Alex Anthopoulos is home. Well, he’s in a hotel lobby in Montreal, talking on the phone, before the second game of Toronto’s now-annual contribution to the suffusing nostalgic love for the Expos. This is his home city, and he can speak to the loss of Nos Amours in both languages. This time, though, at least new Jays catcher Russell Martin speaks French, too. So Anthopoulos has some time.

How much, is the question. The Toronto Blue Jays seem to have arrived at a crossroads, and Anthopoulos is in the middle of the road. It appears to be an article of faith that the Jays and their general manager are facing that simple, short-sighted task: playoffs or bust. In one way, you can see it: the Jays have a top-10 payroll, and have lost in the two straight years they have tried to win. (The Jays finished five games clear of the playoffs last season, but it felt like more.)

Playoffs or bust can incentivize selfishness, and ignores big-picture planning, too. But Anthopoulos’s promoter and protector, Jays president Paul Beeston, spent his off-season avoiding the clumsy, fumbling shivs of his bosses. He found out he was being replaced when his old friend Jerry Reinsdorf called to say Rogers had called to hire White Sox executive Kenny Williams, for Beeston’s job. The mess ended with a one-year goodbye for Beeston, and maybe Anthopoulos. Strange days, but the once-boy wonder can’t think like that.

“I don’t. I’m 37 years old, and I still think I’m young in my career, and I never sit down and look at my status or my career,” says Anthopoulos. “I guess I feel it’s like a jumping-off point — jumping off in a good way, moving upwards. Because the nucleus we have in place has a chance to be together for a long time. And I think we can continue to add because we’ll have even more financial flexibility a year from now. There’s a ton of young talent on the team; there’s more on the way.

“So I feel like we’re finally in a position to go on a long run with some of the young talent that’s starting to emerge.”

That’s a convenient line of thought, but there’s something there. The Jays have young arms, power bats in their prime, one contract that lasts past 2016. They have between $20 million-$30 million (U.S.) coming off the books next summer, after they finally dipped into free agency this winter. There’s not enough depth, and they’re leaning too hard on the kids, probably. The division’s mediocre; maybe there’s enough, and maybe not. But there’s something here.

Still, playoffs or bust would loom for most people. Anthopoulos is one of those people who feels like making the best decision helps him sleep at night: as he puts it, “I think something is right or wrong because the process is right or wrong.” He wants to do the right thing.

But things go wrong. He’s made mistakes; he’s had bad luck. He’s already had Ricky Romero and Josh Johnson implode on his watch, and when the doctors told him Marcus Stroman would miss the season with a torn ACL, Anthopoulos asked the relevant questions, got his answers, then walked out to his rental car and went for a drive down a Florida highway, past the water, quiet.

He didn’t throw his cellphone out the window, or kick the tires. Anthopoulos just let the news that his best pitcher was gone sink in. Then he turned around, and drove back to work.

He’s always been this way. Toronto’s boy wonder is five years in, and he spent three years driving away from what the Jays were, and two tough years trying to turn around, and the whole time his answer to everything has been to get back to work. He’s not a political animal; he handles his responsibility, and he stays in the box.

This is the closest thing to his team that he’s had. It just might not be close enough, and it might not matter either way. Once the owners have drawn the playoffs-or-bust line, they’ve already said something about the future.

“I guess I just feel like the club is finally . . . I love two-way players, plus defenders and athletes, and it just doesn’t work out that way,” says Anthopoulos. “But I finally feel like this team is starting to look the way I wanted it to. Power arms, high-ceiling young homegrown starters, plus defence on the field, finally starting to have high character in the clubhouse and quality arms in the ’pen. It’s starting to have the makeup of everything we always wanted to have. It just can’t happen overnight.”

It just might have to. But what if it does? In a division where nobody’s projected to run away and hide, what if the arms hold up, and the unbalanced lineup mashes, and the injuries aren’t crippling? What if the trade deadline approaches and the Jays are close, or leading? Is the right move to go for it? Is the right move to wait? Playoffs or bust, they say. The bet here is that Alex Anthopoulos will try to do the right thing for the franchise, whatever the hell that will be.

Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading...

“We have the assets to do it,” says Anthopoulos. “We have the assets in terms of dollars, and minor-league currency. The toughest decision is, do you want to trade your young players? And I hope we’re in that position. I’d be thrilled if we were in that position.

“I want to be in that position where we have to make a really tough call — you know, we have a young player we don’t want to part with, but it can really put us over the top. I mean, I’d love to have a gut-wrenching decision like that, because it would mean that we have a shot. Which is what you want.”

Read more about: