have on the current roster, but at the same time I can also hold the view (and do) that AA denuded the farm system of most of its top-tier talent. It seems obvious to me that this is the case.

"Not to mention 5 of the 10 players he mentioned are still on the Blue Jays."

Well three of them are on the major league club -- and were at the time the deals were made. In those circumstances it made sense to not include them as part of "the farm". Pentecost was injured, and so I doubt he was much of a traceable commodity. Urena was a mistake on my part.

By the way, I stopped at 15. As we all know, there were a number of prospects in the bottom half of the top 30 who were also moved.

AA sold the farm twice in a few years. He was good at quickly replenishing the minor league system.

I think he would be able to quickly replenish it again.

The Sporting News has just given AA the award for MLB Executive Of The Year (voted on by his peers). Talk about timing!

Yeah except that now means we can't afford the team because we traded so many young players for expensive guys on the wrong side of thirty. We're not the Dodgers no matter how much we want to be like them. Look at the Mets and Cubs and Giants who are all loaded with plenty of young high quality players built from within. Who do we have? A few pieces, but now our pitchers are years away. Basically Stroman, Travis, Pillar and two relievers who we hope can turn in to starters.

Anyway Shapiro made the playoffs several times with a lot less payroll than AA got with the Jays. In a lot of ways the Indians were like us in the East, always finishing middle of the pack but with a few playoff years in there too. Give him a 140 million payroll instead of what he had in Cleveland and he can probably do well.

I'll miss AA for sure and I do agree he's gotten better, but if this means Gibbons is gone too I'll be a bit happier about things.

"No. Not silly. He sold the farm. By Baseball America's rankings, he traded away prospects numbers: 1 (Norris), 3 (Hoffman), 8 (Urena), 9 (Castro), 13 (Labourt), and 15 (Lugo). When you consider that prospects 2 (Sanchez), 6 (Travis), and 7 (Osuna) were key parts of the major league club, and number 5 (Pentecost) was injured, he pretty much emptied the cupboards. "

WE TRADED URENA?!?!

finch, Mike G beat you to it.

Mike Green - Thursday, October 29 2015 @ 11:42 AM EDT (#314226) #
I must have missed the trading of Urena with all the fireworks. I was pretty sure that he was playing for the Lugnuts into September.

From what I can tell from that interview, AA was offered a generous package, over a lengthy term that would have set him for life, to do a job he claimed to love in a city he loves. He left the team at a critical juncture with the job unfinished because he thinks he can do better elsewhere. I'm not saying that it is a selfish move, but it is clearly a move made by a guy looking out for number 1. I find it hard to get too worked up with Rogers or Shapiro in these circumstances.

"Yeah except that now means we can't afford the team because we traded so many young players for expensive guys on the wrong side of thirty"

nonsense. we have one of the best value rosters in baseball.

I do not believe he left the team for a better opportunity elsewhere. Ignoring the titles he was going from being GM to being assistant GM. In addition, Shapiro is likely to hear at least one assistant GM who would be his guy, that would leave AA as assistant GM in name only, i.e. a double demotion.

I am not surprised he quit.

Never mind the fact that Rogers should have just learned that they can real in ticket and merch money like crazy if they field a winning team.

"Hear" should be "hire" above.

"You're answering a very different question than the question of whether AA sold off the farm. I can (and do) like the talent we have on the current roster, but at the same time I can also hold the view (and do) that AA denuded the farm system of most of its top-tier talent. It seems obvious to me that this is the case."

I'm answering the relevant question.

the silliness of your definition can be seen in the fact that you include players with expired prospect status as"farm being sold", but won't include them in "farm being kept".

the truth is we traded 3 of our 10 top prospects coming into the year (osuna sanchez norris hoffmam travis pompey pentecost castro reid-foley alford) plus a few more top 20 guys....while addijg an entire draft class and a great IFA class.

From what I can tell from that interview, AA was offered a generous package, over a lengthy term that would have set him for life, to do a job he claimed to love in a city he loves. He left the team at a critical juncture with the job unfinished because he thinks he can do better elsewhere. I'm not saying that it is a selfish move, but it is clearly a move made by a guy looking out for number 1. I find it hard to get too worked up with Rogers or Shapiro in these circumstances.

The flaw in that statement is that he was clearly not offered the same job, and because he has no other job offer right now, he is not simply looking out for number 1 financially. What he is looking out for may be intangibles such as autonomy and respect.

For the next year we do uglyone. Than we don't. Bautista and EE leave or get resigned to 20 million dollar contracts. JD is going to go to 12 million this year and likely 20 the year after, Martin will be at 14, Tulo at 20. You wanted to sign Price to 30. Lets say we keep one of EE or Jose at like 20 and resign Price. That's 5 players signed for a total of 104 million dollars. That is not a value roster, that's playing like the Yankees or Dodgers, two teams we are not. We will have a reasonable costed team for next year, but after 2016 there is going to be a lot of difficult decisions to make.

The new trend in baseball appears to be hiring a team president that is/was a GM and letting them dictate the baseball operations with a talking head acting as GM. I think that's where we are headed here. Shapiro has a specific view on scouting and team building, and he's going to implement it. AA likely left because he didn't want to play second fiddle, among likely other reasons which we'll never truly know.

If all he cared about was the money he would have taken their offer. Clearly he cares more about something that rogers didn't offer, and wouldn't budge on. That thing seems to be autonomy, but we don't really know, and may never know, since he seems to be really good at keeping his mouth shut.

Gerry. For one, we don't know whether any of that is true. It may be true, but right now it is just surmising. Second, I don't believe the Jays would pay AA 2 million a year (the reported salary), and offer it over five years to be a figurehead. Third, from what I recall of AA's interviews and press releases, it didn't sound like he had untrammelled authority to make player decisions to begin with. It sounded like he constantly had to check in with Beeston and Rogers. to my eye, the difference is that Beeston and AA were friends and collaborators.

I'm not suggesting he has a job lined up, but AA is full cognizant of his bargaining position, and feels like he can do better elsewhere. He probably can. We should all make those same choices, but I don't think we deserve to be lionized for that choice.

though i may have had urena and smith in the top 10 to start instead of SRF and alford.

sporting news just named AA exec of the year. donaldson POY.

As I mentioned earlier, I think it's the right move for both sides - Rogers apparently gave Shapiro the final say in baseball matters (likely before the jays took off) & I think it's unfair to expect AA to accept that especially after this past season (shades of Theo Epstein in Boston)- Shapiro did a decent job in Cleveland, so I'm taking a wait and see attitude - I'm hopeful this is the end of Gibbons.

Also, if the team is not going to extend JB/EE, then please move them this winter.

I wonder if the disastrous FA contracts that Shapiro give to Swisher & Bourn has altered his view of the FA market.

Obviously, you can't expect AA to reveal any details of why he is leaving, especially if he is unhappy with his current employer. If he did that, he would never get a job in baseball again.

You don't trash your old employer when you want to be hired by a new employer.

Just look at the teams winning lately. The Giants, Royals, now the Mets and Cubs, etc. Teams built from within. Sure they traded for some key pieces, but they have lots of young players. Not sure the Yankees way is a good model anymore. Heck even the Yankees don't want to trade away their young prospects anymore.

Let's assume for the sake of argument that AA was being asked to accept some sort of diminution of his authority or areas of responsibility for the benefit of the organization. How is AA's refusal to accept that any more praiseworthy than say, Jose Reyes refusing to move to second base for the good of the team?

It's being described by some as though it is some grand principled stance that AA should be praised for. I can understand why he has made this decision, but don't see anything particularly praiseworthy or blameworthy about it -- either for AA or Rogers.

can't move Jbau or Edwin or Tulo unless they say "yes please trade me to a team other than the Blue Jays"...they have No trade clauses...why would they want to leave the Blue Jays now? No incentive unless they don't care about post season or unless team is dismantled which is hardly imaginable.

"From what I can tell from that interview, AA was offered a generous package, over a lengthy term that would have set him for life, to do a job he claimed to love in a city he loves. He left the team at a critical juncture with the job unfinished because he thinks he can do better elsewhere. I'm not saying that it is a selfish move, but it is clearly a move made by a guy looking out for number 1. I find it hard to get too worked up with Rogers or Shapiro in these circumstances."

Well said. Sure, it may not have been an offer for the same job exactly, but

1) he didn't get the job done last season and waited one season too long to make his big moves. If he didn't wait a year then Shapiro wouldn't have been hired.

