The Star caught up with Blue Jays’ fifth-year general manager, Alex Anthopoulos, before a recent Grapefruit League game in Florida. In what has become an annual interview for The Star’s pre-season special section, Anthopoulos candidly revisited his disappointment in Ervin Santana’s decision to back away from a verbal agreement to come to Toronto. He spoke of his belief that Jose Bautista could play for another 10 years and that, even though players such as Edwin Encarnacion, Jose Reyes and Bautista are in their 30s, that does not mean the Jays aren’t interested in extending them. He talked about the support he has seen from ownership for his job, the changing face of the Blue Jays fanbase, and whether being a father and five years of ups and downs have changed his priorities. Richard Griffin spoke with Anthopoulos.

You sounded personally let down by the decision that Ervin Santana made (to sign with the Braves). Was there anything that you could have done, like pulling an extra million out of your pocket on that Saturday and say, “Sign now and this is yours.” Is there anything you could have done that would have turned that decision around?

No, and when I was asked about it that day, I mentioned I was going to take the high road. I don’t think Ervin or his agent had been quoted or talked about it. I recently saw something in USA Today, an interview with Ervin Santana, I think it was with Jorge Ortiz and he said something to the effect that, “I was all set to go to Toronto. I was prepared to go to Toronto, but it didn’t get finalized,” or something to that effect.

So, following up on his comments, it’s rare you see me react that way. Like I alluded to before, when things leak to that magnitude, from our standpoint, almost always we have a deal done. I think Ervin was very accurate when he said he was set to go to Toronto.

Deals don’t get finalized until someone can get on a plane and come and take their (medical) exam and sign the contract, but deals do get agreed upon. You need to agree to a deal, before someone does get on a plane and does take that exam. But again, until things are signed, you can’t do anything about that.

When you agree to a deal, where I come from, that deal’s a deal. But again, deals aren’t finalized until players get examined and players sign.

Things come up along the way and somebody gets hurt and there’s an opportunity where the player feels more comfortable with, that being the National League and you’re told that it doesn’t have anything to do with the contractual status, you really can’t do anything about that. There’s no way to compete with that.

In some strange way, is it another argument for having the same playing rules in both leagues, like having the DH in both leagues or no DH in both leagues, so everyone is on a level playing field?

I don’t think so. I understand the question. I understand your point. Again, my disappointment with that was that, again, we would have loved to have had Ervin here. We wish him the best, but we were told he had a strong desire to be here. This is where he wanted to be. And, all of a sudden, on Sunday, when a spot in the National League opened up, his strong desire changed.

So, I understand if you’re taking a one-year deal wanting to be in the National League (not having) the DH and all those things. But apart from that, again, if you’re set to go somewhere — and those were his words — he was set and prepared to go to Toronto, to me, once you make a commitment, again, the way I think when I make a commitment I uphold that commitment regardless of what happens. But, again, until a deal is signed, it’s not a deal.

After a disappointing end to the season and a bleak winter, what have you seen at camp that will brighten the moods of Blue Jays fans.

I’d say offensively, Melky Cabrera looks like the guy we were hoping he was going to be last year before we finally discovered the tumour in July or August, whenever it was. He’s looked great in camp, even played centre field. So far, he’s looked very good.

Drew Hutchison has thrown the ball extremely well and he’s looked very good.

Those are the guys that need to come back. You could say, OK, Jose Bautista has hit home runs and that’s good, or Jose Reyes . . . the guys that are established with consistent performance year-in and year-out have a certain level of expectation, but from a camp standpoint, Melky’s having a great camp. He’s really moving well with good at-bats.

Dioner Navarro is having really good at-bats as well. He’s done a nice job calling games behind the plate. But, like I said, Drew’s looked outstanding on the mound. He’s hit 92 to 96 (m.p.h.), tremendous! Like I said, he’s the type of guy who was starting to turn the corner the three outings before he got hurt (in June 2012).

That’s probably been the biggest highlight in camp so far.

Is it a different feel in camp with fewer distractions, fewer national media, no World Baseball Classic and has (John Gibbons) made it a little different in the organization of workouts?

I’d probably say all of the above. There’s no question, take away the media, all the new players (last year), there were so many new parts last year — new field staff, new manager, a lot of new players — and, then, like you mentioned, a lot of players leaving for the WBC. It was a zoo.

We had so many distractions and it was hard to have continuity when players are coming in and out and everyone being pulled in so many directions . . . those little things. It’s been a much more quiet camp, but maybe quiet isn’t the right word. Quiet because there’s been less distractions, but a much more focused camp as well. I think it’s allowed us to do our work. Everybody just seems that much more focused across the board from a year ago.

Everybody (in the front office) at this camp has been talking about the (Class-A) Lansing team. Three or four years down the road, it looks like you will have these young players knocking on the door in the major leagues. How excited are you about the talent that is going from Bluefield to Lansing and then hopefully progressing through the system.

I’m very excited. I think we’re six months away from being a team that’s very deep again in the minor leagues. We have a few high picks in the draft, with the ninth and the 11th pick. We expect, obviously, to get some very talented players.

The Lansing rotation, including the position players, are a really exciting group. So we think we have a wave of young, exciting arms that are ready to establish themselves as some of the top prospects in the game.

