Is AA Toronto's best GM right now?

[Kevin Willis]

Even though some of his trades are open to debate, he has a clear plan and is sticking to it. He wants to stock up on superstar talent in the hopes some pan out. He has direction. He's going back to S. America and he's providing optimism.

Is he now better than both Burke and Colangelo. Both who don't believe in a complete rebuild but in a retool?

Thoughts?

[Relentless88]

I think so. BC isn't about rebuilding, but about building mediocre teams and giving its fans false hope. AA is more patient, and has a plan (even though it's long), but he's building a contender the right way. I also like the direction the Leafs are headed.

[BasketballAbyss]

He's definitely the more patient GM, that's for sure. He also has the tougher job. I think it's a lot harder to rebuild in baseball due to the randomness of draft picks. I'd assume there are a lot more busts in baseball than any other sport. The fact that there isn't a salary cap structure in place makes things even harder.

[Mike Hunt]

I think the argument can be made but rather than being on his merits, it's on the poor performance of his fellow GMs.

Bryan Colangelo's team got too good too fast and his evaluation of his own players suffered as a result of it. He's shown a willingness to deal a lot which I believe is to be commended, but he seems to have lost the midas touch. I think he's on multiple occasions disregarded "down years" by aging players as anomalies which cost him. He also repeated the mistakes of his predecessors in believing he even had a shot at re-signing his star.

Brian Burke was the first GM to get into the Leafs front office and be given the OK to lose as much as necessary. The thinking was that the team needed a major overhaul and needed a few elite prospects (preferably acquired via the draft) to work from. At the end of his first season, he acquired a desperate goalie who was only playing for a contract who pushed the Leafs away from the top of the draft. He then proceeded to trade 2 potentially (likely) very high draft picks and a pretty high one as well for a player who is very good, but not a superstar. No move has ever irked me more than the Kessel deal. Burke's done some pretty good things since but ultimately, it'd be hard to argue that the Leafs are any closer today to being cup contenders someday than they werre when Burke arrived. If they had a Tyler Seguin, I think optimism might be higher.

AA has made 2 trades. One that's considered low risk, high reward with Escobar. The other was trading a pretty good (not great) prospect for a decent one. Unless projections on Wallace end up being very wrong (he's not just a middle of the pack 1st basemen), the move doesn't seem like a franchise killer. So trade wise, I think he's coming out close to even. In terms of the draft, most believe it was a good one, and despite not being an expert, I want to agree. Going back into the south american market aggressively is also a big positive.

[Griff83]

I think the argument can be made but rather than being on his merits, it's on the poor performance of his fellow GMs.

Bryan Colangelo's team got too good too fast and his evaluation of his own players suffered as a result of it. He's shown a willingness to deal a lot which I believe is to be commended, but he seems to have lost the midas touch. I think he's on multiple occasions disregarded "down years" by aging players as anomalies which cost him. He also repeated the mistakes of his predecessors in believing he even had a shot at re-signing his star.

Brian Burke was the first GM to get into the Leafs front office and be given the OK to lose as much as necessary. The thinking was that the team needed a major overhaul and needed a few elite prospects (preferably acquired via the draft) to work from. At the end of his first season, he acquired a desperate goalie who was only playing for a contract who pushed the Leafs away from the top of the draft. He then proceeded to trade 2 potentially (likely) very high draft picks and a pretty high one as well for a player who is very good, but not a superstar. No move has ever irked me more than the Kessel deal. Burke's done some pretty good things since but ultimately, it'd be hard to argue that the Leafs are any closer today to being cup contenders someday than they werre when Burke arrived. If they had a Tyler Seguin, I think optimism might be higher.

AA has made 2 trades. One that's considered low risk, high reward with Escobar. The other was trading a pretty good (not great) prospect for a decent one. Unless projections on Wallace end up being very wrong (he's not just a middle of the pack 1st basemen), the move doesn't seem like a franchise killer. So trade wise, I think he's coming out close to even. In terms of the draft, most believe it was a good one, and despite not being an expert, I want to agree. Going back into the south american market aggressively is also a big positive.

He's actually made 3 trades.

League for Morrow was a absolute gem.

[righteous015]

I think the argument can be made but rather than being on his merits, it's on the poor performance of his fellow GMs.

Bryan Colangelo's team got too good too fast and his evaluation of his own players suffered as a result of it. He's shown a willingness to deal a lot which I believe is to be commended, but he seems to have lost the midas touch. I think he's on multiple occasions disregarded "down years" by aging players as anomalies which cost him. He also repeated the mistakes of his predecessors in believing he even had a shot at re-signing his star.

Brian Burke was the first GM to get into the Leafs front office and be given the OK to lose as much as necessary. The thinking was that the team needed a major overhaul and needed a few elite prospects (preferably acquired via the draft) to work from. At the end of his first season, he acquired a desperate goalie who was only playing for a contract who pushed the Leafs away from the top of the draft. He then proceeded to trade 2 potentially (likely) very high draft picks and a pretty high one as well for a player who is very good, but not a superstar. No move has ever irked me more than the Kessel deal. Burke's done some pretty good things since but ultimately, it'd be hard to argue that the Leafs are any closer today to being cup contenders someday than they werre when Burke arrived. If they had a Tyler Seguin, I think optimism might be higher.

AA has made 2 trades. One that's considered low risk, high reward with Escobar. The other was trading a pretty good (not great) prospect for a decent one. Unless projections on Wallace end up being very wrong (he's not just a middle of the pack 1st basemen), the move doesn't seem like a franchise killer. So trade wise, I think he's coming out close to even. In terms of the draft, most believe it was a good one, and despite not being an expert, I want to agree. Going back into the south american market aggressively is also a big positive.

He's actually made 3 trades.

League for Morrow was a absolute gem.

I already forgot that we once had Brandon League. I'm loving Morrow. He's absolutely the starter we need though he can work on his consistency.

Back to the thread. Yes, he is. BC and Burke could both learn a thing or two from him. AA doesn't back down from anyone and plays with the big boys. BC, on the other hand, was harassed like a lil girl (see Pat Riley).

[Kurtz]

So far, AA's only dealt in futures, so we can't judge how good the guy is with too much certainty. "He has a plan"...well, so did JP with his "5 year rebuild"...or was it 7?

By my count, he has 3 good trades and 1 bad one under his belt. He also seems to have had an above average draft, while at the same time failed to come up with a good deal at the trade deadline.

Colangelo had a very successful first year.

Burke made a big gamble that lost big time with Kessel, but he also pulled off a few winners in getting Phaneuf, Bozak and Gustavsson, and he also had a good draft given that he didn't have a 1st round pick.


Overall, if you're to judge the 3 respective Gm's on their first year performance, I'd put Colangelo 1st, AA 2nd, Burke 3rd...with Burke possibly being 1st if the Kessel gamble worked out better.

[LBJSeizedMyID]

Apples and oranges.

[LLJ]

By virtue of not being an MLSE employee, yes.

[chargerxthirty]

ummmm....

AA made the halladay trade!

Does anybody know how we got Arencibia... I'm too lazy to look it up right now.

Who is responsible for him / where was he drafted because dude is destroying Vegas..

I was sincerely hoping we traded Buck @ the deadline in order to get Arencibia some games in the bigs.

[dagger]

It's easier to be a new general manager because the only reason you got the job is that the guy before you failed, and so you have at least a few year's grace. You also have the advantage, given the low expectations, of getting higher draft picks, and no one takes your team seriously.

On the other hand, the thing that undoes a lot of general managers is not how they draft, but how they manage their payroll. more GMS get in trouble for bad contracts. It's a fast way to lose a "golden boy" reputation. But new GMs don't have to face too many of those decisions right off the bat because, let's face it, they don't have the kind of talent that can screw up a payroll. J.P.'s tenure might have ended better, or lasted longer, if not for a few contracts - Wells, Rios, Ryan and Burnett.