2) he can't do better elsewhere. I think we can all see that he can GM some place else within a year, but that will likely be a bottom 15 team with a small payroll...is that what AA wants? If he becomes GM in LA, NY, CHC...those places will give you less autonomy and power than you'd ever have in TO with your close friend as your boss.

It's pretty simple, we need to see if and how Shapiro will make this team better. AA saw this as an opportunity to leave while his stock was at its highest. If he stayed in TO and didn't sign Price it would look bad on him.

"I do not believe he left the team for a better opportunity elsewhere. Ignoring the titles he was going from being GM to being assistant GM. In addition, Shapiro is likely to hear at least one assistant GM who would be his guy, that would leave AA as assistant GM in name only, i.e. a double demotion.

I am not surprised he quit."

He's a quitter..."I can't be the boss so I don't want to be a part of the organization I love."

Sounds selfish to me.

"How is AA's refusal to accept that any more praiseworthy than say, Jose Reyes refusing to move to second base for the good of the team? "

Did Reyes just win a position of the year award?

because AA did.

AA is full cognizant of his bargaining position, and feels like he can do better elsewhere. He probably can. We should all make those same choices, but I don't think we deserve to be lionized for that choice.

It's no different than a good player who wants to cash-in after having a MVP season right before free agency. AA was just voted the MVS (most valuable suit) by his peers - he got more votes than everyone else combined. He's smart enough to know that he would be settling if he took the same role - and for 5 years at that. He will be in consideration for every upcoming GM role and likely even for President/GM roles -- and certainly will be in a better position to negotiate the exact nature & reporting relationships of his role. Good for him. Couldn't happen to a nicer & more dedicated guy. But it also proves that he's a shrewd negotiator and isn't prepared to settle for anything but the optimal outcome. I'm hoping Bob McCown will have some deeper insight on AA's ambitions and position... because AA sure as hell will never tell anyone!!!

"Just look at the teams winning lately. The Giants, Royals, now the Mets and Cubs, etc. Teams built from within."

Giants $187m (#3), 29.9avg age (#1)
Jays $138m (#10), 29.7avg age (#2)
Cubs $133m (#11), 28.4avg age (#9)
Royals $125m (#14), 29.3avg age (#4)
Mets $120m (#15), 28.5avg age (#7)

You know, there's always the possibility that AA just didn't want to do it any more. Being a GM is hard work - he was probably putting in impossible hours, and it might be affecting his health. And doesn't he have a young family?

I'm sad that he is leaving, but the whole point of his employment contract is that he can decide whether he wants to continue on the job after the contract is up. He doesn't owe the Jays anything.

We'll know for sure one way or another if he takes a job in another organization somewhere. J.P. Ricciardi is probably on the phone to him right now, asking him if he wants to go work for the Mets.

"How is AA's refusal to accept that any more praiseworthy than say, Jose Reyes refusing to move to second base for the good of the team? "

Did Reyes just win a position of the year award?

because AA did.

Somewhere, George Bell is smiling quietly to himself. :-)

The jays could literally trade all their vets this offseason and go into next year with the best system in baseball.

is this what people want? is this a team in a bad position?

Of course AA is looking out for #1. Doesn't everybody?

Argh. Screwed up the italics. No more posting for me.

http://www.thestar.com/sports/blue_jays_baseball_blog/2015/10/-to-say-alex-anthopoulos-rejected-an-extension-from-blue-jays-is-ridiculous-griffin.html

If this is true, I fully endorse Alex Anthopoulos' decision to turn down any offer. His job was changed on him so some new guy would come here. The Mark Shapiro years look to be a budding disaster now.

"I wonder if the disastrous FA contracts that Shapiro give to Swisher & Bourn has altered his view of the FA market."


Shapiro didn't dabble in the FA market much in Cleveland, which was likely by design, but could have also been due to payroll limitations.

I think we will see a greater emphasis on player development with Shapiro on board, and fewer go for broke trades like AA made from 2013-15.

This team is in a great position for next year (well provided we get 3 starting pitchers worth a damn) but the lineup will be great. But after 2016 I don't know what this team looks like with EE and Jose and the immense value we had from their cheap contracts gone and players like Martin and JD being much more expensive.

This is a case of bad timing. If AA pulled his all-in trades of mid-2015 way back in late-2012 -- instead of his all-in trades of late-2012 -- then he would be the Blue Jays President now. Unfortunately, we get to appreciate Syndergaard, D'Arnaud and Alvarez from afar while the team could barely sniff the playoffs in 2013, 2014 through mid-July of 2015.

Face it, Bauxites, before this season, many of you could care less if AA came or went. I know I didn't. Problem is, is Shapiro better? The Griffins and Blairs of the world think not. One thing is for certain, if this is a dumbass Rogers corporate move, we all lose.

I had forgotten how high the Giants' payroll is.  The #1 outlay is for Matt Cain ($21M).  That was an 8 year contract signed  after his age 24 season (2009).  He gave them 3 good years after that, and then 3 stinkers.  The Giants are on the hook for 2016 and 2017 at $21M.  He was, of course, drafted by the Giants. 

Face it, Bauxites, before this season, many of you could care less if AA came or went

Including the off-season?  Most Bauxites were very impressed with Anthopoulos' moves over the 2014-15 winter. 

Yeah, 2017 is when things get dicey. The Jays are either going to lose two bargain contracts attached to elite power hitters, or they'll re-sign one/both and have to pay market rate for those same players as they head into the twilight of their careers. It's a tough spot. Shapiro is far less likely to make moves based on sentiment, so I fully expect the Jays to lose one or both after 2016. If that scenario plays out, then what next? How do you continue to win without Bautista and Edwin?

The team's remaining window is 2016. Anything after that will require either amazing player development or epic retooling.

"Sounds selfish to me."

These kinda statements sound silly to me.... how could we possible know?

My thoughts:

• Rogers does not appear to be a well-run baseball company from the fan's POV - the budget limitations have been clearly documented as inflexible, they have owned the team since 2000 without even sniffing the playoffs until now - and they fail to retain the (wildly popular) GM who got us to the playoffs, the fan experience at the Dome is mediocre, and the whole Beeston / Duquette presidential hiring fiasco is bad management, regardless of what business you're in.  Heck, even the statue of Ted Rogers at the Dome is insulting to fans.  With no way of knowing objectively, this certainly seems like the sort of boss I would walk away from if I could. 
  
• Bautista and EE aren't likely to be dealt with their 10 and 5 rights, even though we would be dealing from positions of strength / depth (offense, the OF, 1b) and have clear needs in the starting rotation.  Both will yield a comp pick if they leave as a FA - I currently assume EE will be gone after 2016 due to his positional inflexibility
•  AA built arguably the best on-paper team in the game, and has left both a great deal of talent in the lower minors and young/controllable talent on the big league roster.  Suggesting he 'sold the farm' is just false - selling the farm means giving away the future, and I see this farm system as a middle of the pack system (I guessed 18th after the trades) with upside.  And lets not forget that (like this strategy or not) AA has always stated that he wanted a steady flow of young talent to both stock his MLB roster AND for talent to trade with.  
  
• AA played a key role in the acquisiton and development of both EE and Bautista.  I've seen the Diaz for Bautista trade attributed to AA several times, including here by Bob Elliott: "Anthopoulos was assistant general manager in 2008 and was involved in the decision on Aug. 21, to acquire Jose Bautista, whom the Pittsburgh Pirates had demoted to triple-A Indianapolis after placing the outfielder on waivers. After receiving approval from GM J.P. Ricciardi, he worked out a deal with the Pirates, sending catcher Robinzon Diaz to the Pirates."   He signed both to contracts that proved to be tremendously valuable to the club - remember the debate around here about whether or not to invest long term in Jose?
• AA seems to be enormously popular and pretty much everyone - bloggers, casual fans, baseball columnists old school and new - thinks the optics of the move are terrible, and that we are losing a very bright young GM.  Keith Law questions whether or not this will make it hard to find a GM, and he might be right, although I could easily see the team promote from within - there is talent here. 
  

Darn it, I will look foolish wearing my Anthopoulos jersey when I use the tickets I bought to see him play next year.

I'm mildly surprised, but still a lot of shoes to drop before I react one way or the other. 

