Architect of the 2015 AL East champions, Alex Anthopoulos is not exactly persona non grata around the Blue Jays’ organization, but ever since the angst-ridden GM turned down the opportunity to continue his duties under incoming president Mark Shapiro, the new front office has failed to even utter his name publicly, preferring to give credit for the playoff-ready Jays they were handed to his main assistant Tony LaCava and others that remained in the organization. Anthopoulos, looking fit and well rested, spoke to Toronto media prior to Friday’s game against his new club, the Dodgers.

Unlike many ingenuous public figures that leave a situation and blithely suggest they never look back, that you have to be forging ahead, the 38-year-old Montrealer has clearly done plenty of introspection in the six months since he left the Jays, becoming a vice-president with the Dodgers.

“In these jobs, you look back all the time, you’re evaluating all the time,” Anthopoulos said in a starkly bare but familiar media room from which he had made numerous trade announcements through the years. “As time has gone, I look back and think what if we had gotten Ben Zobrist (from the A’s). That would have been the first deal (at the deadline). Kansas City, if they don’t have him . . .

“That would have been the first deal. It may have influenced some other deals. We may not have had the players to make some of the other deals. I felt like at one point we had gotten close, but we weren’t willing to give up an extra player or two to get it done. That’s probably the one I’ve thought about the most and what if we had done it. You get to Game 7 in Kansas City, who the heck knows what happens. I haven’t dwelled on it all that much, but that’s probably the one I’ve thought about.”

Anthopoulos was given an opportunity to vent regarding the Jays’ payroll restrictions under which he was forced to operate, compared to the free-spending Dodgers for whom he now toils with former Rays GM Andrew Friedman and two other executives who have been GMs on their own. Even six months removed, he wouldn’t rise to the bait, continuing to insist decisions were his alone.

“I know a lot was made of the ownership here,” he said. “When I was in the job — nobody probably believed me but I think people would believe me now — when it came to ownership, from a baseball standpoint, you made the recommendations and you got the support. Ownership never told you you can’t do so many years on a contract, you can’t structure a contract a certain way.

“Certainly there’s a payroll you need to deal with. But my experiences were always, if it fits within the payroll that you have, you have the ability to do what you feel is best for the organization. So, any time that there was some talk about ownership not allowing us to do this or not want to do that, that never happened. There may have been scenarios where financially we were at our number. That was the extent of where ownership would be. But you had your number and you worked with it.”

Anthopoulos, after six seasons in the Jays’ GM seat, insisted he was always learning the best way to go about his business. One of the secrets he picked up the hard way was that instead of spending all of his payroll money in the off-season, he should save some for the trade deadline. He didn’t do that in 2014, but did do last year when he was able to add David Price, resulting in a playoff berth.

“In 2014, I felt we had a team that could have made the playoffs,” Anthopoulos said. “The unfortunate part is we just weren’t able to get anything done at the trade deadline. The following year, (we were) able to learn from some past experiences to be prepared for the trade deadline and be able to make moves and things like that. The thought is we were going to be able, (for) three years in a row and beyond, to be able to get to the playoffs and hopefully win the World Series.”

That’s the legacy he left for the new regime. He still can see it. Anthopoulos has, in fact, never left the city. He flies to L.A. for meetings and the Dodger’s home games and he spent much of spring training in Arizona, but his two children are in school in Toronto and he spends time at home with them waiting until they finish the year before he moves family to SoCal. As a low-key resident of the GTA, he is able to appreciate the new sense of baseball pride of which he played a major part.

“Even (Thursday) night, I went to dinner with (Dodgers manager) Dave Roberts and Andrew (Friedman). We were driving and they were saying what a great place, what a great city. People (in the game) started to see that a little bit. People talked about the crowds, the intensity, all that kind of stuff. You see what the Raptors are doing. It’s an unbelievable place.”

Anthopoulos still roots for the Jays. His dream is of a Dodgers vs. Blue Jays World Series. He wants nothing but success for his old organization — except, needless to say, this weekend.

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