The darkest days of the Toronto Blue Jays season were those after the July 31 trade deadline passed and Alex Anthopoulos did nothing to right what was clearly a listing ship with the a post-season appearance an increasingly distant shore.
In the thick of the wild-card race the Blue Jays needed bullpen help, infield help and maybe a reliable bat for John Gibbons’ bench.
Nothing happened and Anthopoulos’s reputation took a hit. The Blue Jays didn’t make a move that mattered and the season slipped away on them, and some of the fan’s tentative trust in Anthopoulos and the franchise along with it.
“For me in my eight years here, I’ve never been this close, never had such an opportunity to make it in the playoffs,” said then Blue Jays closer Casey Janssen. “And I think that’s where the excitement level for this trade deadline was. It [was] finally our time.”
But what was really going on last season is coming to light now, even as the club made yet another bold move in what is shaping up to be momentous off-season for Toronto, adding the consensus best third baseman in baseball Josh Donaldson by trading Brett Lawrie and three prospects to the Oakland Athletics.
To hear Anthopoulos tell it, the lows of August and the highs of November are no different in his mind. He sewed up the Donaldson deal Friday night, was in the office Sunday morning and spent the afternoon taking his kids to the ROM.
No time for gloating.
“I don’t mean to sound disrespectful, but you can’t concern yourself with that stuff, good or bad,” he said. “I really try to insulate myself. If things are going well or you make an acquisition, you don’t concern yourself with it and when things aren’t going well, you don’t get caught up in that.”
When the Blue Jays ended their season 13 games back in their division and five out of the wild-card race a legitimate question was whether it was the most disappointing summer in recent memory, or only the second-most, after 2013?
The former was a burst bubble of hype, but while expectations were lower at the outset of 2014 the size of the opportunity missed, thanks to a 9-17 August, brought its own special pain. That the air rushed out of the balloon so quickly after the do-nothing trade deadline was noted.
There was confusion in the clubhouse. Frustration among the fans. There was Martin Prado being plucked away by the Yankees for a pittance – other than assuming the $22 million on his contract in 2015 and 2016. There were the Oakland A’s landing not just top-end starter Jeff Samardzija but Jon Lester, too.
Why did the Blue Jays do nothing? Why was their best chance at a playoff berth in a generation being allowed to wither away?
Maybe Anthopoulos had lost his nerve. Maybe his years of careful prospect mining hadn’t been as fruitful as we’d been led to believe. Maybe ownership had lost faith in their general manager or – at the very least – had put a hard cap on spending.
If you’re looking for clues as to what really was the case, the past few weeks tells a story, and there is no detail more revealing than the way Martin’s contract is structured.
That he was able to negotiate for five years and $82 million suggests club owners Rogers Communications Inc. remain relatively bullish on baseball and its potential as a programming mainstay for Rogers Sportsnet for the foreseeable future.
However, that Martin is only being paid $7 million in 2015 and then $15 million in 2016 and $20 million the three seasons after that – after the $19 million they are committed to pay Mark Buehrle, for example, drops off the books – suggests that their enthusiasm comes with parameters.
The next clue comes with the price paid for Donaldson.
The A’s third baseman is a stud. Over the past two years only reigning AL MVP Mike Trout has – statistically speaking – been a more impactful all-around player in the American League.
And yet when Athletics general manager Billy Beane looked at his lineup and figured he didn’t have the budget necessary to make up the 10 games they finished behind the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim in the AL West it was the Blue Jays who had the combination of high-ceiling, affordable major-league talent (Brett Lawrie); major-league ready arms and elite low-minors promise that could land the best, most affordable, player available.
Again, rewind back to the stand-pat summer and recognize that Anthopoulos clearly had the means to pull any kind of “go-for-it” type moves, like the ones that landed Oakland Samardzija and Lester.
That he didn’t only speaks to the silent hand guiding the Blue Jays payroll situation. For obvious reasons, this is not a line of inquiry Anthopoulos will entertain.
“We have a very good payroll,” he says.
And it is – the Blue Jays had the ninth highest payroll in MLB last season, according to Cot’s Contracts, and are projected to be in the top-10 again this season. But there are clearly limits. Improving his roster within them takes some clever tinkering and discipline.
Anthopoulos showed his discipline throughout 2014. Early on he resisted the urge to cash in what were then prospects — and now mainstays — such as Marcus Stroman and Aaron Sanchez for more pitching help. And when the trade deadline rolled around he passed on adding payroll in the form of Prado and dealing prospects for arms like Samardzija and Lester – the former projected to earn $9.5 million in arbitration, the latter a free agent – with no realistic chance to keep them long-term.
The wisdom of that approach is paying off now. Keeping the balance sheet clean meant that Anthopoulos could absorb Martin’s contract when the opportunity presented itself earlier this month. Keeping his powder dry when the prices were high this past summer meant he had the assets required to land the likes of Donaldson.
That two out of the past three years Anthopoulos has been able to land high-end MLB stars for young players and prospects – all while keeping the likes of Stroman, Sanchez, Daniel Norris and Dalton Pompey on the roster – suggests that Anthopoulos was on-track when he spent the first three years as GM carefully building Toronto’s talent base.
Heading into 2015 the Blue Jays aren’t finished. There is Melky Cabrera (or an equivalent) needed for left field; bullpen help is required. Second base and centre field are question marks.
But Anthoupolos has some assets in Dioner Navarro and one of either R.A. Dickey or J.A. Happ he can leverage if he chooses. He still has some money to spend.
I can see the light.