We feel very good about our talent, but like you said, it’s just a little bit further away. But I do think, by the end of the season, we’ll look back and say that we have some pretty exciting young kids.

So the window of opportunity with the Jose Bautista group and the Jose Reyes contract group, that open window will be replaced by, as you’ve always hoped, a self-perpetuating, repeatable, competitive, homegrown organization . . . hopefully.

Yeah, we’re hopeful of that. Obviously you never know how prospects are going to pan out, but there’s definitely been a focus on trying to have as much depth as we can, and, again, some of those players will be used to acquire the next Jose Reyes, or some of them will be playing for us in Toronto.

But, at the same time, I think what gets lost a little bit is that just because we have the Encarnacions or the Reyes or the Bautistas under contract for a certain period of time and we have them for the next three or four years apiece, it won’t prevent us from even extending those players.

You look at a guy like Carlos Beltran right now. He just signed a three-year deal with New York at 37. A guy like David Ortiz at 38 or 39 . . . still a big part of the Boston Red Sox.

You look at a guy like Bautista. I would not put it past him at all to play 10 more years because of how well he takes care of himself. There’s no reason he can’t be Ortiz, he can’t be Carlos Beltran. He’s a great hitter and takes tremendous care of his body. He’s in great shape.

So we have these guys under contract for a few years, but we always have the ability to extend them and also add to them, whether it’s some of the kids we have that come up or to use some of the guys in trade.

Beginning with the J.A. Happ deal, did the amount of inventory you traded away, did the impact it had surprise you in terms of making it tough to fill in with prospects at the upper levels of the farm system for a couple of years. It’s not the quality, it’s the quantity that affected the upper levels, and you had to replace guys that weren’t necessarily going to make the majors, but had value as inventory.

I guess it all depends. You find out over time how guys pan out.

I would say the upper levels of the minor leagues, Triple-A and even Double-A to some extent, but clearly Triple-A, there’s a lot of minor-league free agents, a lot of waiver claims that you can fill those spots.

Where you’re impacted might be a little bit at High-A. Normally, I wouldn’t say it’s common that you sign minor-league free agents to go to High-A, but the other component is that other teams draft prospects that pan out, some won’t. At some point the ones that don’t pan out become minor-league free agents anyway and leave the organization.

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You look at a guy like John Tolisano; he was a (Jays) second-round pick. He left the organization as a free agent. Justin Jackson was a higher draft pick and he became a minor-league free agent. He signed back. You don’t have these prospects under control forever.

There does come a point in time where if they don’t get added to the 40-man roster at some point, they become minor-league free agents, so you’re going to lose them one way or the other unless you put them on the 40.

This generation of Jays fans . . . many of them don’t remember the 1992-93 World Series winners as their teams. This is a new generation of fans. They’re young, smart, they travel well. Does Rogers ownership realize what they have and the responsibility, and do you see what I do in the fanbase?

No doubt. I think you see it more and more. I think you saw it in an amazing way last year, just some of the parks we were on the road.

I think there’s no question that ownership sees that and I think that’s reflected in the dollars allocated to the big-league payroll, the dollars they’ve allocated to international and Latin-American spending at the amateur level. Dollars for the draft.

So, you know, I can just talk from my point of view, the amount of coverage that we get on Sportsnet. All of our games are on TV. There’s more spring training games on TV now than there were 10 years ago when I started in this organization in 2004.

I think the commitment from ownership has only grown in every aspect of the organization.

You’ve said from the start that you don’t need to be a major-league GM. And with two young kids — and I’m not sure if there are any more on the way — do you still feel that way and have your priorities changed since you took over five years ago?

I don’t know that, in fairness . . . I don’t know that I’ve ever said I don’t need to be a GM. It’s not that I do or I don’t, but I don’t want it to come across like I don’t respect the position and appreciate the position and am grateful for the opportunity. So I don’t want to minimize that at all. I understand it’s a rare opportunity, a rare job and I’m grateful for it. I appreciate that and I respect it every day.

Over time, as you get older, if you have a family, your outlook changes in life. I think there’s a common theme. Anything that I involve myself in, whether it’s my job, being a father, being a husband, you want to fulfill that with whatever you have and do the best you can at that job.

I think you learn to manage your time a little bit more. I think, with perspective, what I love about being in baseball is the work. The other component, whether it’s being in the public eye, or things like that, I don’t get caught up in the good or the bad, just because, at the end of the day, you always try to get grounded in what you do.

Priorities? I don’t think my priorities have changed. Things that you’ve got in life, character traits things like that are always the main thing.

The day the season ended you were down. When did your outlook start to brighten.

At the end of the season, we didn’t know what Brandon Morrow’s status was going to be until he finally threw simulated games in the bullpen by mid-November. That was obviously a big target date. If he hadn’t come through those, that would obviously have had a big impact.

I hadn’t been out to the Arizona Fall League in a while. I got to see guys like Drew, guys like Stroman and guys like Aaron Sanchez as well, and that was encouraging to see all three.

Drew had obviously been up at the big-league level and had turned a corner, so seeing his velocity back, his command back. I was expecting him to factor, certainly. Drew and Brandon were two guys that, when the season ended, I didn’t know how they would factor, if they would factor at all.

Once we got to mid-November, I felt pretty confident that both guys would factor, and then it was good to see the progress that Stroman and Sanchez had made, as well.

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