True Mike G, the JD move was great, but I was still smarting from losing D'Arnaud to care much about the big dollar Martin signing for a team that also had a pitching staff in need of serious upgrades. And now here we are entering 2016 in the same boat.

and it's funny that people think those teams are set up much better longterm


NYM

FA: Cespedes, Murphy, Clippard, Colon, OFlaherty, Uribe, Parnell, Blevins, Johnson
Arb: Harvey, Familia, Duda, Reed, Tejada, Mejia, Young, Carlyle, Torres

and that's just this offseason.

Yeah Giants got expensive with the Posey and Cain and Lincecum contracts, but look at their leaders here. 5 position players over 4 fwar this year. Posey, Duffy, Crawford, Panik, Belt. All drafted by the Giants.

Bumgarner, Cain, Lincecum, Vogelsong all drafted by them as well. They got expensive because they resigned a couple of the starters that they probably shouldn't have, but that team absolutely is built from within.

Cubs are set for years with cheap young hitters, which will allow them to acquire a Lester or two to compliment all the guys earning 2-4 million and putting out 4-6 war. Mets similarly loaded on the pitching side with some good young hitters too. Royals were awful for years and will have hard decisions after this year when so many guys hit FA, but they built from within too. Not to mention the Cardinals who have built from within for years with great success. Pirates too.

Toronto though. We got Travis through a trade but really Pillar has been our lone success story on the hitting side (maybe Goins too) and Stroman on the pitching side. If two teams are going to be competing than the one with multiple players pre arbitration who are cheap and performing is key. This allows teams to spend wisely on 2-3 players who do get 15-30 million dollars.

Do you want to be the team with 1-2 more 30+ year old players making the big bucks and declining or the team with several more 20-25 year olds making 1-4 million a year and putting up numbers while we try to fill in spots with the Kawasakis/Schultzes/Rogers/Villuenevas/Izturis/etc?

Oops add Osuna to there, but only if he actually makes the transition to starter. What I think Shapiro was saying with regard to the quoted comment with AA is that he values having young cost controllable position players and starters. This is something Toronto lacks badly at this time.

My gut is that LaCava gets the GM role next - he has waited patiently for his chance and many thought he'd be the best choice when AA was promoted.

The big challenge is after 2016 with JB & EE & Dickey & Saunders & Cecil & Smoak all free agents. This winter is Buehrle, Price, Navarro, and Lowe. So whoever the GM is he's got a heck of a challenge coming up. Better hope a few top prospects climb fast in 2016.

"Cubs are set for years with cheap young hitters,"

U-25 players (war = fwar/bwar avg)

3B K.Bryant (23): 650pa, .378babip, 136wrc+, 6.2war/650pa
2B D.Travis (24): 238pa, .347babip, 135wrc+, 6.4war/650pa

OF K.Schwarber (22): 273pa, .293babip, 131wrc+, 4.3war/650pa
P M.Stroman (24): 157.2ip, 3.31era, 2.96fip, 4.3war/200ip

SS A.Russell (21): 523pa, .324babip, 91wrc+, 3.9war/650pa
P R.Osuna (20): 69.2ip, 2.58era, 3.02fip, 4.3war/200ip

OF J.Soler (23): 501pa, .357babip, 108wrc+, 1.1war/650pa
P A.Sanchez (22): 125.1ip, 2.66era, 4.13fip, 3.2war/200ip

2B J.Baez (22): 309pa, .300babip, 65wrc+, -0.8war/650pa
OF D.Pompey (22): 146pa, .284babip, 88wrc+, 2.5war/650pa

OF A.Alcantara (23): 332pa, .255babip, 65wrc+, 1.0war/650pa
P D.Hutchison (24): 393.2ip, 4.92era, 4.16fip, 1.1war/200ip

I waited a bit to respond. I'm trying to be mature. Being old isn't the same as being mature - just ask "She who must..."

To me, Beeston was an old fart,with no socks and a stogie, who every few weeks would phone the Rogers Center janitors and check to see if the toilets on the 500 level were working. His other use was when AA would come in and and ask him to go to Rogers and get more money. AA was basically IT when it came to the baseball decisions. Or so it seems from my lofty perch here in Lotus Land. I think - most likely - Beeston actually did do more than I give him credit for and AA did less...I think.

Then enters Mark Shapiro (to the theme music of Darth Vader in the Star Wars movies). Apparently, sources say he and AA "butted heads" from the start. Perhaps. But - OMG, whatever: Alex makes his decision, "...this is my responsibility, it falls on me." Which is 100% THE TRUTH.

Whatever the "reasons": THE TRUTH is AA decided he was not prepared to labour for five more years (and a reasonably comfortable pile of Lonnies in both the one and two dollar denominations) for this employer in the "new" terms of that employment. He's clearly got bigger balls than I have. A Canadian baseball fanatic (Like Alex) is leaving his "dream job."

To me - when we hired Mark I CLEARLY felt the fair on my neck stand on end. Mark was the CEO of the Cleveland baseball team - Cleveland...Cleveland?...Good grief Charlie Brown. Lets put Cleveland into a Canadian context - Mark Shapiro was the chief executive of the Owen Sound Indians. OWEN SOUND for !!^*!*'s sakes. And Rogers wants to bring this guy to the Big Smoke to manage our massive, spectacular, big market, beautiful Blue Jays. I KNEW right then that Roger's wanted a guy who would run the Jays on nickels (not even Loonies) - so they could get away with raping the team, by continuing to OUTRAGEOUSLY under compensating the Jays for what their TV rights were REALLY worth. Looks like my fears were right on.

That Alex wanted no part of this is EASY to understand. That Alex would have the balls to walk, tells me that Alex was not asking for some sort of control that just doesn't exist on any other team - he is walking away from a team that he feels is more comfortable re-entering the last 22 years of ineptitude rather than try and maintain a team in the Big Leagues. So be it.

Going forward... I see TWO possibilities. One, Rogers will actually be "shocked, shocked I tell you" about the backlash that is now rising in the hearts and minds of Jay's fans and it will spend a few bucks next year to make one last shot at Glory before breaking the team up. Or, two - shocked or not - they get Shapiro to work right away trading off the costly talent "so we can build an elite farm system and spend the next 22 years watching it rate highly every year with Baseball America."

Welcome to the future...just remember - we've seen it for the past two decades...

As to my feelings and relationship with Alex, from here on in: let me just walk off across the tarmac with him telling me, "Mylegacy, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship."

Sigh.

Fortunately, god created the Scots - and they created...

Shapiro needs to go and #rogersneedtosellthejays

Before we jump to too many conclusions, or jump off of any cliffs.

Ken Rosenthal ‏@Ken_Rosenthal 53m53 minutes ago
One thing on Shapiro/Anthopoulos: #Indians GM Antonetti rejected multiple job offers, including #STLCards GM, because Shapiro empowered him.

Ken Rosenthal ‏@Ken_Rosenthal 53m53 minutes ago
In recent years, Antonetti wanted Shapiro to become more involved in baseball, but Shapiro was sensitive to idea of being too intrusive

Ken Rosenthal ‏@Ken_Rosenthal 53m53 minutes ago
We do not know exactly why Anthopoulos may have been uncomfortable with new setup, but Antonetti worked happily under Shapiro for 17 years.

That comparison is pretty funny. Pretty sure if you asked anyone if they'd rather have Bryant, Schwarber, Russell and Soler or Travis, Stroman, Osuna and Sanchez we know which side would get chosen. Stro is awesome sure but Sanchez is likely just going to be a reliever and who knows Osuna seems determined to stay one.

Not to mention the Cubs have a top 5 farm system even after graduating so much talent. Who is near the majors to step in for the Blue Jays? No pitchers anywhere close and Alford is likely at least another year away.

Yeah I find it funny people think Shapiro wants to run the team like it has a 70 million dollar payroll. I'm sure a major reason for him coming to Toronto is that the Jays can afford a higher payroll. He got to the playoffs several times with a cheap payroll, its not a shock to imagine he might do better with 130 million dollars instead of 70. (much like Friedman when going from Tampa to LA) It does seem clear that he wants to build the team from the farm though. And is that a bad thing? It's worked for the Pirates, the Royals and the Cards amongst others. Even the Yankees want to build their team from within now, which says something.

Jeff Blair just mentioned that Terry Francona has an opt-out clause in his deal with Cleveland - if Shapiro leaves Cleveland, Francona can opt out and leave as well.

Yeah it's sad to see him go as he did have a year for the ages. (One year.). But there are always alternatives. Afterall, sInce AA took over as GM, 26 of 30 teams have made the playoffs. And 9 of the, went further than us.

