Shapiro: Blue Jays Couldn't Afford to Re-Sign David Price

[Natural11]

Toronto Blue Jays president/CEO Mark Shapiro was blunt when discussing the team's decision not to re-sign David Price this offseason.

"Every team has a budget," Shapiro told MLB Network Radio. "Every team has operating parameters. I don't know why it's not fashionable to just say the truth. David Price would've represented almost our entire offseason. It's that simple, Jim.

"Almost no one would make that decision. ... To me, it comes down to we had a very, very, very challenging pitching dilemma here in that we lost him, we lost [Marco] Estrada. We had zero Triple-A pitchers -- not one, not a name to fill our rotation in Triple-A. We had to take the money, which was ample, and figure out how to both solve the Major League rotation, which was two spots in the rotation, along with solving a depth challenge. ... Regardless of how great one pitcher is, you need to build a team around the guy, too."

Price signed a seven-year, $217 million deal with the Boston Red Sox.

Not exactly breaking news, but it's refreshing to hear the honesty.

[Randle McMurphy]

It wasn't that they couldn't afford him, it was that they didn't want to utilize their budget in that way when they had absolutely no major league starting pitching depth in the organization. Same thing they've been alluding to all offseason.

[Santoki]

Friends I've spoken to believe that AA would have kept Price - convinced him to take less money.

He's right. There's no point in trying to win the media award in November. It doesn't save you come April.

[dballislife]

owners didnt want to fork up dough and go for it, we understand, if they did imo we're world series favorites

[The_Hater]

Friends I've spoken to believe that AA would have kept Price - convinced him to take less money.

Seriously? How many tens of millions do they figure Price would have left on the table for his best friend of 3 months, Alex Anthopoulous?

[The Duke]

Friends I've spoken to believe that AA would have kept Price - convinced him to take less money.

Seriously? How many tens of millions do they figure Price would have left on the table for his best friend of 3 months, Alex Anthopoulous?

Yes, I completely disagree with that line of thinking.

Based on what Shapiro had to work with (not work with) ... I feel the right decision was made to not retain Price at that price tag

[-MetA4-]

Seriously? How many tens of millions do they figure Price would have left on the table for his best friend of 3 months, Alex Anthopoulous?

Yup. After months of heavy speculation that his preferred landing spots were LAD/Cubs, he took the biggest offer on the table...to go to a city that he/his wife had complained about in the past during his Tampa Bay years.

[Santoki]

Friends I've spoken to believe that AA would have kept Price - convinced him to take less money.

Seriously? How many tens of millions do they figure Price would have left on the table for his best friend of 3 months, Alex Anthopoulous?

Unfortunately, I have friends that totally ate up everything the media fed them this offseason. I've never seen the Jays media spew out as much nonsense as they have since Shapiro arrived. You have guys like Griffin and Simmons and anyone not Rogers related coming up with garbage, clickbait articles. On the other side you have the biased reporting of Rogers employees. It's a really crappy dynamic that's ongoing and some people get caught up in it emotionally - especially after the kind of season we had.

There are tons of fans out there that don't understand and don't want to understand the relationship between owner and management. Many of them truly believe that Shapiro has asked or told Rogers he can do it on half the budget and is the one responsible for all payroll decisions.

These aren't the brightest baseball minds in the world, but you have to remember that the average fan isn't on an Internet forum contributing weekly. They throw on parts of maybe 1/3rd of all games, go to a couple a year, and read an article a week. They essentially just regurgitate whatever they are told. And what they've been told overwhelmingly by the media this offseason is that everything bad that has happened is because AA is gone and Shapiro is running the Toronto Indians.