AA hasn't had many of those decisions to sign off on, but Lind is a candidate to join the bad contract list. And sooner or later, we have a raft of pitchers who are going to get big arb money, and eventually, big FA deals. In the NBA, Presti is just about to get into this. Durant was a no brainer, but Green? Ah, that's a tougher one, and you know Durant will be agitating for Green to get an extension. So it's early days for AA. The heavy lifting lies ahead.

[SargentBargs101]

ummmm....

AA made the halladay trade!

Does anybody know how we got Arencibia... I'm too lazy to look it up right now.

Who is responsible for him / where was he drafted because dude is destroying Vegas..

I was sincerely hoping we traded Buck @ the deadline in order to get Arencibia some games in the bigs.

arencibia was drafted by jp first round pick number 21

[Lateral Quicks]

It`s ironic that the only team of the 3 that is rebuilding is the only one above .500. Based on his moves so far, AA wins best GM hands down. Though it`s probably too short a time horizon to be handing out awards.

The one thing that pleases me most about AA is that he is no longer spending oodles of cash on experienced players when a younger, controllable, and dramatically cheaper player can perform just as well. Exhibit A in this regard is AJ Burnett compared to Brandon Morrow. Plus, Morrow isn`t a dislikeable punk like Burnett, which is a plus.

The other thing that pleases me is that he`s going for young high upside guys, whereas JP focused on college-level draftees. The Jays are pretty much set at all positions for the next 2-3 years with a few exceptions, and after 3 years you hope that those high-upside guys are knocking on the big club`s door. If so, you have the choice of signing your existing players to expensive extensions, or letting the studs come up to play. That`s how you run a sustainable, competitive franchise.

It was ridiculous how many experts were predicting 65 wins before the season started. I`m sorry, a team loaded with so many quality young arms and decent to above-average offensive players is not likely to lose that much. I predicted 75 wins, and they only need to win at a 36% clip the rest of the way to make that happen.

[victor page]

I think the 65 win prediction was reasonable. Who thought the offense would be so good? And everyone knew there was a lot of good arms, but it was not a foregone conclusion that Marcum would be so consistently good and that Romero would keep progressing.

If anyone was so sure that the Jays would be at or near .500 then congratulations because you must have cashed in big time betting on the over/under for wins in Vegas or at an online sports book.

I like what AA's done so far but it always makes me nervous when my team employs a coach / manager that no other team in the league would hire (see Jay Triano, Gordie Ash and probably Cito Gaston). Burke and Colangelo would get hired immediately if they were fired.

[Lateral Quicks]

A bit off the thread topic, but offensively I would argue the Jays have only slightly overachieved. Aside from Bautista, no one has really overachieved. Buck has had these numbers before, and the only improvement from Gonzalez was in the power department. Bautista outperformance compensates for Hill and Lind's horrible years. It should have been obvious to the experts that we'd hit a lot of home runs - all you had to do was look at our players' track records.

Pitching wise, we entered the season with an above-average bullpen that has actually underperformed expectations IMO. The starting pitching has overachieved, but not by much. The 5th starter has been bad all year, Morrow - as much as I like him - has a high 4 ERA and Cecil, Romero, and Marcum have all been very solid and consistent, occasionally showing flashes of brilliance.

So all in all, I'd argue this team isn't overachieving, and if it is, it isn't by much. Right now they project to win 20+ games more than 65 (though with the meat-grinder this month to come, I'm not counting on it), which means those experts were way, way too pessimistic IMO.

[Morris_Shatford]

Its way to early to tell;

[SargentBargs101]

Eveyrbody was so high on Jp back when he first got the job so everyone should hold there horses. to early

[SharoneWright]

http://www.fan590.com/ondemand/media.js ... 171152_740

[Raider917]

Eveyrbody was so high on Jp back when he first got the job so everyone should hold there horses. to early

did ricciardi make a trade like the gonzalez for escobar deal? i cant remember a deal like that for the jays in a long while. i know the loaiza for young deal was the reverse.

[beefman]

no because his team hasn't achieved anything yet. no pennants, no world series. but to be fair, its only his first year so its too early to have this convo. pat gillick currently holds that title. he brought in great players, won pennants and championships