I'm more interested to see if Rogers invests in the team. After the hoopla of the last two months, all the excuses are gone. Presumably Shapiro had assurances... ?!?

This is very hard. The rug has been pulled out from under me. So thank you to Batter's Box for the good company.

Positives, Negatives? who knows. CHEERS to all!!!

I wonder if this would have been the outcome even if the Jays had won the series? He wasn't fired affer all...

AA had a lot of good years ...this year wasn't a 'year for the ages' as much as it was the culmination of the plan.  If we continue to win that will be the confirmation that the plan was sustainable.  My thinking is that we will.

Listening to AA on the Fan with McCown, he is really dancing around the questions - he wants to praise Toronto and the fans, Beeston and Rogers., kind words for Shapiro, but reading between the lines, it sounds like he's saying what everyone is speculating - he's pissed about the way Beeston was treated by Rogers and felt hamstrung by the Shapiro hiring. 

AA finds out live on the air that there's suddenly an opening for a GM in Miami (Marlins have reportedly fired Dan Jennings). I suspect AA already has a voicemail message from David Samson.

If you are leaving an org because you can't work with ownership, you aren't signing with Miami ....

Well I divested myself from anything I had from Rogers. They're shares are still publicly traded on the Market aren't they? I wonder what their stocks are doing now?

Really well.

It seems pretty clear, by now, that Anthopoulos is leaving because of a royal screw-up by ownership.  He is too polite to confirm it, but he didn't deny it in any of the interviews today. He just used this euphemism:  "It wasn't the right fit" -- meaning that ownership has unfairly undermined his baseball authority, and he can't stay in the new arrangement where Shapiro is taking ultimate control of baseball decisions.

What happened is this:  the bright boys of Rogers needed to replace Beeston, and they decided that Shapiro was their man.  Nice choice, a smart young guy with a good track record on the financial and baseball side. The only problem is this:  Shapiro wants to be involved in baseball operations again, after being out of the baseball side for the past couple of years.  He asks for this in negotiations.  The bright boys of Rogers decide to give it to him, not realizing that this would effectively make it impossible for Anthopoulos to stay on.  Anthopoulos is obsessed with baseball operations.  He doesn't want to run stadiums or merchandising or TV rights. He wants to run the baseball operations.  So when he discovers that Shapiro will be the ultimate boss on the baseball side too -- unlike Beeston, who merely passed on AA's payroll requests and trade deals to ownership for final approval, in a generally supportive way, even if the owners sometimes vetoed his requests -- Anthopoulos now realizes that he will be losing some of his day-to-day authority, at a time when he should actually be getting more authority, not less.  Shapiro was a hands-on baseball personnel guy for most of his career, and he's not the kind of guy who will sit back, like Beeston, and wait for AA's recommendations.  Anthopoulos realizes that his day-to-day decision-making authority will be badly diluted.  So he has to leave.

It would have been so simple for the owners to replace Beeston with someone who wanted to focus on the finances, the stadium, the renovations, the merchandising, the TV rights and everything else that doesn't involve the baseball operations.  Yet they had to botch it up by hiring an uber-president who wants to run everything.

The loss is this: Anthopoulos was just hitting his stride as a GM, as he himself admits.  He is a huge asset to the team, both on the acquisition side (trades, signings, drafts) and on the PR side (a bilingual young Canadian who is beloved and admired by many fans).  He understands the Jays as an organization better than anyone else, and he has incredible contacts and goodwill relationships across the league.  Yet the owners have driven him away.  Nice move, guys.  A huge waste of a valuable Jays asset.

Some of this loss can be mitigated if AA is replaced by LaCava or Tinnish, who could at least provide some continuity and preserve some of the contacts and expertise that AA brought to the team.  But it still looks like a huge blunder.

Reviewing his record:  of course some of AA's trades didn't work out.  Some may be long-term losses.  But he did what the team needed: he rebuilt the farm system, broadened and deepened the scouting, improved the analytics, and then targeted veteran players to put the team over the top and into the playoffs.  His moves can be endlessly debated, but the future is always unpredictable when trades are made.  A significant amount of good fortune is involved when acquisitions over-perform (Bautista, Encarnacion, Travis, Colabello, Donaldson, Estrada) or when they under-perform (Josh Johnson, perhaps arguably Reyes and Dickey) or when the players you trade away become brilliant performers (Syndergaard, Alvarez, Gomes). But in the end, Anthopoulos got the Jays into the final four of the playoffs, without destroying the farm system.  I think he would have done a lot more for the Jays in the next few years if the owners hadn't botched the simple task of keeping him in the job that he loved and the city that he loved.

China Fan - I agree with everything you said just above. I've decided to pretend I wrote it and I now consider it added to my rant further up the thread.

"AA had a lot of good years...and [this] was the culminatiin of the plan"

Only partly. The scouting,drafting and development under AA was very good and really paid dividends this year.

The trading experience was mixed in the past. This was the year he fixed his earlier mistakes:

. Donaldson replaced Lawrie
. Saunders Replaced Rasmus
. Tulo replaced Reyes
. Price replaced Dickey as the Ace
. Travis replaced Izturis
. Lowe replaced...take your pick of mediocre relievers

AA had a learning curve, and he would likely be the first to admit it. Not surprising cutting your teeth under JP. Unfortunate he leaves now that he's peaking. Hope we don't have another learning curve coming in..

The bright boys of Rogers decide to give it to him, not realizing that this would effectively make it impossible for Anthopoulos to stay on.

I think they realized it and didn't care. You can see why. When they approached Shapiro, Anthopoulos had been here for five plus seasons, and his teams had lost more games than they had won. If Shapiro said he wanted to take over the baseball operations... fine. If he said he wanted to bring in his own GM... fine. And I have to assume he wanted those things - why would he leave Cleveland unless he got those things? And so the deal was done. And then the last two months of the season happened, and complicated everything.

"What happened is this"
-That's all entirely speculation on your part. Did you listen to the part of the interview where AA went out of his way to talk up how great Ed Rogers was?


"Shapiro wants to be involved in baseball operations again, after being out of the baseball side for the past couple of years."
- Again, entirely speculation. Rosenthal/Morosi tweeting that Shapiro has been anything but hands on in his tenure with Antonetti in Cleveland.

"He asks for this in negotiations. The bright boys of Rogers decide to give it to him, not realizing that this would effectively make it impossible for Anthopoulos to stay on."
- you mean when the Jays were out of the playoffs in July yet again? You do know that they were looking for a replacement after missing the playoffs in 2014, right?

"Shapiro was a hands-on baseball personnel guy for most of his career, and he's not the kind of guy who will sit back, like Beeston, and wait for AA's recommendations. Anthopoulos realizes that his day-to-day decision-making authority will be badly diluted. So he has to leave."
- speculation

"It would have been so simple for the owners to replace Beeston with someone who wanted to focus on the finances, the stadium, the renovations, the merchandising, the TV rights and everything else that doesn't involve the baseball operations. Yet they had to botch it up by hiring an uber-president who wants to run everything."
- I can't wait to read these boards when the Jays are in the playoffs again after "botching" everything up by hiring Mark Shapiro. I especially can't wait to read these boards if Shapiro happens to sign a free agent or two, you know, considering there's millions upon millions off the books this year.

"The loss is this: Anthopoulos was just hitting his stride as a GM, as he himself admits."
- Given a job at a young age, mediocre even though talented for 5 years, learns he's about to be replaced, goes all out and makes trades he was previously afraid of making or for whatever reason hadn't made before (Tulo, Donaldson, Price are much higher rated and harder to trade for than the Marlins players - even Johnson who was coming off injury), everything works out...yes, he sure was hitting his stride and was going to move to an even higher level to make better decisions??? I don't understand "just hitting his stride"

He is a huge asset to the team, both on the acquisition side (trades, signings, drafts) and on the PR side (a bilingual young Canadian who is beloved and admired by many fans). He understands the Jays as an organization better than anyone else, and he has incredible contacts and goodwill relationships across the league. Yet the owners have driven him away. Nice move, guys. A huge waste of a valuable Jays asset.
- All of this can be said about the new president, and maybe the new GM, whoever that might be

I'm not saying AA was bad or that I wouldn't want him running the team, but one thing is clear, nobody is bigger or more important than the team, and AA is not the president...he had the contract offered to him as GM, as he admitted on the radio today, whether that meant less leverage for him or not, he turned it down. To talk down Rogers so much is ridiculous...they approved all of those trades this summer and are committed to winning. All of this love for AA as the one person who kept Rogers straight and made Toronto a winning team is ludicrous. He was great, but only one piece of the whole pie.

