At next week’s winter meetings in Nashville, when Blue Jays general manager Alex Anthopoulos meets with other GMs in his hotel suite, he will ask that they come alone or only with one other person.

Some baseball executives travel with large entourages, like trade missions, negotiating in groups of 10 or 20.

But Anthopoulos prefers much smaller meetings. One-on-one is best.

“At that point people are a little more open,” he says. “Less guarded.”

It’s also easier to control information and protect against leaks, something for which Anthopoulos has built a reputation in his three years at the Jays helm.

“Alex runs a very good cone of silence, shall we say,” says Joe Longo, an agent to several big-league players, including Jays reliever Sergio Santos.

“He’s probably the most compulsive of any GM,” adds Matt Sosnick, another agent.

After a slew of aggressive moves early in the off-season — all of which went undetected until complete — Anthopoulos heads into his fourth winter meetings with the attention of every executive in the game.

While most teams have yet to make their big play, the Jays roster is mostly set and Anthopoulos has hinted he is more likely to be tinkering from here on in.

But those who follow the team have come to expect the unexpected from the cagey 35-year-old, and with a 50 per cent payroll increase signalling the Jays’ commitment to contend now, many baseball watchers are wondering if Anthopoulos has one more stealthy splash up his sleeve.

Known within the industry for being meticulous and hands-on, Anthopoulos is lauded by fans at home as the “ninja” for his sly manoeuvres.

The nickname was rekindled earlier this month following the Jays’ blockbuster 12-player trade with the Miami Marlins.

Though it would seem the ultimate compliment for a man who likes to keep things quiet, Anthopoulos himself isn’t particularly comfortable with the moniker.

“I don’t like to draw attention to myself at all,” he says, adding he tries to ignore both the tributes and the insults. “I understand when you don’t do things well your nickname will be ‘moron’ or ‘idiot.’”

But he has probably contributed to his own christening with his oft-repeated mantra on rumours: “If you hear about us involved in a deal before it’s done, it’s probably not true.”

That said, the nickname is built on more than just fan-boy fantasy.

“He does have a reputation for keeping information confidential,” says Jeff Luhnow, the Houston Astros GM, with whom Anthopoulos partnered to make a much-less-splashy 10-player trade in July, also without a sniff of rumour.

“For us to be able to pull off that deal and essentially have the press release from the organizations be where people find out about it, that’s highly unusual and I think it speaks to how Alex is controlling the information flow.”

Luhnow says most GMs aspire to that level of silence, but it’s not easy to achieve.

“It makes other teams more likely to want to trade — or have discussions at least — with Toronto, knowing that the information is not going to get out.”

Anthopoulos says he goes to great lengths to limit leaks for a multitude of reasons: to eliminate distractions for players, engender trust with fellow GMs, even to treat the media fairly.

But he stopped short of calling it a competitive advantage.

“If it was a clear competitive advantage everybody would do it,” he said. “It’s what works for me and what works for my personality.”

He also said that when he was assistant GM under J.P. Ricciardi he saw multiple deals go bad when word leaked out.

Anthopoulos refuses to specify the deals, but the most obvious example is the reported trade the Jays had with the San Francisco Giants in 2007 to exchange Alex Rios for Tim Lincecum.

Lincecum, who had just pitched his first big-league season, went on to win back-to-back Cy Youngs in 2008 and 2009.

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

“I understand at times it could be frustrating for fans that information isn’t out there,” Anthopoulos says. “But I also know that if I asked every single fan if they felt I had a better chance to make a trade that I thought would help us by being quiet, and I had a worse chance of making the trade if I was transparent and told everybody what our conversations were, I can guarantee what everybody would say: ‘Do whatever you need to do to make the trade to help the team and if you have to be quiet we’ll live with it as long as the product is a good product.’”

Sosnick, whose agency roster includes Josh Johnson, one of the starting pitchers the Jays acquired in the Marlins deal, said Anthopoulos is the most underrated GM in baseball and confidentiality is always a priority when working with him.

“Some GMs will say, ‘It’s important to me that this is done sort of quietly.’ He’ll basically say, ‘I have an expectation that is, this deal is going to get done, it’s going to get done quietly and I’m not going to have this getting out.’”

Anthopoulos insists he would never nix a deal if he found out the other side leaked something. “It happens,” he said, “It’s the nature of the business.”

But he minimizes the risk of leaks by limiting those involved in a deal.

“I think one of the things with Alex is that he does a lot of the deals himself,” says Longo. “There are other organizations where the GM has the assistant GM do it, or he has a group of people he consults and the more people you talk to about it, the more chances there are for a leak.”

Sosnick, who called Anthopoulos “very anal about stuff,” says it’s all part of his compulsive nature.

“He makes an unlimited amount of phone calls on any player who’s out there. He investigates every single possibility. When there’s a minor-league free agent that he wants, he’ll make a call on it himself, which is unheard of. He’s in the middle of everything. When it comes to turning over stones, he’s an animal. I bet he makes 20 calls to one, compared to some other GMs. He’s merciless.”

Alex Anthopoulos’ winter moves

DECEMBER 2009

Alex Anthopoulos’s first major trade came shortly after the 2009 winter meetings when he dealt his best player, Roy Halladay, to the Philadelphia Phillies for a trio of prospects: catcher Travis d’Arnaud, pitcher Kyle Drabek and outfielder Michael Taylor, who was eventually used to acquire Anthony Gose. Later that same month, Anthopoulos sent reliever Brandon League and a minor-leaguer to Seattle for Brandon Morrow, who was transitioned into a front line starter.

DECEMBER 2010

On the first day of the 2010 winter meetings, Anthopoulos traded his Opening Day starter, Shaun Marcum, to the Milwaukee Brewers for Canadian prospect Brett Lawrie, who played his first full season last year and figures to be a franchise cornerstone.

DECEMBER 2011

On Dec. 7 last year, Anthopoulos traded pitching prospect Nestor Molina to the Chicago White Sox for highly touted closer Sergio Santos, who suffered a shoulder injury in April and missed the rest of the season. He is scheduled to be ready for spring training.

JANUARY 2011

Anthopoulos accomplished what many thought impossible: he traded Vernon Wells and the $86 million owed on his contract through 2014. The Jays dealt Wells to the Anaheim Angels for Mike Napoli and Juan Rivera. Napoli was then flipped to the Rangers for Frank Francisco. Though the second half of the deal mars the trade somewhat, baseball executives still marvel how Anthopoulos was able to shed what many believe to be the worst contract in baseball.

Read more about: