RICHARD GRIFFIN’S BASEBALL BULLPEN

YEAR 2 VOLUME VII March 25 2013

BLUE JAYS CORNER – Alex Anthopoulos Q&A

Before heading out to cover Team Canada in Phoenix I sat down with Jays’ GM Alex Anthopoulos in Dunedin for a far-reaching interview that is becoming an annual spring tradition. Following is the full transcript.

RICHARD GRIFFIN: This interview is about changes. Changes in you, changes in the system, changes in your team.

ALEX ANTHOPOULOS: Plenty of changes.

1. CHANGES IN STYLE AS GM

RG: Let’s start with you. What do you do now in relating to players, GMs, agents, your own staff that you didn’t do three years ago that you’ve learned to improve?

AA: Right. You hope you’re getting better. First of all just in the job?

RG: Yes, professional relationships . . .

AA: I think you approach the job in a different way. You learn to work smarter, manage your time better. The examples I used are from a trade standpoint having fewer balls in the air. In the past there may have been 10 trade opportunities or 10 potential leads for trades. Back then I’d sit back and you figure, OK, I’m going to take a shot. You’re not going to give up on any of them but now . . . maybe focus 90 per cent of your time on the one or two that you feel have a really good chance of happening and focus all your efforts . . . and that’s what I think we did with the Marlins deal.

There was a lot of other directions we could have gone but there were still dominoes that had to fall, things that had to happen. In the past I may have really gone after it and pursued it. Maybe with some luck we would have got something done but it’s hard enough to make trades without chasing some that don’t have a likelihood to happen. Being more focused on things that have a chance to happen, that’s one. And then I’d say from a management standpoint I think I’m getting better—it’s a fine line. When you’re an (assistant GM) you give your opinion and you’re not worried. You’re not collecting everyone else’s opinion. You’re just giving yours. This is how you feel. As a GM I’m very cognizant of being inclusive making sure you respect your staff and your employees. You give them a voice. Sometimes now I’ve reflected to the point where I almost didn’t include my own opinion.

RG: Originally?

AA: Just over the past few years. I look back and it felt like I was so much more opinionated and decisive as an AGM. As weird as that sounds I’m making sure I’m collecting everyone else’s opinion. I want everyone to feel part of it. You’re trying to figure out what makes a good leader. And now I’ve learned at the end of the day I have to make the decision. I always did make the decision but my opinion has to count.

RG: Do you end every meeting with your opinion because it sounds like you would walk out of a room not having expressed your opinion and then do what you thought. And that might surprise the people who had been in that room with you, or is that not important?

AA: No, I would always give my opinion but Paul (Beeston, Jays president) always jokes and it sounds arrogant to say this but it’s not the intent. When Paul has a meeting — he’d joke about it but I understand now. He’d say OK let’s have a vote or let’s talk about it. He’d remind everybody not every vote counts the same. I know it sounds incredibly arrogant to say it but it’s true. And obviously there has to be someone accountable at the end, so I think what I’ve learned, especially this off-season, is I’m not going to make a decision, even if I’ve got consensus, if my instincts aren’t there and I don’t believe in it.

It’s not for lack of respect for my staff because I’m wrong plenty. But I take it much harder when my instincts were already reluctant and I still went with consensus or outside sources. And ultimately I made that decision.

RG: But it didn’t work out.

AA: It didn’t work out. When I make the decision and it didn’t work out I’ll just beat myself up. And that’s fine. I’ll sleep better. I feel better. The ones that bother you are when your instincts were leaning in a certain direction and you went against them because of the group or other information even though your instincts were telling you something.

So the biggest thing I’ve learned is I still solicit everyone’s opinion I still want to know what they think but I comfortably tell everybody this is what I’m going to do. That’s why when we did (Jose) Bautista’s deal I remember we had a split camp so it was easy. I made the final decision. I remember the people that were against it. I called them in after and I said hey — and this was my second year as a GM — I remember calling them in and saying I just want you to know even though I went with this decision I still value your opinion, your process was great, what you’re saying makes complete sense and it was a coin-flip. Obviously I have to make a decision and this is the decision I’m going with but I don’t want you to think I ignored what you said. I heard it. I understand it and I could go in that direction but . . .

RG: Was it split on the Marlins deal, too?

AA: Yeah I’d say it was split. But it was my decision.

RG: When you talk to agents or other GMs now do you detect a different vibe than when you were starting out? Do they know where you’re coming from before you even come from there?

AA: I never thought about it that way. Over time you get to know them better and they get to know me better. So, from a working relationship standpoint it’s better that way. I think having dealt with (Marlins GM) Larry Beinfest trying to get Dan Uggla three years ago made it that much easier having to deal with him now. I find (I’m) not wasting as much time. I won’t say I’m more direct but I find when you’re an AGM in a weird way you have more time on your hands even though you’re juggling a lot more things. I think that as a GM you just have to make a decision and get to the point.

RG: When you say as an AGM you have more time on your hands . . .

AA: No but you’re handling (fewer) administrative things.

RG: Isn’t the difference that you didn’t have any children yet.

AA: Yeah you’re right. That’s true.

RG: That’s what changes the whole thing.

AA: Yeah that’s true. You have to manage your time a little bit more. So even if we’re doing a contract with someone you may have 10 steps to the contract and as an AGM you start with Step 1. I probably start at Step 8 now. Let’s have two or three conversations. This is getting done or it isn’t and let’s move on. Because your time is more valuable.

RG: Is there anything that as an AGM you looked at and said if I ever had that job or if I was ever a GM I would make this change, this change, this change and then found out when you took over that it was impossible and why you couldn’t.

AA: Good question. You always have thoughts of what you would do, wouldn’t do, and we implemented a lot of the things. I think that’s just everybody’s style. Every GM will have his own style. It has to be a reflection of you. But something specifically where I was really adamant then I changed it. I do think you reflect and you evolve and you keep making changes.

The biggest thing that I still feel like we’re trying to get to greater success is the draft. You’re constantly looking at that, constantly, constantly, constantly. Why were we light on this person? I’d like to find out the black and white. Players that do “x” well we’re not going to consider them. And it doesn’t work that way but you’re always looking for some reason to either like a player or not like a player to eliminate, to make your evaluation better.

RG: It seems in the past 12 months that you’ve made fewer front-office personnel changes. Is that a sign that you’ve evolved to a situation where you’re comfortable with all the people who now surround you or is that just a perception that you haven’t announced the changes.

AA: No I think it’s that we finally have some stability and just like anything else each year we have more and more stability scouting-wise. We expanded the development staff. The first time you take over we needed some changes and then, over time, the people in positions of leadership wait a year and make some tweaks and changes. Now it’s three years in, we’re now to the point where we have some stability in the front office, on the field, player development, scouting. That should happen over time with a change in leadership. You always have some turnover but it has been significantly less each year.

RG: You obviously study the background of the people who work with you because Mark DeRosa said that Perry Minasian was a big part of his coming here. You also took Perry to Nashville for R.A. (Dickey). You’ve used other guys for their strengths. Is that something that you sort of evolve over time where you know more over time who they’re connected with?

AA: Yeah that’s a great point. You know it’s funny because you don’t get to work with all your employees all the time but sometimes you get small snapshots and you may come across and say “You know what? We may do better in this role.” Then all of a sudden rather than just make a change and let the employee go, because they have a lot of strengths all of a sudden you put someone in the right role . . . and then you think, wow, these guys are going to (make an) impact now that we do have them in the right role. So you realize just how much you value the employee when you have them in the right role.

RG: It’s not the Peter Principle it’s the Alex Principle.

AA: Well I don’t look at it that way. I think anyone would do that. I guess if you’re a bad employee you won’t be here.

RG: There are parallel positions in every organization and everyone likes to move up but if you move someone parallel and find a perfect spot for him then you’ve done a better job than just promoting.

AA: That’s true. And ultimately he’s reached his highest point. I understand the principle. I guess it’s that we try — everyone tries to treat their employees well. I can only think of one person, a new employee, (who worked only) a year here. Someone has a rough year they’ll be told by the director but we can at least give them a second year. Then after a second year you can finally make the decision, well OK, this isn’t going to work. But you’re right there are people who are talented that ultimately you just say they’re not in the right role but they have talent, they have ability. You may try to move them into a role and it still might not work but there are a few times that we’ve done it where all of a sudden they went from being average to, wow, I hope we don’t lose that employee which is great.

RG: I’m thinking of guys in your scouting like Andrew Tinnish and those guys where sometimes it looks like a parallel move and then it ends up being perfect for you and the organization.

AA: I think for Andrew I needed something specific. Perry and Tony (LaCava) don’t live in Toronto. They’re evaluators first and foremost. Their strength is evaluation. Obviously Tony’s got the development side, too. But I have them in Toronto. I have Jay Sartori who’s an administrator. He’s not going to go tell you he’s going to go be a scout and so on. I felt I needed somebody else that was in the office with me every day that combined both administrative abilities with evaluation abilities.

If we’re talking about a player internally I can call Tony or Perry up and say pull up your hard drive and pull up the video, but Andrew and I can be sitting in the office and I can tell Jay, hey, work up some arbitration or some salary components, but I can’t say, hey, go watch this swing. With Andrew I can go, hey, go break down the swing look at some of these things.

