Blue Jays Discussion: No More AA, Everyone is very Sad (and by Sad, I mean Mad)

[Discoverer]

2015 rankings: MLB 10th, BA 10th, BP 10th, Sickels 8th

Everybody had the Jays trajectory from 2014 (before the season started) as going up. Everybody other than Stroman was raw and at the lower levels, and then we saw several breakout performances from Norris, Pompey, Castro as well as drafting Hoffman, Pentecost, and SRF.

Not to mention that, from the time he took over until those rankings came out, he had traded away home-grown prospects Johermyn Chavez, Tim Collins, Tyler Pastornicky, Nestor Molina, Joe Musgrove, Carlos Perez, David Rollins, Asher Wojciechowski, Kevin Comer, Yan Gomes, Henderson Alvarez, Justin Nicolino, Jake Marisnick, Anthony DeSclafani, Travis d'Arnaud, Noah Syndergaard, Wuilmer Becerra, Sean Nolin, Kendall Graveman and Franklin Barreto.

And, somehow, the team came into the 2015 season with a consensus Top-10 system and the pieces needed to add Troy Tulowitzki, Latroy Hawkins, David Price, Mark Lowe and Ben Revere while still maintaining a handful of very good prospects.

 

[Bigleaf]

Shapiro was hired on August 31, 2015, the last day in August. The Jays had a record of 21-5 that month after the trade deadline, had caught the Yankees and had a 1.5 game lead. The buzz had already started. The teams was red hot. Did Rogers not think ahead and anticipate what would happen if the Jays made the playoffs, maybe even win the WS? It might have been wiser to wait until the end of the season before offering Shapiro a job and we wouldn't be in this position. Only in Toronto does **** like this happen.

 

[Muston Atthews]

Shapiro was hired on August 31, 2015, the last day in August. The Jays had a record of 21-5 that month after the trade deadline, had caught the Yankees and had a 1.5 game lead. The buzz had already started. The teams was red hot. Did Rogers not think ahead and anticipate what would happen if the Jays made the playoffs, maybe even win the WS? It might have been wiser to wait until the end of the season before offering Shapiro a job and we wouldn't be in this position. Only in Toronto does **** like this happen.

Maybe they thought Alex would set his ego aside and be willing to work with another great baseball mind.

 

[Woodman19]

Rogers wants a sustainable winner and Shapiro knew that dealing away 15 prospects a year is not going to do that. AA didn't want to conform to that and jumped ship. At least that's how I view it.

 

[theaub]

Sustainable winner is the biggest bull**** term in sports

 

[Muston Atthews]

Sustainable winner is the biggest bull**** term in sports

In what way? The Chicago Blackhawks have a sustainable winning model.

 

[Diamond Joe Quimby]

In what way? The Chicago Blackhawks have a sustainable winning model.

They have a window. Same as any other franchise in sports. May be long, may be short, but it is finite.

 

[Daisy Jane]

Maybe they thought Alex would set his ego aside and be willing to work with another great baseball mind.

right?

like i've been saying. it just sounds like to me, that Alex realised he wouldn't be getting his own way anymore and he didn't want to work well with others and he took his ball and left. which is in his own right. but once again, I do not blame Rogers for hiring Shapiro to replace Beeston, and Shapiro to act like the president of whatever his official title is.

if that includes saying "No, you may not trade ALL the farm to hopefully sustain (or trigger) something like what happened in the last 2 months of the year." then that's in his right. I asked this and it never got answered - is it just Toronto that has a president that has some veto power now? do ALL GMs get to do what they want to do without any pushback from owners or other presidents? if Dombrowsky came and he wanted the exact same powers as Shapiro has would we be all screw Dombrowsky, Screw Rogers?!

and I don't get until what "waiting until the end of the season" would have made a difference.

 

[Daisy Jane]

They have a window. Same as any other franchise in sports. May be long, may be short, but it is finite.

the current team has a window, but the model is pretty impressive, is it not? or Detroit. the Patriots in Football? (would the Cardinals apply here? like they replenish quickly, and always contend).

 

[hockeywiz542]

in the jays' first five seasons under anthopoulos, the team did not make the playoffs, so when ownership began a clunky search for a new team president last fall -- seemingly unaware of the sport's tampering rules in its initial pursuit of orioles gm dan duquette and white sox executive kenny williams -- anthopoulos' status was apparently an afterthought. His contract was set to expire this fall, and the deepest baseball roots for duquette, williams and shapiro are in player-personnel decisions. Conveying final authority over baseball decisions to the next president was never going to be a problem for rogers communications, and shapiro got that.

Anthopoulos might have had the title of general manager, but once shapiro came aboard, the practical reality is that the gm of the jays would have the same power as assistant general managers in other organizations.

But in the midst of shapiro's transition from cleveland to toronto, a strange thing happened: The blue jays started winning.

In the eyes of the paying customers -- who bought tickets and tuned in to watch the jays in numbers not seen in more than two decades -- anthopoulos' stock rose, because he had made a series of aggressive deals before the july 31 deadline, acquiring troy tulowitzki, david price, latroy hawkins and ben revere.

Around baseball, rival evaluators panned the trades at the time because of the high cost in prospects the jays surrendered and the money absorbed in the contract of tulowitzki, a player with a long injury history. But a wise old general manager once said this of these sorts of deals: Unless you've worked in that particular market and understand the pressures and motivations at work, you can't fully comprehend all the factors that go into those sorts of trades, in which a team is willing to give up a little more value than it receives.

anthopoulos, a native of canada, certainly knew his market better than any of his peers, and while the jays' farm system was depleted, the payoff was immediate; the reinvigoration of baseball in toronto was complete. The 2015 jays were a runaway success.

but what anthopoulos faced after the jays were eliminated was an effective demotion, because while he was offered a five-year deal to retain the title of general manager, his ultimate authority over baseball decisions had been stripped from him and handed to shapiro. This left anthopoulos with two choices: Stay in a redefined job that he didn't really want, or walk out the door, leaving behind the five-year contract that had been dangled. he chose the latter, which had to have been an excruciating decision for someone who seemed like a perfect fit for the job.

now shapiro assumes control, and the expectation among rival evaluators is that he will pursue ross atkins of the indians to join the front office, perhaps to be the general manager. but the jays' playoff berth and anthopoulos' pivotal work in making that happen has created a benchmark that shapiro and his reconstructed front office must match in order to quell the scrutiny he will face. A canadian was taken out after canada's only team won for the first team in 22 years.

 

[deletethis]

With the 1 million paying customer swings in attendance plus the proportional swings in television viewership, Rogers knows that many mediocre seasons followed by a 1 or 2 year positive blip then back to mediocrity are bad for business on a macro scale. It's an understandable goal for a business to create a steadier revenue producer.

 

[hockeywiz542]

 

[Clark4Ever]

Shapiro was hired on August 31, 2015, the last day in August. The Jays had a record of 21-5 that month after the trade deadline, had caught the Yankees and had a 1.5 game lead. The buzz had already started. The teams was red hot. Did Rogers not think ahead and anticipate what would happen if the Jays made the playoffs, maybe even win the WS? It might have been wiser to wait until the end of the season before offering Shapiro a job and we wouldn't be in this position. Only in Toronto does **** like this happen.

Exactly. Rogers created this mess by jumping the gun on hiring a president, not to mention a guy with a history of being directly involved in baseball operations.

 

[rdawg1234]

the current team has a window, but the model is pretty impressive, is it not? or Detroit. the Patriots in Football? (would the Cardinals apply here? like they replenish quickly, and always contend).

Our window with this current core is probably 3 more years to contend for the WS.

3 years is a decent amount of time to build up the propect pool again as well. We might dip back down a bit but every team dips a bit, the blackhawks had 1st round exits two years in a row after their 1st cup win in 2010.

we have a great late 20's-early 30's crew, just need some up and comers in the system.

 

[BertCorbeau]

The plot thickens

 

[Revolt]

That certainly makes this more interesting.

 

[TheTotalPackage]

Rogers wants a sustainable winner and Shapiro knew that dealing away 15 prospects a year is not going to do that. AA didn't want to conform to that and jumped ship. At least that's how I view it.

If anything, I thought AA was more caught up all those years in holding on to all the prospects as opposed to using them as currency.

 

[Kurtz]

and Ben Revere while still maintaining a handful of very good prospects.

Hmm, I would challenge the handful of very good prospects and substitute with a "couple of pretty good prospects". I don't imagine that any of our prospects will be be making a top 20 list any time soon.

But here's a question...prior to the Mets/Marlins trade, AA's staff put together a consensus top 3-5 farm. Post trades, our farm fell to around 15th.

Going into 15, our farm was consensus 10th (I believe that was before we parted with Boyd/Barreto?). I'd say we gave up at least as much, although likely more, at this deadline than we did with the Mets/Marlins. So where would you estimate that now puts our farm rank going into next year? 25-ish?

 

[theaub]

In what way? The Chicago Blackhawks have a sustainable winning model.

They hit their two top end of the draft picks (Toews/Kane) and two more elite/previously elite players signed to significantly illegal contracts (Hossa/Keith)

They have a good GM and scouting staff who were able to unearth a whole ton of gems (ie why just saying they tanked and succeeded is wrong), but to make it like they haven't done some questionable things (Bickell/upcoming Seabrook extensions, whatever this offseason was) is not true. They have certainly avoided rash FA decisions which are the downfall of many a GM (Tallon's signings of Huet/Campbell aside), but AA spent on exactly one major FA while here (Russ Martin).

The Hawks will have a lot of bad, dead money on the table in a couple years. Whether Stan is good enough to navigate the waters (or likely moreso, whether the Canadian dollar goes up enough to give him cap relief) will determine how sustainable everything is.

Stan's greatest strengths have been
1) Consistently find cheaper plug-in guys on the FA/low-end trade market that fit key roles and covered depth issues (Sopel, Versteeg, Kopecky, Oduya, Handzus, Rozy, Emery etc)
2) Establishing his long term core of players (Toews, Kane, Hossa, Sharp, Keith, Seabrook, Hjalmarsson, Crawford) and sticking with them for as long as possible, replacing them only when absolutely necessary due to the cap (or when they started boinking another core player's wife but uh I digress)
3) Continually stockpiling prospects and draft picks when possible so that the appropriate moves to compete when necessary won't demolish the farm
4) Taking risks on the guys he believed in (Hossa over Havlat, Bickell/Crawford extensions etc)

If I were to judge AA on the same criteria

1) AA pretty much absolutely nailed this in 2015...Smoak/Colabello/Travis/Estrada all contributed far more than expected this year. Always felt like depth was an issue and it was something AA learned from
2) AA failed on this for the most part, but part of that was the previous regime's fault for not having enough of a core in the first place. Note that guys like Hjalmarsson/Crawford didn't become core players until after the first title. A Donaldson/Bautista/Edwin/Martin/Stroman core was fearsome. AA wasn't around long enough for us to see if the 3-5 other players he would pick as part of his core would pan out
3) AA was elite at this.
4) AA was also elite at this - just like with Stan he missed on a couple (Romero, Dickey trade etc) but the ones he hit (Bautista/Edwin extensions at the forefront) more than made up for it.

So I mean...when I hear 'well Shapiro will give a sustainable winning model' I really hear 'Shapiro won't take any major risks so there will always be some prospects to make it look like we will win in the future.'

You don't win without taking risks. In any sport.

 

[Kurtz]

If anything, I thought AA was more caught up all those years in holding on to all the prospects as opposed to using them as currency.

Yeah, it's a little infuriating that we didn't part with Norris+ for Price LAST year. That way we'd have two full years of Price+ compensation first rounder for him this year.

 

[Kurtz]

So I mean...when I hear 'well Shapiro will give a sustainable winning model' I really hear 'Shapiro won't take any major risks so there will always be some prospects to make it look like we will win in the future.'

You don't win without taking risks. In any sport.

Very true. My hope is that we build the same type of model as he did in Cleveland, but that our hopefully extra $40 mil or so in salary cap would allow him to occasionally splurge on a big free agent or two.

 

[Gabriel426]

I think all teams should have a timeline of their current teams based on their players. Ofcourse sometime their players arrive early some come later or not at all.
Could the Jays wait for guys like Hoffman, Castro, Norris and others to become solid players in the MLB in order to compete for the WS? Probably not bc the core is at their prime now. This is the time for the Jays to compete and even if they burned all their prospects to trade for Price and others this yr and get another Ace by TDL next yr. This team will still be a pretty solid team a few yrs down the line when JB, EE, Josh, Tulo and Martin are either retire or in their mid 30s, due to having guys like Stroman, Sanchez, Osuna, Pillar, Pompey, Goins, Liam, Cecil and Hutch.
I just hope that Rogers will spend money on the Jays and continue to build on their success this past yr instead of breaking up this group and start over.

 

[Daisy Jane]

The plot thickens

That certainly makes this more interesting.

HMM. So he was given an out clause, + a 5 year deal + 8 million dollars and he still said no?

hmhm hm hmm hm hmmm.

 

[theaub]

Very true. My hope is that we build the same type of model as he did in Cleveland, but that our hopefully extra $40 mil or so in salary cap would allow him to occasionally splurge on a big free agent or two.

This is my hope as well.

The current team in Cleveland (not built by Shapiro but still) represents what the Jays would probably look like if they had Cleveland's budget. A ton of good controllable pitching, a couple decent bats but not enough around it to get to a truly elite team. You throw in $40M there to add some more offense and you have a 90 win team.

 

[hockeywiz542]

first, most essentially, sources say shapiro does plan to hire a gm to manage the day-to-day roster operations. However, shapiro will retain ultimate jurisdiction over baseball decisions — a dynamic that played a key role in anthopoulos’ rejection of a contract extension.

also, shapiro will be allowed to consider a limited number of employees of his former team, the cleveland indians, for roles in the blue jays front office. for an indians executive or scout under contract to join the blue jays, the new job would need to be a promotion; it’s unlikely that more than one or two indians employees will be permitted to make the move.

shapiro presided over — and helped to cultivate — a unique organizational identity in cleveland, and so it won’t be a surprise if he hires a new gm with indians ties. Ross atkins, cleveland’s current vice president of personnel, is a potential top candidate for the toronto job, along with former indians executives de jon watson, tyrone brooks and josh byrnes.

it’s also worth noting that tony lacava, a longtime assistant gm in toronto under anthopoulos, worked as a national crosschecking scout for the indians in 2002 — while shapiro was the general manger there.