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Anthopoulos wants to be a lot more aggressive in offseason
Posted: Wed Nov 3, 2010 9:08 pm
by darth_federer
Alex Anthopoulos can pinpoint the exact moment his mindset as general manager of the Toronto Blue Jays changed.
The instant when the "light bulb went off" came during a conversation with Cincinnati Reds GM Walt Jocketty during spring training in March.
Anthopoulos was digesting the decision to give Cuban shortstop Adeiny Hechavarria US$10 million over four years. Weeks earlier, Jocketty had outbid Anthopoulos for another Cuban, left-hander Aroldis Chapman, and praised him for accepting the risk in signing Hechavarria.
"He said, 'That's how you're going to get better, you're going to get better if you take a shot, you're going to have to take a shot at times,'" Anthopoulos recalled during a recent interview.
"I looked back at my off-season, trade talks, dialogue ... and I just found myself being so much more conservative than I needed to be or wanted to be."
The main take-away for Anthopoulos as he heads into his second off-season as GM is that while risk shouldn't be embraced recklessly, it's OK to swing and miss once in a while if the potential reward is worthwhile.
"We're going to have take chances at times and make moves that may open us for criticism, but we also have to look at the upside of the moves. They may backfire and may not work, but if they hit, we're going to do really well.
"And that's how we're going to get better."
He expects to be more active on the trade front than in free agency, and feels the Blue Jays farm system is deep enough now that he can deal prospects for big-league help.
http://www.thestar.com/sports/baseball/ ... n-approachHes repeatedly talked about how they have a lot of prospects that they can trade away for players. So we re probably going to see 3-4 trades of high value guys. This board freaked when Brett Wallace was traded away. Its nice to see trades. Not many GM's do them anymore. We re sort of lucky that all 3 GM's of our big league teams like trades.
Re: Anthopoulos wants to be a lot more aggressive in offseason
Posted: Wed Nov 3, 2010 9:35 pm
by Raps in 4
It's going to be an exciting offseason.
Re: Anthopoulos wants to be a lot more aggressive in offseason
Posted: Wed Nov 3, 2010 10:07 pm
by Randle McMurphy
I was actually more than fine with last offseason. Taking risks and making big changes are fine to an extent, but let's try to avoid walking the path of Brian Colangelo.
Re: Anthopoulos wants to be a lot more aggressive in offseason
Posted: Wed Nov 3, 2010 10:09 pm
by Randle McMurphy
darth_federer wrote:We re sort of lucky that all 3 GM's of our big league teams like trades.
We're only "lucky" if the GMs actually know what they're doing and have a plan in mind.
There is nothing good about trading for the sake of trading.
Re: Anthopoulos wants to be a lot more aggressive in offseason
Posted: Wed Nov 3, 2010 11:55 pm
by FreeAgent
Randle McMurphy wrote:I was actually more than fine with last offseason. Taking risks and making big changes are fine to an extent, but let's try to avoid walking the path of Brian Colangelo.
This. AA's moves last year were very timely and worked out very well. I hope he doesn't have any sort of pressure to make moves just for the sake of making moves.
Re: Anthopoulos wants to be a lot more aggressive in offseason
Posted: Thu Nov 4, 2010 1:43 am
by Hoopstarr
AA is being way too hard on himself. If the last year was too conservative, I guess I'm gonna have to wear a diaper all winter.
Re: Anthopoulos wants to be a lot more aggressive in offseason
Posted: Thu Nov 4, 2010 1:24 pm
by Michael Bradley
Well if his last three trades are any indication (Morrow, Escobar, Gose), then I expect he will be looking for young players with decreased value who could be had for less, have 3+ years of service time remaining, and whose upside outweighs their current performance. The only players I can think of that fit that mold are Rasmus and Alex Gordon, but I'm sure there are more out there. Personally, I liked the reasoning behind all of those trades done by AA. It is nice to have a GM who is not gunshy about trading the likes of Chavez, Wallace, Pastornicky, and Collins. Some of those might end up being good MLB players, but the players we got back have a chance to be much, much better than that. When you minimize risk, usually reward is minimized as well. When AA misses, he will miss badly, but when he hits it is going to be great.