I’ll give you a great example. We had our meeting in spring training to go through the roster. There are some things statistically on our players that point to a certain thing and Joe Sheehy in our office can break down the numbers and Jay can certainly do that too, he’s very good at it. But then I want to correlate the video with it. Andrew, this guy’s groundball rate went up. This guy’s strikeout rate, this guy’s walk rate went up. He’ll pore through some video. Do you see something from a mechanical standpoint? Do you notice anything delivery-wise, that and that. It’s great to have somebody in the office. At the same time, Andrew, he’s done salary arbitration he can do statistics he can do the math. It’s an extension of me that combines both. Whereas Perry and Tony are more baseball only.

RG: Did you guys know already about Ricky Romero abandoning his sinker that Brandon Morrow pointed out to him.

AA: Yeah sure.

RG: So it wasn’t like these two got together and trumped you guys.

AA: No. There are a lot of things we pulled up. We noticed some delivery things. I can give you a great example. I remember there’s something we did a year ago. We were looking at Luis Perez. This was before last season. We started breaking down what Luis Perez was throwing. The right-handers just murdered him. It was over a .900 OPS. When you’re looking at Luis’s stuff he’s got a pretty good changeup. Good sinker, slider that can be good. We started saying OK who profiles like Luis Perez, what lefty? We started looking through and we start thinking about Marc Rzepczynski—sinkerball lefty like Luis. Not exactly the same but similar.

Then we started looking at the percentage of what he’s using. What’s he throwing to right-hand hitters. And Luis was fastball, slider, no changeups. So we’re looking up Marc Rzepczynski. The use of the changeup to a righty was so much greater. We tried to find some other parallels and it was like we might have something here. Luis’s not throwing his changeup nearly enough to keep right-handers honest, so we talked to Bruce Walton about it and to John about it. It made some sense. It was our spring training meeting we said to Luis “We noticed some things. We’re not saying this is going to be the panacea and this is all solved. But you know what? You’re out of options. Throw your changeup. Throw it a lot.” He started throwing his changeup a lot and he had some success. Every time I’d see him I’d say “Changeup, yeah. Changeup, yeah.” And he would smile. But again that’s not to say that’s going to work every time but that’s where we can continue to try to get an edge.

RG: One thing that you haven’t changed in four years is the practice of sitting down with every player coming into camp and talking to them about personal expectations and what you guys see where they will be. I mean that can be pretty blunt at times.

AA: Very.

RG: An example to me is this year Anthony Gose. He’s talking sometimes like he’s pissed off because he already knows he’s going to Buffalo. To you guys can you really treat everybody the same like that? There are some guys that come to camp and no matter how young and how hopeless the cause of making the major-league team is they think “I can compete I can do it” you know.

AA: Yeah.

RG: Do you take that hope away from them when you treat everybody the same. Because you do.

AA: You do but you don’t. I guess I’d say you give everybody the time of day, you spend the same time with everybody, but the delivery (of the message) may not be the same. It’s just like anything else. The facts are the same. The truth is coming out either way, the way it’s delivered might be totally different.

Someone might need something a little bit more direct and blunt. Someone might need to be stroked a little bit more to soften it. Any minor-league free agent that was signed we told them. One thing we want to make sure is let’s reiterate what we promised you and your agent in the off-season when you walked in this door is this what you were told because the last thing you want is someone to say I was lied to. It’s not what I was told. I signed here under this. If it changed for extenuating circumstances, a trade and so on, it changed. But you want to make sure everyone has been communicated and told. But for a guy like Anthonty Gose he knows. It’s one thing when you have your meeting I can sit there and say OK you’ve got a chance to win a starting job. Well we’ve got Melky Cabrera on a guaranteed contract. We’ve got Colby Rasmus making over $4 million and we’ve got Bautista in right field. And we’ve got Raj Davis on a guaranteed contract so I’m not going to lie to Anthony Gose. He’s a smart enough kid that he sees the obvious.

Now again our conversation with Anthony would be “Look you do what you’re capable of doing and you play like you’re capable of playing and we’re going to find a spot for you. We want to win.” The other thing that he knows if somebody gets hurt, somebody doesn’t perform well, things change fast. Yes right now if the season was to start today we have our commitments. But we have a new manager here who hasn’t seen you yet. You have a whole new staff that hasn’t seen you. Go out and have a great camp. You have a new hitting coach from the minor leagues as well. So there are people that haven’t seen you and things do change. Guys get hurt guys get traded. Guys don’t perform so you’re a phone call away. I think ultimately he knows that things have to happen for him to be on this team. It’s not a pure competition but he knew that going in anyway. I don’t think we’re telling him anything that he didn’t know. And it’s certainly not impacting his play. He’s playing great.

I heard an interview that he did in Toronto. He does acknowledge he has some things to work on which is nice to hear him say. He knows defensively he could play up here right now. Offensively he can survive. But can Anthony hit better vs. left-handers? Yes. Can he cut down his strikeout rate, work on his bunting? Yes. He can do all those things.

2. CHANGES IN ATTRACTING FREE AGENTS, AND TRADES

RG: Another change is that for years this franchise—at least from 1993 on—has always used the excuse that it’s tough to get free agents, it’s tough to get players to be happy coming to Toronto.