Maybe let the rest of the off season happen before "ridding yourselves of everything Rogers" and black marking the entire company...honestly people, it's not even Halloween.

GET A GRIP!

Ownership treated Anthopoulos like a lame duck, replacing his boss without signing him to an extension. There is no reason he has to put up with that, since he is one of the star executives in the league. So instead he did his best to finish his time in Toronto with a World Series, because he wants to win one, he wants to win one for the city, it looks good on his resume, and the team was reasonably positioned to do so.

It is important that both of his potential strategies this year (trading prospects to "go for it" or holding prospects to develop players) were reasonable and defensible given current information. If one of the options was clearly better or worse, then AA would have taken the better option, but since both were defensible he took the one that made all sorts of sense given his situation.

"....He left the team at a critical juncture with the job unfinished because he thinks he can do better elsewhere. I'm not saying that it is a selfish move, but it is clearly a move made by a guy looking out for number 1...."

There are a few absurd comments like this in this thread.  For the record, I haven't seen a single bit of evidence to suggest this is true. (If there is any evidence, please supply it.)  It really is a grossly speculative and insulting suggestion -- that Anthopoulos is selfishly jumping ship.  The obvious reality is that he has lost authority to Shapiro, and a number of shrewd journalists have been making this point in published articles over the past few weeks, warning of exactly this scenario which came to pass.  The conflict was obvious: there wasn't room for two senior guys to be in charge of baseball operations with head-butting and conflict. Shapiro got the authority, Anthopoulos lost some of his authority, and thus it became "not a right fit" (in AA's words).  Of course he'll end up somewhere else, in some other job, at some point (if he doesn't take some time off first), but that doesn't substantiate in any way the ridiculous theory that he is selfishly jumping ship.

The other argument that some people make in this thread is that Shapiro is a smart guy with a good record and he'll probably do approximately as well as Anthopoulos did.  That might indeed be true.  But it doesn't negate the fact that the owners are wasting a hugely valuable asset:  a very popular bilingual Canadian GM with fantastic contacts in the MLB trading market, great expertise on personnel development, and a growing understanding of the best techniques for assembling a winning baseball team with strong character and leadership in the clubhouse, as shown by the 2015 successes.

Why did the owners allow this to happen?  Why was it so necessary to give Shapiro the baseball authority?  They could have recruited another president/CEO with financial expertise who would have been happy with all the other challenges of renovating the stadium, marketing the team, improving the broadcasts, running the finances, etc.   Instead they gave excessive authority to Shapiro, thus creating an inevitable conflict of responsibilities and ensuring that AA would leave.

"Ownership treated Anthopoulos like a lame duck, replacing his boss without signing him to an extension. There is no reason he has to put up with that, since he is one of the star executives in the league."
- This is all irrelevant because when he was treated as a lame duck, he was a lame duck, not an executive of the year. The decision to hire Shapiro was not based on the last two months of the season, and furthermore...as bad as people think this is, it would have been worse to fire Shapiro before he even had 1 day in office. That would be a joke to the league and sure fire way to never again recruit a high profile player in the industry like Shapiro. Think about where Rogers/Shapiro were in this situation...everything worked against them and in Alex's favor, so they offered him big money and length to keep him, but they weren't going to offer him the same power he had...Shapiro is the boss, you don't come into a new job and then hire someone to do your job for you.

"So instead he did his best to finish his time in Toronto with a World Series, because he wants to win one, he wants to win one for the city, it looks good on his resume, and the team was reasonably positioned to do so."
- it all worked out which is great, but if it didn't then I think it's easy to see how AA's moves could paint him as selfish or putting his career before the team (trading some of your best prospects) for a SP.

Again, I'm not saying I wouldn't have made the moves, I'm saying that AA acted differently this year after getting a fire lit under his you know what but the Shapiro replacement hiring.

The amount of results oriented thinking that dominates sports management personnel decision making is so irritating. If anyone wants to start a company teaching basic poker strategy dressed up as seminars to baseball executives, there is clearly some ignorance to be dispelled.

One should judge an executive by the decisions they made based on information that was available at the time. Trading a "B" prospect who becomes a star is not worse than trading a "B" prospect who turns out to be a dud. If the information about their future was available and was missed, then that is a scouting error and/or a failure of time travel equipment.

Every single fire Anthopoulos argument started with, "Well it has been ____ years and the Jays haven't made the playoffs. Fine. But if some other guy had been in the front office who hadn't traded Vernon Wells and a small nation's debt for sweet, sweet freedom, do we really think the Blue Jays would have been better positioned? Look at the moves he has made.

Judging a GM by how many times his team makes the playoffs is like judging a pitcher based on Wins. We've learned to judge players based on true outcomes; I hope we can one day learn to do the same for management.

http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/instagraphs/job-posting-toronto-blue-jays-baseball-operations-analytics-intern/

Life moves on, and the Blue Jays are hiring for more than one position as it turns out. The "why Rogers" blurb is a bit tone deaf...

"This is all irrelevant because when he was treated as a lame duck, he was a lame duck, not an executive of the year."

He was only a lame duck the minute they hired Shapiro without first deciding AA's fate. Being bad (which AA never was, though people were saying he was) is not the same as being a lame duck. An executive of the year can be a lame duck. An idiot can be the most able duck around. In fact most ducks are idiots and quite able bodied.

Hopefully Rogers will have learned their lesson, and deal with leadership changes all at once in the future. Replacing one piece at a time just encourages holdovers from the old regime to make decisions based on a warped set of contributing factors. If those decisions work out then the holdovers will leave anyways because they don't like the situation. And if those decisions don't work out then they are in a worse position than when they started.

"....Given a job at a young age, mediocre even though talented for 5 years, learns he's about to be replaced, goes all out and makes trades he was previously afraid of making or for whatever reason hadn't made before..."

Such a bizarre narrative.  "Afraid" of making trades??  You say this after the Marlins trade and the Dickey trade in 2013??  And you suggest that he only made the Tulo and Price trades because he "learned he was about to be replaced"?  What an absolutely weird rewriting of history.

"...You do know that they were looking for a replacement after missing the playoffs in 2014, right?..."

Yes, and in fact the owners screwed that up too.  In their haste to recruit a successor to Beeston last year, they aggressively courted Dan Duquette from Baltimore, even though he was under contract, and they even considered giving up Jays players in a trade with Baltimore to acquire him.  Only when the price was outrageously high did they finally back away, having alienated all sides.

"...it would have been worse to fire Shapiro before he even had 1 day in office...."

Not a single person has suggested this.  You're showing quite an imagination.

"....entirely speculation. Rosenthal/Morosi tweeting that Shapiro has been anything but hands on in his tenure with Antonetti in Cleveland...."

It's been clearly documented in every article that Shapiro has been given baseball authority in Toronto.  Shapiro has even expressed appreciation for this, telling friends that he is looking forward to getting involved in baseball personnel decisions again, according to a number of published articles.  Even if he wasn't an aggressively hands-on interferer in Cleveland, that doesn't contradict the reality that he would be the ultimate baseball decision-maker in Toronto.  Even a partial degree of involvement would be a reduction in the autonomy that AA generally had under Beeston (who focused on finances and stadium stuff).  Nothing that I've said in my analysis is "speculation."  It's all based on a clear chronology of events and the on-the-record details of Shapiro's arrival and his new responsibilities in his new job as clearly documented everywhere.

"...I can't wait to read these boards when the Jays are in the playoffs again after "botching" everything up by hiring Mark Shapiro...."

Nobody said that the Jays can't make the playoffs under Shapiro.  I think they have an excellent chance at the playoffs in 2016 and thereafter probably too.  Shapiro indeed will spend money and hire free agents.  That's his job, and it would be astonishing if he didn't.  That doesn't negate the point that the Jays are losing a valuable asset for inexplicable reasons.

"....All of this love for AA as the one person who kept Rogers straight and made Toronto a winning team is ludicrous...."

Absolutely nobody has said AA was the "one person" who made the Jays into a winning team.  It was a team effort, obviously.  Kudos to the owners for approving the money for several big trades in the past three years.  (They also failed to produce any money at key points in 2014, both at the beginning of the season and the trade deadline, when the Jays could have had a shot at the playoffs too.)

"...Ownership treated Anthopoulos like a lame duck, replacing his boss without signing him to an extension...."

This is exactly correct.

