Of course Alex Anthopoulos was going to land somewhere. He enjoyed his time off, actually; it felt like awakening from a deep, immersive dream. He could take his daughter to school and his son to daycare and he was there when she came home. He could stroll to the store. He could wake up and not have to head to the office, and the baseball gears that never stopped turning in his head slowed down. Alex Anthopoulos, after leaving the Toronto Blue Jays, got to be a normal person for a while, as local martyrs go.

But he was always getting back into baseball. There were media offers, and he thought about it: shorter hours, a decent salary, he could stay in Toronto. He always wanted to stay. He just couldn’t stay in baseball here, and that’s who he is.

Related: Alex Anthopoulos hired by L.A. Dodgers

So Tuesday, it was made official: the 38-year-old Anthopoulos is joining the long, crowded table in the Los Angeles Dodgers’ front office, headed by his friend Andrew Friedman. It includes fellow Canadian Farhan Zaidi, the general manager, and senior vice-president of baseball operations Josh Byrnes. Anthopoulos will be called a vice-president of baseball operations, but has been told he’ll be in the room for everything.

Oh, and ex-GM Ned Colletti is still hanging around as a senior advisor. You can’t swing a bat without hitting an ex-GM there. It must be good business, producing nameplates and business cards in the greater Los Angeles area.

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“For me, the people you work with are the most important thing,” said Anthopoulos on a conference call. “The people that work here were the main draw.”

Now, some people are going to jump on this, because Jays president Mark Shapiro and new GM Ross Atkins landed with a thud in Toronto before some recent improvements, and Shapiro is the reason Anthopoulos walked away. Somebody will make too much of this, and probably already has.

But with Anthopoulos, there’s not usually much palace intrigue. When the Montreal native walked away from the Jays after his near-dream season, he knew he wasn’t going to be a general manager this year. He could have taken the five-year offer that Rogers, in a panic, pushed across the table after he told them he was leaving. It was, strangely, the first time they’d heard.

That was never going to happen, though. The minute Rogers hired Shapiro as the team’s president, concluding a near year-long bumbling backstabbing journey to replace Paul Beeston, it wasn’t a fit. This is. As Anthopoulos put it in another phone call, he has been told it’s a really meaningful role. When you’re working for the Dodgers, with their colossal payroll and skyscraping ambition, there’s not a trade, a signing, or a move that you couldn’t theoretically be involved in. They need all the brains they can get.

“They’re great human beings, and it’s a good dynamic, and I think I’m going to get better and I’m going to learn from it, too,” said Anthopoulos, who had another offer from another team on the table. “And I’ll bring something to it, too.”

Anthopoulos leaving was a seismic departure, and it’s still a shame. The run was intoxicating — emotionally, the bat flip was the highest point in Toronto sports since Joe Carter. And frankly, it was close. It was a preposterous, rollicking good time. And based on conversations towards the end of the season, Anthopoulos had big plans, and big targets. There were trade targets already laid down. His ambition hadn’t waned.

It’s an alternate reality, and for a while Jays fans could wallow in that. What would Alex have done, had he stayed?

Well, that’s over. Anthopoulos will move his family to Los Angeles in time for the school year; he will keep his house here. His wife Cristina is on board. There were teams who asked if he was going to fly off for a GM job after a year. That’s not how he thinks.

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“I don’t want to jump around,” said Anthopoulos. “I’m not someone who does that. I commit to somewhere, and I give everything I have, and I’m immersed in whatever I do . . . I would be thrilled if this is where I spent the next 20 years of my career.”

To say he prefers the end of the table in L.A. to the second seat in Toronto isn’t quite accurate, though. It was no to one, then yes to the other. If Anthopoulos had been offered the same job to be here, with the same authority, he would be here, 100 per cent. But Rogers didn’t know what they had, and screwed it up. It happened, it’s over, and the Drew Storen trade looks like it’s not a bad move. The Jays should have a chance to contend in 2016. It’s everything after that — or the decisions to be made if they falter before the trade deadline — that you can worry about.

But now there is no comparing the Dodgers to the Jays, no shadow GM, no fantasy baseball. Anthopoulos would have been great if he had stayed here, hands on the wheel. But he’s gone, and he doesn’t regret what he’s done, and good luck to him. It’s time to let him go.

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