AA: I don’t think I’ve ever said it.

RG: No, no. And then you’ve showed up and worked at it a different way. You go to Nashville and convince R.A. Dickey. You make a difficult Marlins deal and all of a sudden these players you know there are some issues and you talk to them and now they’re all on board. Was it always this easy or do you really have to work at what you’re doing right now as a salesman for this franchise?

AA: I don’t think it’s easy. I’d love to tell you we as a front office are doing a great job and I don’t believe it. I don’t think we’re doing a bad job but I think ultimately everything you pointed to was this off-season. When you look at the Blue Jays in the past they had their pick of free agents just as long as they paid. They were a winning team. All of a sudden— I love the fact R.A. wanted to be here and so on — but I bet you if you asked R.A. a winning team was a huge part of it. The Marlins players are going from a team that’s not winning.

RG: Melky wouldn’t have signed here without that deal.

AA: Sure, no doubt about it. It’s all part of the appeal … The Marlins, if they didn’t choose us we chose them and ultimately they knew if they were leaving they’re all leaving together. They came from a team that finished in last and they’re talented guys so they’re leaving that team and at least we know we had talent. I’m not trying to not give ourselves credit but I’m trying to be objective, too. Winning, it’s unbelievable the things that it cures, but we haven’t won anything yet. Having talent and the belief you can win opens a lot of doors.

RG: Could you in your opinion have built the team that’s down in that clubhouse now if the Marlins deal had taken place later, say in January.

AA: We wouldn’t have done the trade with the Mets (back then) so I don’t know if R.A. would have still been available.

RG: So you needed to do the Marlins deal first.

AA: Absolutely. And it’s nothing against R.A. I just don’t know that we weren’t one R.A. away from what we felt being that contending team. We’d get significantly better no doubt about it but we’d still have a lot of holes and a lot of work to do. So it was definitely a domino effect. I think the fact that the Marlins deal was done early helped us for the off-season.

RG: Did you know when you pulled the trigger on the Marlins deal that you needed to do further additions to make this a contender for this year because with that deal you were still . . .

AA: I was still uneasy. We were better. We were better no doubt. I still was uneasy with the rotation and it wasn’t about adding a No. 3 starter a No. 4 starter. It wasn’t about adding just one more guy with innings. It was about being able to add someone that would slot everybody down a peg and obviously adding someone like R.A. up at the top and now all of a sudden the rotation looks so much more complete with him going right at the front of it. And again contractually he fit with the core salary-wise. So all those things fit in. We paid a steep price. It’s like we talk about just like in free agency. You don’t mind paying a little bit more if you feel like it’s the final piece. I’d say the same thing in a trade. You don’t mind paying a little bit more if you feel like it’s that one piece that’s going to push the aggregate sum over the top.

RG: If you had just made the Josh Johnson deal?

AA: Just for him by himself?

RG: Right. And sort of not been able to fill in all the other stuff and counted on young guys developing . . .

AA: I don’t know that we would have done that.

RG: OK.

AA: Because it had to be done . . . we had to go one or the other. We couldn’t be right in the middle. We needed to come away with two starters.

RG: But you wanted to make that Josh Johnson trade by itself. But that would have led to others you’re saying.

AA: Right, and the price if it was just Josh Johnson and the risk because of the fact it was just one player, one year, what we would have wanted to give up would have been significantly less. And maybe we don’t make the trade.

RG: Then this is the question I was leading to. Would you have chosen John Gibbons as your manager at that point?

AA: Yeah. I think at the end of the day.

RG: Even with a young team developing as opposed to . . .

AA: Yeah. It’s like the question I was always asked and I knew there was a lot of talk about we have a lot of Latin players so let’s get a Spanish-speaking manager. I understand the thought process. What I don’t agree with is the roster changes. You look at the changes we’ve had the last three or four years. When you look at a manager the thought is that the manager is part of management. Paul’s always said that as well. He’s part of the infrastructure that’s in place here. So players will come and go. The roster will change but you’re hoping the GM and manager will be in place for a long time. We may have a lot of Latin players today. Four months from now four of them might get traded or hurt or released. So if we had a Spanish-speaking manager is he out of a job because the roster’s changed.

RG: But hang on nobody’s saying to get a Spanish-speaking manager because he’s Latin, but Jerry Reinsdorf and Bud Selig want equal opportunities for minority candidates so it would have to be a Latin-American who was also a very good candidate.

AA: Sure I understand that. I guess there was a lot of media discussion that we needed someone because of the roster. I don’t know if you can select the manager strictly based on the roster because the roster can change over time. Building rebuilding young old a good manager is a good manager and I think Gibby has had both. He’s had the high-priced players he’s had the young teams he’s had the rebuilding teams he’s had the lower payroll he’s had years obviously where we’ve had higher payrolls. Now he’s done it before. He’s been on the bench (in Kansas City) and I think he’s the right fit.

3. CHANGES IN AMATEUR DRAFT AND FREE-AGENT RULES

RG: Now the changes in the system you’re in your fourth spring so you can compare with four years ago. Would you have been able to build this organization then like you have if it was under the current draft and international free-agent rules if they had been put in place as you took over.

AA: No because

RG: Do you think these rule changes were directed at creative teams like yourselves.

AA: I think what happened was you had some clubs that were finishing lower in the standings that would have some top five picks and they clearly needed the young talent back. And I think what the issue was all of a sudden the compensation picks and the sandwich round kept growing every year and it got to the point that you had almost 30 sandwich picks so it was like you were adding a round. So a club that would have had a Top 5 pick they’re second round pick which they need to rebuild is all of a sudden devalued because it’s become a third-round pick. Large market small market they have selections ahead of them which I understand.

RG: But you figured it out.

AA: A lot of clubs did. I think we were very...

RG: You had Olivo and then you let him go and you get a pick out of that. That’s crazy.

AA: It worked out.

RG: Of course it did.

AA: What am I going to say?

RG: But are some of the changes pushed by some other GMs that didn’t do that.

AA: No, I don’t believe that. I just think the draft is intended to help the clubs that finished lower in the standings and need those young players and I think that ultimately with the changes you had top-rated talent like Rick Porcello sliding to the 20-something pick or guys like Jered Weaver or Stephen Drew sliding to the 12th pick. Clearly they would have been selected higher. That’s why the changes were made and the compensation component is . . . again the compensation round started growing so much that those clubs – and again I understand it.

It’s fair but the big change for us is do we get an Adeiny Hechavarria. No. Now Adeiny Hechavarria’s price tag is significantly lower but we were able to outbid the other teams. Iglesias got $8.25 million (from the Red Sox) and we gave Hechavarria $10 million guaranteed— $4 million of that as a signing bonus. Now last year we had an international cap of $2.9M. Every other team had the same one so maybe Hechavarria’s bonus is maxed out at $2.9 but now all of a sudden you can’t separate yourself with money. Now it’s recruiting sales pitch whatever it might be. So I can’t guarantee you we’re going to get those players.

RG: That’s how you sort of beat the system.

AA: No what we did was we let Scott Downs go we cut our big league payroll and we put that money—to the credit of our ownership – we were not spending the money on the big-league roster. We traded our opening day starter two years in a row. We traded Marcum for a Double-A prospect. We clearly made our big-league team worse. We let Kevin Gregg leave after he had 37 saves and we had an option. We let Scott Downs go who was outstanding because he was a Type A. We let Rod Barajas go. We let Marco Scutaro go. These were all good big league players but the timing wasn’t going to fit for what we needed to do.

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When you look back at our drafts in three years we didn’t hit on every pick. So was it nice to have the extra picks? No doubt about it. Ultimately we didn’t capitalize like we could. We didn’t hit 1.000.

RG: Nobody does.

AA: Right no-one does but hopefully in theory we should be getting better. Our success rate should get better and though we made some good picks we also made some bad picks. I think our process has gotten better and we should have a better success rate and the worst thing is we have to have a greater success rate now because of the lack of extra picks but our second rounder now because of the changes is like having what would have been a sandwich pick. We picked up guys like Syndergaard, Sanchez, Nicolino, who was a second rounder so we don’t have as many but we still can get that type of talent around two and maybe in Round 3 if we evaluate correctly. So I’m still optimistic.

RG: But that’s the draft. International scouting you just look through your minor league directory and you see dozens of Venezuelans and Dominicans that were born in 1992 or later. Are these the young guys that are going to have to step up and make your farm system sort of bump it back up to where it was before you let go of all these guys.

AA: I’m hoping. I think some of them certainly will. I think some of the guys we took in the draft last year will. Even guys from past drafts that may have gotten off to a slow start. Jake Marisnick’s a great example. His first year when he got to Lansing at the end I think he hit .220 .230. The following year he had a full season and he hit .320 with 37 steals. Players can emerge at any time especially young players. I still think we have a lot of talent. One player emerged Sean Nolin wasn’t on the radar going into last year. He had a wonderful season and has now put himself into a great position. It takes years obviously for some of these draft picks to pan out but I do think the Latin American signings and again they’re not all going to pan out. They’re not names right now because they’re at the lower levels and progressively we got better because there was more time to move for the high school players.

RG: And you’re not going to be able to do that any more either sign all of those Latin players that you did over the past three years.

AA: No question. What was nice about Latin America before was you could just sign whatever money would permit. We had a certain amount of money available but certainly a lot more than we could spend now. You didn’t have to debate as much. You could just keep signing them. But the escalation in signing bonuses got to the point I mean that last year some guys were getting $5 million. We gave Adeiny he was older a $4-million bonus but prior to that I don’t think we gave anybody more than $2.8 which is still a lot of money. But what’s happening now because of the cap – we have the ability to go over but we choose not to – it’s basically like having one first round draft pick. We have to pick the (Latin) player we want hopefully make the right evaluation.