"....I think they realized it and didn't care.... And then the last two months of the season happened, and complicated everything....."

I think Magpie may be correct that the owners "didn't care" about losing Anthopoulos.  Either they didn't realize or they didn't care, but either explanation doesn't paint a good picture of the competence of the owners.  Two problems with the "didn't care" attitude:  First, when Shapiro was hired, on Aug. 31, the Jays had already been on fire for a month and were in first place in the AL East, with incredible success in the box office, in the TV ratings, and on the field.  Of course the deal had been in the negotiations for some weeks before that, but why finalize the decision to transfer baseball authority away from AA to Shapiro at the exact time when AA was showing success? Couldn't the deal have been rejigged to give Shapiro everything EXCEPT the hands-on baseball authority?  The owners gave him everything he wanted, even at the cost of AA's future with the organization. That doesn't sound like a fair negotiation, just a giveaway.

Second, the record shows that the owners in fact were already planning to undermine AA's authority much earlier, in late 2014, when they tried to recruit Kenny Williams and then Dan Duquette.  In both cases, AA would have lost baseball authority to those guys.  So, after five years of failing to make the playoffs (including three years when the Jays weren't even really trying to make the playoffs but instead were focusing on building their farm system and getting rid of albatross contracts and laying the groundwork for a better future), the owners impatiently decided to undermine AA and force him out.  In my view, given everything that AA had to do to rebuild the system, five years was too early to judge him a failure.  Results are measured in more ways than simply the W-L column in the standings.  Anthopoulos really took his first stab at the playoffs in 2013 with those two big trades.  Then his hands were financially tied in 2014 with a fixed payroll that prevented him from acquiring the pitching that he needed.  Then he tried again in 2015 -- and made it.  So it was two attempts and one success, in any reasonable assessment.  Yet the owners were ready to dump him after the first attempt.  They impatiently tried to recruit Williams and Duquette in 2014, and in retrospect it's clear that those guys would have gotten the same baseball authority that the owners ultimately gave to Shapiro.

I feel used and abused. AA gave us the best two and a half months of baseball in 20 years. But it was just candy. Sweet while it lasted but leaving a terrible after-taste.

I haven’t felt so disappointed, as a fan, since 1985 -- when the Jays also lost a heartbreaking series with KC in the ALCS.  Damn KC.  Season’s subscribers had been sent World Series tickets, and they had to return them to the Box Office at Exhibition Stadium to get their money back.  It was a cloudy, cold day when I drove down there.  Winter coming on.  To compound the foulness of it all, as I turned on the car radio leaving the grounds I heard that Bobby Cox was leaving the team and going to Atlanta.  Same sense of bright promise unexpectedly thwarted;  of something really good being soured.

Ah well, it was only seven years till they got back on top.  Maybe this time it won’t take as long.  Hope so.

I suspect AA already has a voicemail message from David Samson.

I wonder what's the feeling for a player when the GM that traded him is hired by his new team.

Maybe AA simply didn't want to be the Fearless O'Toole.

Today's announcement came as no surprise to me.

A month or so ago I linked a story claiming Ed Rogers had wanted Beeston to fire Anthopoulos this past offseason. AA has commented on a number of occasions in the past year on how much he and his family love Toronto. Never heard him mention enjoying working for the owners.

IMO his decision has less to do with Shapiro himself and more to do with Rogers Communications.

AA has had his share of missteps, but his process was often better than his results, at least until these past few months.

The team he inherited was in poor shape - underwhelming major and minor league talent, totally inadequate amateur scouting and questionable player development. Add in the fact for too many players, Toronto (and the RC) was as unappealing a destination as any.

To build the team he did without going the tank route was much more an accomplishment than some here give him credit.

Sigh. A dream job for me about 25 years ago. Sadly not a possibility now, even if they would hire me as I live in Thunder Bay and am a single parent, thus very limited time and needing to work from home. Ah well. Someone else will be very happy I'm sure. I'm glad I got to go inside the offices at SkyDome back when SABR was having a convention in Toronto and I was part of the team organizing it.

when they under-perform (Josh Johnson, perhaps arguably Reyes and Dickey)

I was thinking more along the lines of Kevin Gregg, Rajai Davis, Corey Patterson, Juan Rivera, Jason Nix, Kelly Johnson, Kyle drabek, Jo-Jo Reyes, Colby Rasmus, Aaron Laffey, Francisco Cordero, J.A. Happ, Emilio Bonifacio, Maicer Izturis, Josh Johnson, Esmil Rogers, Sergio Santos, etc...

China Fan. Adjectives are not facts. So you can call my post "absurd", "insulting", and "ridiculous"; you can claim your reality is "obvious"; you can describe the unnamed journalists who support your view as "shrewd", but at the end of the day you haven't advanced a single reason to support your view.

It is not obvious that AA lost authority to Shapiro. We have no evidence whatsoever to support that. For all you know, this could have been a Butch Carter-style power play on AA's part. None of us have any idea. Even if the reporting relationship was going to remain exactly the same between AA and Shapiro as it had been under Beeston, there is a big difference between reporting to a friend that you respect and a guy who has been parachuted in ahead of you. That could be reason enough alone for AA to leave. You should really start holding yourself to the same evidentiary standards you seem to require of everyone else on this site.

I don't see how you accuse me of holding a ridiculous theory that (AA) is selfishly jumping ship, when the very sentence you quote from me specifically starts by stating "I am not saying this is a selfish move". All I was claiming was that he did what he thought was best for him. For all his talk about his love for the team, the city, the fans, at the end of the day, he left all of that, plus ten million dollars, behind.

Indeed Scott. AA as the guy who invested in scouting impressed me more than the AA that did trades. Provided there is continuity in the scouting office there I can live with this. He did a strong job of building a farm system but like Shapiros alleged comment I don't think he has the right approach to building a long term contender. I can count on one hand the number of young cost controllable talents we have on hand who are significant values and are major league ready. (Stroman, Osuna, Pillar, Pompey, Travis. Sanchez I don't think will be anything other than a bullpen guy) Everyone else in the minors is years away. This offseason will be rough for pitching acquisitions since they don't come cheap and we have no internal candidates other than guys who are relievers already for us and might not be ready for full time starting.

AA the trader had some nice wins. Donaldson and Wells being the big ones, but Estrada and Travis were solid too. But it's also documented the large number of young assets contributing all across the majors today that could have been producing for us. I also thing Mags is right in that the decision with Shapiro was made befor the run and made it tough on the PR. But Shapiro I presume was hired with certain powers, and it is what it is.

A lot of good comments have been posted in this thread, and I do agree with China Fan that Shapiro will probably want more say in baseball matters than Beeston ever did. I am really upset to see AA go. The Dickey trade is the only one I'd take back, but the Donaldson trade was pure genius. I don't know what direction the team will go from here, but, man, I hope we don't go back to mediocrity.

This thread read like an eulogy.  This was an incredible 2 months, but the last 5 years prior weren't great.
Tell me who hired John Farrell again?
Reminds me of when Harold Ballard died and people had only positive things to say.

For Ballard the positive thing of his era was that he sold a LOT of newspapers in the Toronto area. That's it. I was a hockey fan then but I didn't know enough to know that 'grit' wasn't measurable thus no way of knowing if Wendell Clark was a good 1st overall pick. Ballard was someone who had many dancing on his grave.

To build the team he did without going the tank route was much more an accomplishment than some here give him credit.

I think that was more the coach trying to pad his record in September when the stadiums are empty than anything else.

This is such a curious post.  Are you trying to use this list as evidence of AA's mediocrity?  Every team out there has a bunch of Aaron Laffeys. 

AA acquired Juan Rivera as salary relief for the Angels when he dumped the Wells deal on them - arguably the best trade he made. 

Drabek, Davis, Rasmus, Happ and Santos were all good to justifiable trade acquisitions at the time they were made.  Reyes was part of the Escobar trade from Atlanta - a win for the Jays.

Kevin Gregg was a low cost FA.  Izturis didn't cost much, underperformed badly and then was injured.  Cordero wasn't great, wasn't expensive, and we dumped his contract.  a few million dollars wasted for the bunch. 

Yes, in retrospect, the Miami deal didn't work out - many thought that both Johnson and Bonifacio were worthwhile risks, and the talent lost hasn't been great. 

Patterson, Laffey and Nix were minor league FAs - no cost. 

The only utter loss of a deal was Rogers for Gomes, and lord knows that's been discussed enough round here, but Gomes wasn't even a regular in the minors.  Nobody saw that coming. 