I could tell you this. You take a guy like Roberto Osuna. We liked him but we didn’t go into that season saying this is the one guy we need to have. This is the best player. We weren’t that good as an evaluation group. Now Tony LaCava deserves all the credit in the world because he liked him more than anybody else. But Osuna was signed late because we lost out on some other players. We had some money left over so let’s go sign him. He was a good prospect so let’s go sign him. We like him maybe not at $1.3 but I don’t think we expected him to be what he was. Tony still liked him more than anybody else and wanted to sign him but he wasn’t the top guy on our list. So there’s an element of luck there and now he’s become that much better than we thought. That’s where the old system was to our benefit. Now we would have had to earmark a guy like Osuna which we didn’t. Say he’s the guy and make sure we get the evaluation right. That’s the hard part about it.

4. CHANGES IN PAYROLL AND ROSTER

RG: Regarding changes in the roster, it seems to me that your $125-million is a better $125 million than some other teams because of the previous philosophy of not overspending until other parts are in place to compete.

AA: I think we’ll find out.

RG: You put a base in place that had value. There might have been a couple of extra pieces shy but you’re going for it right now. You guys are sort of rolling the dice but that’s a well-spent $125 million as a base. Do you agree with that?

AA: I have to. Definitely I told our ownership that. If you try to build a team through free-agency you’re going to have a hard time doing it because most times it’s more years and more money.

RG: For past performance.

AA: Yeah, and I think for us certainly a few of the players we acquired from the Marlins were free-agent contracts in Mark Buehrle and Jose Reyes. But those are the only two free-agent contracts on our books and they’re really good players. I think what we’re able to maintain in this was we don’t have any excessively long commitments in terms of term.

We have one player under contract starting the season with five years and that’s Reyes. And he’s 29. He’s not a 32- or 33-year-old. And again once the season’s over, everyone else is either a two-year or a three-year commitment guaranteed with an option for a third or a fourth. So we have obviously the hope that it’s a good $125 million, that we have a successful season. not only for one season but for a few seasons going forward. But, look, you always have to prepare for the downside as well. If things don’t work out for whatever reason we haven’t crippled the franchise in any way with a bunch of long-term commitments. We don’t have any no-trade contracts on the team. So there is flexibility from that standpoint should things not go the way we hope they go. And we don’t have any seven- or eight-year commitments where we’re going to have an albatross contract where we’re stuck again.

Anything could change and, sure, we have one contract for five years, but I do think if things go well we’re in a position to keep that going. If things don’t go well we’re still in a position to manoeuvre and make changes and make moves with what I believe are some very good young players.

RG: At the trade deadline last year you acquired two strong-armed power relievers. But at the same time Jose Bautista found out he couldn’t swing the bat (because of an arm injury) and was headed home. All of a sudden, not because of moves at the trade deadline, but for other reasons the season started going downhill. Bautista’s not there. Yunel Escobar does his dumb thing, Omar Vizquel critiques the clubhouse, the manager’s going to Boston, you win 73 games. So, all that combined, how much did that affect you wanting to turn things around and say “We can’t do this another year. Let’s win now.”

AA: Not that you ignore the last two months but for four of the six months with three-fifths of our rotation on the DL we were still within two games of a wild-card spot. You could say it’s luck or whatever it might be but going into the season we felt we had the makings of a pretty good team, that had a chance to contend. I talked about it in the spring, we all did. I felt we had that type of talent. I think over the season even with the injuries for four months we were keeping our heads above water. To be two games out for a wild-card spot with two months to go at the deadline I think was an indication that the talent was there. Absolutely. Again, Jose gets hurt mid-to-late July. I think in August two of nine opening-day position players were playing. So seven were out. The three starters were out and we had two relievers, Luis Perez and Jason Frasor, out as well. So again, not to say we should not have performed the way we did the last two months, of course not. A million things went wrong but I don’t know that the last two months were the barometer we were going to base our off-season on. We felt we were closer to contending than to not contending. The question was we felt we had a pretty good team to start the year and then we had an opportunity. You don’t want to be in the middle. So you can either rebuild, trade everybody away, or try to push forward and get better. And if you look at all the injuries and even with a lot of poor performances we were still contending. Now we have a chance to add three or four players from the Marlins that were going to make us even that much better. And really not take that much away from the big-league roster. Absolutely, we traded some young players away, but from our big-league roster we traded Yunel Escobar, we traded (Henderson) Alvarez. We were adding players from the Marlins, getting our returning players (from injury), and to me we felt we were that much closer to contention and we still kept some really good prospects.