Geniuses quit when they're on top and AA did just that. This is one of his best moves yet.

For AA's sake I hope he pulls a Gillick and waits for a perfect situation to appear then go in for a few years, take a sad sack and get them to the playoffs, leave and do it again.

For us Jays fans I hope the new guy keeps the good drafting record and keeps 1001 pro scouts so he'll know who is out there and who is better than they appear and not become another Gord Ash who takes over a strong system and keeps adding quality but cannot do what it takes to get over the top.

My last post was a response to Scott, left that out, sorry.

But good Lord, if Donaldson is not a cost-controlled young talent, I don't know who is!!

"I'm not saying that it is a selfish move, but it is clearly a move made by a guy looking out for number 1"

Beyonder, that sentence reads to me like you calling AA selfish.  You ever hear the theory that a 'but' in a sentence erases what was said before?  Fine, you aren't saying he's selfish.  You are implying it. 

Alex Anthopoulos is either loved or hated by posters on this site with not much middle ground. People might disagree, but it sure seems like it on this post. No one is ever happy with everything someone does, but some are never happy with anything someone does.

Alex Anthopoulos said himself it wasn't about the money (Roger's wouldn't be going cheap here) nor was it about the term (Reports say five years was offered). Like any job, it's about money, term and job description. So if it's not about money or term, it must be about job description. Something about what A.A. was doing got changed, and he basically said NO.

Any other reason for his leaving is just nonsense/wishful thinking baring little resemblance to fact. As G.M.s go, he's a Rock Star who became one through very hard and difficult work. What else is apparent is Rogers' total lack of understanding how to run a Baseball Team. They're sense of timing is terrible and some of their decision making is worse.

If the Blue Jays get back to the Postseason and get as far or farther than last year, Rogers might survive. But if they don't, watch out, they'll be crucified at the very least by the fan base who expected more. Be very interesting to see what Shapiro says Monday.

"China Fan. Adjectives are not facts. So you can call my post "absurd", "insulting", and "ridiculous"; you can claim your reality is "obvious"; you can describe the unnamed journalists who support your view as "shrewd", but at the end of the day you haven't advanced a single reason to support your view.

You should really start holding yourself to the same evidentiary standards you seem to require of everyone else on this site."

Couldn't have said it better myself Beyonder. Condescending in tone and using "facts" from the internet to validate points, that's par for the course for CF. Nothing to see here, move along.

I like AA just fine Richard, I just don't idolize him. Tbh his moves the last year struck me as how the Yankees used to be run. Keep trading all your young players for stars and try to win by acquiring lots of established 30+ year old players to big contracts. We saw this in the last thread where people wanted us to resign EE and Jose and sign Price at 30 a year and give Estrada 4/50. Guess what we are not the Yankees or Dodgers (or at least Rogers has shown no interest in pushing from a top ten payroll to a top three payroll) I'd much rather emulate the Cards a team that rarely makes splashy moves but has a great farm, develops players well and signs the occasional key free agent. And they do it for a payroll roughly the same as we run. And we see more and more organizations being run this way. Even the Yankees and Sox hold on to their prospects now.

"I'd much rather emulate the Cards a team that rarely makes splashy moves but has a great farm, develops players well and signs the occasional key free agent. And they do it for a payroll roughly the same as we run."

Except we'll never be the Cards. Players often want to play in St. Louis. Very few players actually want to play in Toronto. We'll never know how many refuse to even consider signing with the Jays. Buehrle admitted as much, but few do. I constantly hear of players having Toronto on their no-trade lists, can't recall the last time I heard St. Louis on one. Canada, taxes, turf all play part, some much more than others.

That's why I said the Cards. How many players on their team did they acquire as free agents? Matt Holliday is about it. They traded for Lackey and Heyward and everyone else is home grown and developed. You don't have to go out and overpay for stars when you draft well and develop well. I think we draft well now, but I think we have a long way to go in developing players from the minors into successful major league players to the level they do.

So your point about players refusing to sign is not applicable. You don't have to worry about that when you have years of cost control and they can't go anywhere since they're under arbitration. And they know how to let players go when they become too expensive, because they know they can develop new young players to step in. There is a significant difference between contributions from home grown talent here compared to recent successful franchises. I don't know what the difference is, but it's been going on back to the JPR days and it needs to get better. Hopefully it's something Shapiro can work on.

Every time wants to be the "Cards" aka draft really really ridiculously well. It ain't that easy though.

Other than the Price trade, which would you take pack? (in the last year)

Hrm. I read this 'St Louis - everyone wants to play there, but they just develop so well it doesn't matter'.

Lets see... Using B-R, Jays have 50.5 WAR, StL 50.3
Cards
25.1 Amateur Draft
16.9 Traded
8.3 Free Agency

Jays
27.6 Traded
10.8 Amateur Draft
9.5 Free Agency
2.7 Waivers
-0.1 Amateur Free Agent (Miguel Castro)

Yup, two different ways. St Louis via home grown with 50% of their WAR via Amateur draft. Jays over 50% from trades with the draft & Free Agency pretty close to each other. Both have under 10 WAR from free agents.

For comparison....
1993 Jays
21.7 Traded
13.6 Amateur Draft
11.4 Free Agency
0.7 Amateur Free Agent
0.1 Purchased

1992 Jays
26.3 Traded
9.3 Free Agency
7.0 Amateur Draft
3.3 Rule 5 Draft (Gruber & Lee)
1.2 Drafted--FA Comp (Tom Henke)
-0.1 MinorLg Draft (Mike Maksudian)
-0.6 Amateur Free Agent (Ducey & D Martinez)

1985 Jays
21.3 Amateur Draft
6.7 Rule 5 Draft (6 players)
6.3 Traded
6.3 Expansion draft (Whitt, Iorg, Clancy)
6.3 Free Agency
3.2 Amateur Free Agent
1.1 Drafted--FA Comp (Henke)
0.3 Purchased
-0.1 MinorLg Draft (Mitch Webster)

Wow, did Gillick use every tool at his disposal to get players. I imagine if AA was a GM in the 80's it would've been scary to watch...for the other teams.

I'm ambivalent about the Tulo trade now that it comes out his comments after the season. But I did like it at the time. I was never a fan of the Revere or Lowe trades. Pompey I think could have done well in left and Wells and Brentz I didn't like losing.

But really the details of the trades aren't my biggest objection. I just don't think this is a good way to build a baseball team by trading your young guys for expensive vets, especially when your ownership group isn't willing to go to Yankee levels. He did an excellent job of executing a flawed plan. The plan of build players from within through strong scouting and player development is tough for sure, but also I think the best way for long term success. The Cards are the best example of this, but there are others as well like KC, Oakland, Pittsburgh, SF, the Rays of a few years ago, etc.

I am also not sure what the plan was to get starting pitching for next year since we lack internal options and have a limit on payroll I'd guess. Either spend a lot or trade more prospects. Since we don't have a pitcher in the minors likely capable of stepping in before 2017. Not even sure who our closest is? Connor Greene? Reid-Foley?

When St. Louis last won the World Series (2011), their top two hitters (per OPS+) were Berkman & Holiday and their top two pitchers (per ERA+) were Carpenter & Lohse. They were all signed as high-priced free agents - over $50 million in total. ($8, $17, $14, $12 respectively). They also had Jake Westbrook in their rotation (another $8M free agent).

Lots of home grown talent to be sure -- but free agency played a big role in their championship teams.

*team

Kasi, the 'prospects' we gave up in the Lowe and revere trades are utterly unremarkable. I still recall an article On fangraphs just mocking Seattle's return on Lowe. Brenz and wells may have been decent prospects when drafted but have shown nothing as pros
And

Jerjapan im sure the same was said of Gomes, Dyson, Marisnick, D'Sciafanni and others at times. Josh Donaldson was basically a throw in in the Harden trade. You have no idea if the guy you tossed away as a nobody will turn out to be that or the next all star. I just don't believe in throwing away helium prospects for marginal upgrades. But if you don't commit to developing from within you won't reap the rewards. Instead you'll just have expensive vets, aka the Yankee way.

There certainly is a time to make a trade, especially if someone gifts you Donaldson, but it should be the exception and not the rule. I'll have to look again at our prospect list, but other than Pompey getting a chance I don't think we currently have any prospects who will graduate to the majors in the next two years to contribute.