RG: Was the big difference this winter from last winter what we talked about last spring where teams are looking for prospects that are closer in development time to the major leagues and last year these same guys were an extra year away?

AA: No question their value went up. Because they were closer and they had performed. Nicolino had been asked for about a year ago, but he was coming off a season in Vancouver and he had pitched for Lansing in the playoffs. Syndergaard and Sanchez, the same thing. They had just touched Lansing but they had pretty much pitched in short-season A-ball. So, yeah, they had value but now all of a sudden, and all of a sudden Jake Marisnick is further along, he’s no longer in the A-Midwest League. Everybody’s value went up. It’s exactly what we talked about.

5. CHANGES WITH NEW FEELING IN FARM SYSTEM

RG: Just one more question — and again you’ll have to pat yourself on the back . . .

AA: See I don’t want to do that. If it’s a year from now and we win I’ll say, yeah, you’re right we won.

RG: Does it seem to you that this farm system is populated by franchises that want to be part of the Blue Jays organization, like Buffalo. You sell yourself to Buffalo and Buffalo is loving it. Canadians are loving it that Vancouver has won two championships in a row. For all the rebuilding of the players in the farm system, you’ve also rebuilt the feeling in the farm system. Do you take credit for that or how did that come about?

AA: Our development staff obviously does a great job but the one person I think that does an unbelievable job and deserves to be singled out in terms of relationships with the farm system is Charlie Wilson. He has unbelievable ability to relate. He’s so accommodating. He’s attentive. He’s there all the time. I think Charlie’s invaluable in that sense. I don’t ever think you can replace a Charlie Wilson because of his ability to work with the franchises and work with the ownerships. He has a gift. He cares. He’s been with the organization a long time. One thing that struck me, I remember two years ago I guess our contract with Las Vegas was up. We were opening talks with other clubs. Oklahoma City was open so we talked to Oklahoma City. I remember me and Paul meeting with their group. Again, Oklahoma City was a great franchise affiliation. Geographically it wasn’t ideal but better. I remember them telling me at the time—and this is (an ownership) group that had other affiliates at the time—that in their minds two of the best organizations to be partnered with were the Minnesota Twins and Tampa Bay Rays. I remember telling them at the time and telling Paul at the time that I wanted to get to the point where we’re part of that discussion that when people talk about who are the best partners in the minor leagues one of the best organizations to work with is Toronto. I’m hoping that two or three or five years from now when some other organization is talking to another affiliate they go “You know we’ve been told that the best organizations to work with are Minnesota, Tampa and Toronto.” I want to join that group. I think that struck me.

You want to be a person of your word. I put a lot of pressure . . . when we got to Vancouver I told Doug (Davis) and Charlie we have to win there. And New Hampshire, we have to win there. We won the championship but last year we had a down year. We’re motivated to be good again. They’re a great partner, great affiliation and obviously with our new extension there I don’t want to be one of those guys that talks the talk and make some false promises like some politician that runs in there, then all of a sudden you don’t fulfil it.

RG: Was Charlie the driving force behind you guys going to virtually every press conference they had in Buffalo, that sort of thing?

AA: No Charlie was going to go regardless. I think that Paul rubs off on me with that stuff. I think Paul didn’t tell me you have to go here, you have to go there. For example, Paul was going to dinner in Vancouver, flying there for the day to go do an event because they asked him to. Paul obviously came to Buffalo. Paul’s always done things that way. I know Paul and Pat (Gillick) would fly places. It’s not like he says you have to do this, but it rubs off on you. Obviously, he’s got great relationships. He’s so well respected. It would be stupid to not try to follow his lead and do those things. To me, John Gibbons was named manager, they’re unveiling their new uniforms. I said you know what would be great. Why don’t we just jump in the car and let’s just show up there. No one told us, but that would be great. It’s very important to me as an organization. When we say something I want to follow up.

ESSAY: REYES BRINGS HIS OWN BRAND OF EMOTION, FOCUS

Witnessing the Dominican Republic romp to the WBC tournament championship, winning all eight games, one couldn’t help but be caught up in the infectious joy of the players from this island nation, especially leadoff man and shortstop Jose Reyes. This week, Reyes led the four-man Jays contingent of victorious Dominicans back to Dunedin. He brings a different style but similar intensity to the room than the acknowledged clubhouse leader, Jose Bautista. There’s room for both.

“That’s something that’s not new for me,” Reyes said of his talent shining through an ever-present and contagious smile. “I’ve been like that since I was born. Minor leagues, through my career in the big leagues, I’m the guy who likes to have fun on the field, try to enjoy the game the most that I can, but at the same time we have a thing to do seriously on the field and it’s winning.

“I love to win. I love people to be behind me with a lot of energy, so that’s me. If you see me serious on the field you know people are going to say “Oh, what happened with Reyes?” So I just try to be me and enjoy the game the most that I can. Just the chemistry, the way it developed there on that (Dominican) team, hopefully we can do the same thing with the whole group of guys that we have here in the Toronto Blue Jays clubhouse. ”

Team Dominican had mixed success in past WBCs, but under the leadership of first-time GM Moises Alou the players believed nothing short of a championship would be satisfactory. The top of the batting order, including Reyes, Yankees second baseman Robinson Cano and Jays first baseman Edwin Encarnacion, combined with an airtight bullpen headed by Rays closer Fernando Rodney, led the way.

“That’s something that doesn’t happen every day or every year,” Reyes said of the players’ sense of pride and accomplishment in the win. “We are the champions and to bring that big trophy to the Dominican is something special. It means a lot. They were hungry, waiting for this moment to happen.”

The celebration after Reyes and his mates beat Puerto Rico in the championship game reflected the joy the Dominicans had played with for all three rounds and eight consecutive wins.

“That’s the way it is, that’s Dominican baseball,” Reyes said. “If you go and see Dominican winter leagues it’s the same thing everybody does. Like I said, the WBC they give you a little extra there . . . and we feed off the fans. The energy in the ballpark, that’s why we’ve been that way. It’s win or go home. So we have to be excited about it.

“It’s no doubt that’s a winning attitude. It’s no matter where you play, you can play even Little League, when you’re winning that’s going to come to your mind. Hopefully you can have everybody behind you with the same passion, too. I’m the guy who’s going to be happy, try to enjoy the game, with a lot of energy around my team and hopefully they can be excited like me.”

The Dominican enthusiasm was across the board. Even the usually placid, cool Encarnacion was fist-pumping and smiling broadly when he delivered a big hit like the two-run double that broke open the championship game in the first inning against Puerto Rico.

“We have the Dominican energy here in the clubhouse with Toronto,” Encarnacion said. “We’re going to try to bring the same energy to Canada, to Toronto, and it’s going to be a very exciting year for us. For me it was if I do it here in the WBC I think I can do it anywhere. That was a very exciting moment. It was very, very good for me, for my teammates and for the Dominican people.”

The top four hitters in the Jays batting order are Dominican including Reyes, Encarnacion, Bautista and Melky Cabrera. In addition are second baseman Emilio Bonifacio and reliever Esmil Rogers. Encarnacion spoke of returning to Dunedin and a team with a familiar Latin beat.

“Anybody would want to have those top four hitters,” Encarnacion said of the Jays’ lead quartet. “We’re very excited to be together on the same team. I think everybody in the Dominican is very excited about the Toronto Blue Jays. There are a lot of Latin-Dominican guys on the team and everybody’s going to follow us. I never thought I would be that excited. For me it is the biggest experience I have had in baseball, this is No. 1.”

THE LIST: BLUE JAYS KINGS OF THE WAIVER CLAIM

Since the end of the 2012 season the Blue Jays have claimed 15 players on waivers, an unusually high total. Seven of those players remain in the organization.

PlayerTeamDate

Scott CousinsMarlins10/17

Cory WadeYankees10/17

Tyson BrummettPhillies10/18

Bobby WilsonAngels10/22

David HerndonPhillies10.23

Chad BeckPirates10/25

Scott MaineIndians10/31

Eli WhitesideYankees12/03

Mickey StoreyAstros12/19

Russ CanzlerIndians12/21

Chad Beck Pirates01/04

Tommy HottovyRangers01/10

Lars AndersonWhite Sox02/25

Gui’rmo MoscosoRoyals03/16

Todd RedmondOrioles03/22

ON THE ROAD AGAIN

In hindsight, you know spring training has become too long when the highlight of the final week is a Clearwater police dog hostage rescue and the takedown of a heartless owner.

Sitting near the front window of my favourite Florida restaurant, just off of Highway 19 hard by a trailer park and Enterprise car rental, a police car swung into the parking lot and pulled up behind an Audi, causing much curiosity from behind the looking glass. Apparently someone had left a four-month-old puppy in the back seat of the car on a warm humid Sunday afternoon.

There wasn’t much of a choice as to where the owner of the car was. It was either the restaurant, the laundromat or the movie cafe. A second — and then a third — police car turned into the lot as they trolled the strip mall looking for the owner/culprit.

Finally the first officer smashed the window on the driver’s side, freeing the grateful puppy whose tail was wagging furiously as it was lifted from the car. Free at last. Patrons and managers went out in waves to see what the fuss was all about as the police played with the small brown dog, taking it for frequent walks on the thin patch of grass between sidewalk and parking lot.

Finally, the owner and his girlfriend emerged from the movie house. The owner was greeted by one of the policemen, escorted to the car and eventually cuffed and taken away in a paddy wagon to much applause from the dog-lovers in the room, while his girlfriend drove the windowless Audi home. The dog was taken in the back of a squad car, hopefully to a better home.

Clearly this has been a long spring.

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