Cracka they haven't missed the playoffs since 2010 and just won 100 games using mostly homegrown talent and making a couple shrewd moves to pick up Heyward and Lackey. Build the core from within, but spend well on a few good players is key to success in baseball today. (IMO)

Brentz and wells were low level prospects when drafted, who have performed badly since being drafted. All of the players you mentioned were significantly more valuable at the time they were dealt than wells and Brentz. Teams routinely release guys like wells and Brentz. Non prospects

Y'know, the more I read AA's statements the more I wonder if it was a family decision. That the role of being a GM was just too all-consuming and he really needed to step back for a bit. Odd that he wouldn't say that but I suspect he wouldn't because if he did it might be harder to get back in when he is ready for it.

I know my local (former) MP Bruce Hyer told me he was glad he wasn't elected when he first ran in retrospect as his kid was too young then and he really needed to spend time with his family. I suspect many in high stress, high expectation jobs feel that way after awhile.

http://chicago.cubs.mlb.com/news/press_releases/press_release.jsp?ymd=20080708&content_id=3091876&vkey=pr_chc&fext=.jsp&c_id=chc

Donaldson was 22 and struggling in single A and was the least publicized player in the Harden deal. A non prospect as you put it. Wells and Brentz are significantly younger than that. A wee bit early to write them off don't you think?

Being the Cardinals is certainly the ideal, but they are one team out of 30. Look at the other teams that have "built from within." They all did it by being terrible. I'm thinking of the Royals, Astros, Cubs, and Pirates currently. The Rays a couple years ago. All teams that were at the top of the draft on account of being embarassingly awful for an extended period of time.

Teams that tried to walk the middle ground, building from within while not truly sucking (Indians, Orioles, Reds, Brewers, Braves) couldn't jump quite high enough and end up tearing it all down anyways.

And even the wonderful Cardinals are on the downswing. I'd wager this was their last year on top of their division, and they're not going to be very good in a couple years.

The fact that the Blue Jays are unique in having gotten to the top primarily through trades is more a testament to AA's value than anything else.

"That comparison is pretty funny. Pretty sure if you asked anyone if they'd rather have Bryant, Schwarber, Russell and Soler or Travis, Stroman, Osuna and Sanchez we know which side would get chosen. Stro is awesome sure but Sanchez is likely just going to be a reliever and who knows Osuna seems determined to stay one.

Not to mention the Cubs have a top 5 farm system even after graduating so much talent. Who is near the majors to step in for the Blue Jays? No pitchers anywhere close and Alford is likely at least another year away."

I like to deal in facts, not in "ask anyone" hypotheticals.

as for their farm system, their next two standouts - mckinney and gleyber - are of the same calibre as guys like alford and reid-foley.

I think Ishai has it exactly right, too much result oriented thinking (http://www.battersbox.ca/comment.php?mode=view&cid=314320).

I liked AA even before this past off season. Anyone who thinks AA mortgaged the future is crazy as most of his trades help make us better in the future too.

I'm not sure we'll get the full story, since AA has proven his ninja skills at keeping things from the press and has always seemed full of class so not likely to air dirty laundry.

I'm still optimistic about Shapiro, as I think he's got an above average track record, but if I could only have one of AA or Shapiro then at this point I'd rather have AA. But I'd rather have both if possible. FWIW Shaprio does have 2 executive of the year awards to AA's 1.

I think AA is the top of the second tier of potential GMs. I think Beane, Friedman, and Cashman are my top 3. But I think you can build a case AA is as good as any other GM/executive outside those 3. And executives can matter a lot, as this 538 piece notes: http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/billion-dollar-billy-beane/

Not every trade/signing/move AA made was fantastic either in end result or either in at the time thinking; however, the pluses way outweigh the minuses. AA wasn't a great general manager just because of the last 2 months of this year. He's been a great GM even a year ago or two years ago.

Seriously, hopefully someone at BB does an article going through every move from Oct 2009 to today and I think you'll find many more positives than negatives. If you look at the inflows and outflows, more came in than went out. Especially when you consider extra intangibles like Well's contract status or Halladay's known agreement to leave the team when he did.

The Blue Jays had some horrible luck in some of the past seasons, and the process and decisions were better and deserved better than the results they saw, but even if you are results oriented AA's deals are more positive than negative.

This bodes badly for the Jays, and is bad news. Survivable, but bad news.

hopefully someone at BB does an article going through every move from Oct 2009 to today and I think you'll find many more positives than negatives.

Maybe, but what does that mean? Is that actually good? Is it good enough? How would we decide? I rather think there's no real point in carrying out that kind of exercise unless can you set it in context. And providing the context would mean doing the same thing for at least a dozen other teams - certainly the rest of the teams in the AL. And - sorry - but I'm not doing that!

Draft and Free Agency are two clear way to acquire talent, but Trades are something else entirely.
You have to trade something to get something.
If you trade your prospects you might forget how well you drafted.
If you trade your future free agents you're converting one draft pick into several prospects at the expense of the MLB club, is that good?

It's more complicated than you make it to be.

uglyone, you seem to love posting stats, both honest and disingenuous. I like dealing in facts as well. Here is one using your methodology:

C J.P. Arencibia (29): 73pa,.364babip, 152wrc+, 7.6war/650pa
C R. Martin (32):507pa, .262babip, 114wrc+, 4.4war/650pa

Shooting fish in a barrel! Small sample size and unsustainably high BABIP.

James W. You're correct, but missed my point.

Although what I posted was a "fact", it was both ridiculous and misleading - but you can't deny that it was a "fact"; just as Devon Travis being equal to or better than Kris Bryant is a "fact".

I thought my sarcasm would be obvious, but apparently not. C'est la vie.

Yeah I thought the same thing hyperbole. Anyway this makes me wonder if it wasn't just the autonomy thing.

From Ken Rosenthal
Blue Jays 5 year offer to Anthopoulos gave him right to opt out after one year if relationship with Shapiro was not working.

Shapiro has a rep of giving his GM autonomy. Antoinetta has had nothing but good to say in that. But maybe just the blank check from Beaston compared to having to do more of a sell with a Shapiro was enough of a reason. Or maybe John is right in that he's burnt out.

"Although what I posted was a "fact", it was both ridiculous and misleading - but you can't deny that it was a "fact"; just as Devon Travis being equal to or better than Kris Bryant is a "fact"."

If we have to pretend the Jays' kids are worse than their numbers just to make AA look bad, then I'd say that makes AA look pretty dang good.

Sorry Devon Travis is not better than Kris Bryant, despite what your questionable facts say.

uglyone - Devon had a terrific part season. In my opinion, and the opinion of many, AA made an excellent trade getting him for Gose. To say he's not as good as Bryant, one of the best young players in all MLB, is no slight on AA whatsoever.

Kasi, I have a hunch it may not have been Shapiro who demanded final say, it may have been Rogers who told him they wanted him to have final say.

That's possible I guess hyperbole. I still think the two could have worked together. I know in my career I do my best work when I collaborate with others to make final choices on important decisions. From the details we saw with Beeston AA pretty much just got a blank check. And sure Shapiro was going to have final say, but I imagine the two would have helped eachother more than hurt.

Here's the thing - why would I care more about your opinions than the facts?

it's telling that you guys are now hung up on one comp instead of the group. if you prefer to compare stroman to bryant, giddyup.

If you guys need to literally ignore how good our kids have actually been in order to criticize AA, then you're only making AA look better.

Kasi - I hadn't heard that bit from Rosenthal yet. If AA had an opt out after a year if things weren't working out then I think I must have hit the nail on the head with the burn out / family issues idea. I know my wife hated it when I worked late or had to do work on weekends or while on vacation, I'm sure AA's level was exponentially higher than mine and might be leading to issues with his family. I don't see how it couldn't.

Your facts are such small sample sizes to be pretty well meaningless, as hyperbole pointed out.

and your facts are meaningless prospect rankings.

Holy crap, you guys. You do know Anthopoulos doesn't get to take the players with him when he leaves, right?

"I must have hit the nail on the head with family issues.."

Yikes, I hope not. If AA left for that reason, didn't admit it, and let the team and management blow in the wind for the last few days with a "it wasn't the right fit for me" comment...my opinion of him would drop about four rungs.

I think he has more respect for the team than that, the one that gave him a chance at his dream job. At least I would hope so.

I say zero chance it was family.
- He's 38 and has 6 years experience as GM
- His stock was about as high as it could get
- The working conditions weren't optimal
Nothing wrong with sitting back and waiting for his next shot.