any chance AA is over rated?

[North_of_Border]

In his 6 seasons as a GM, AA made a great farm system and pulled off some smart trades but overall his body of work seems over rated. His moves seem short sighted and he was too trigger happy. Paying a premium at times when he did not need to.

For example the Mets trade. The NYM gm after a year came out and said they woulda done the Dickey trade for d'Arnaud alone, but AA added Syndergaard to get things moving faster.... The Donaldson trade seems like a steal in hind sight, which i believe it is yes, but at the time Jays seemed to pay a huge price. Billy Beane is no idiot, he thought he pulled a fast one there. But AA got lucky as Donaldson took his game to a new level and the A's new prospects didnt impress.... The Tigers were going for the wild card. They seemed to leaning on keeping David Price but AA paid a premium to change their mind... Lets see how good Russell Martin is in year 3 and Tulo will become the next expensive Jose Reyes contract, just watch.

Sure he made the moves that got the Jays their first playoff birth in 22 years.... But with the prospects he dealt he better have. Any competent mlb gm can do what AA did if they were as desperate as AA was. If you are willing to pay a premium, teams will listen with an open ear.

The Yankees and Red Sox are doing it the right way now. Build from within, add from outside.

I think Shapiro made the right call. AA was selling the farm for a 2 year window max, with the second year being much smaller. The jays were on their way to becoming the next Philidelphia Phillies. Thats a mess we dont need. I guarantee if AA had taken the 5 year contract, we would be calling for his head by year 3.... This type of team building just cant be sustained long term.

[sule]

You can rebuild the farm. You can't rebuild the short window of years where both the Red Sox and Yankees aren't competing.

[changes]

lol

[C Court]

Yes. Alex is over rated by Jays fans and media caught up in the fun ride of the past three months.

I was a huge fan of his when he preached about building the team the right way. But then he got impatient and that's a trait that eventually comes back to bite you. Particularly when Toronto will never be a team that's going to spend its way out of trouble.

[Natural11]

Made some good moves, mad some bad moves. Ballsy GM, but not the GOAT GM the bandwagoners would have you believe. He had 1 fantastic month and 59 months ranging from good to awful.

Let's not forget that the Jays were bad to mediocre for the first 4-1/2 years of his tenure ship and this season was also looking like a bust well into the year. Rogers made the decision to go after Shapiro before it turned around for us. Unfortunate timing, but you expect that kind of irony as a Jays fan.

If we can weather this transition without 'blowing it up' and come back into next season with a positive outlook, I'll be comfortable with a new GM. On the other hand, if we lose Price, Estrada, do not option Dickey and begin next season with a significantly weaker rotation, then Shapiro and Rogers will take a lot of heat and there will be a lot of retrospective what-ifs regarding the decision not to retain AA.

[Raider917]

In his 6 seasons as a GM, AA made a great farm system and pulled off some smart trades but overall his body of work seems over rated. His moves seem short sighted and he was too trigger happy. Paying a premium at times when he did not need to.

For example the Mets trade. The NYM gm after a year came out and said they woulda done the Dickey trade for d'Arnaud alone, but AA added Syndergaard to get things moving faster.... The Donaldson trade seems like a steal in hind sight, which i believe it is yes, but at the time Jays seemed to pay a huge price. Billy Beane is no idiot, he thought he pulled a fast one there. But AA got lucky as Donaldson took his game to a new level and the A's new prospects didnt impress.... The Tigers were going for the wild card. They seemed to leaning on keeping David Price but AA paid a premium to change their mind... Lets see how good Russell Martin is in year 3 and Tulo will become the next expensive Jose Reyes contract, just watch.

Sure he made the moves that got the Jays their first playoff birth in 22 years.... But with the prospects he dealt he better have. Any competent mlb gm can do what AA did if they were as desperate as AA was. If you are willing to pay a premium, teams will listen with an open ear.

The Yankees and Red Sox are doing it the right way now. Build from within, add from outside.

I think Shapiro made the right call. AA was selling the farm for a 2 year window max, with the second year being much smaller. The jays were on their way to becoming the next Philidelphia Phillies. Thats a mess we dont need. I guarantee if AA had taken the 5 year contract, we would be calling for his head by year 3.... This type of team building just cant be sustained long term.

Bautista and encarbacopm have pn;y a few seasons left. wether you plan for the future or not they wont be replaced in a hurry. the chance to win is now. trading this very real chance to win the world series so you can be in not such a bad situation afterwards is something a losing franchise does.

[Raider917]

In his 6 seasons as a GM, AA made a great farm system and pulled off some smart trades but overall his body of work seems over rated. His moves seem short sighted and he was too trigger happy. Paying a premium at times when he did not need to.

For example the Mets trade. The NYM gm after a year came out and said they woulda done the Dickey trade for d'Arnaud alone, but AA added Syndergaard to get things moving faster.... The Donaldson trade seems like a steal in hind sight, which i believe it is yes, but at the time Jays seemed to pay a huge price. Billy Beane is no idiot, he thought he pulled a fast one there. But AA got lucky as Donaldson took his game to a new level and the A's new prospects didnt impress.... The Tigers were going for the wild card. They seemed to leaning on keeping David Price but AA paid a premium to change their mind... Lets see how good Russell Martin is in year 3 and Tulo will become the next expensive Jose Reyes contract, just watch.

Sure he made the moves that got the Jays their first playoff birth in 22 years.... But with the prospects he dealt he better have. Any competent mlb gm can do what AA did if they were as desperate as AA was. If you are willing to pay a premium, teams will listen with an open ear.

The Yankees and Red Sox are doing it the right way now. Build from within, add from outside.

I think Shapiro made the right call. AA was selling the farm for a 2 year window max, with the second year being much smaller. The jays were on their way to becoming the next Philidelphia Phillies. Thats a mess we dont need. I guarantee if AA had taken the 5 year contract, we would be calling for his head by year 3.... This type of team building just cant be sustained long term.

Bautista and Encarnacoim have only a few seasons left. whether you plan for the future or not they wont be replaced in a hurry. the chance to win is now. trading this very real chance to win the world series so you can be in not such a bad situation afterwards is something a losing franchise does.

[Patman]

You can rebuild the farm. You can't rebuild the short window of years where both the Red Sox and Yankees aren't competing.

This. Obviously, you'd prefer sustained success instead of a 2-3 year window, but that's all we get in the AL East. We need to make the most of it when those windows come.

[Skin Blues]

AA got lucky as Donaldson took his game to a new level

uhhhh what? Donaldson was 2nd in the league in WAR over 2013-14, only behind Mike Trout. In 2015, again, he was second in the league in WAR, and again, only behind Mike Trout. He was already a superstar.

The Price trade I thought was a bad idea, because it's simply too high of a price to pay. Especially when your pet manager thinks he's better utilized as a relief pitcher in the playoffs. So, bad idea, but not egregious. Not enough to say that after all the rest of what he's done, that he's not a great GM.

[Raps in 4]

But AA got lucky as Donaldson took his game to a new level and the A's new prospects didnt impress....

He got lucky with Donaldson taking his game to a new level? Have you followed baseball before August of this year?

Donaldson has been a top-3 player in baseball each of the past 3 seasons.

I didn't read the rest of your post, but I don't think I need to.

[Raps in 4]

The Price trade I thought was a bad idea, because it's simply too high of a price to pay. Especially when your pet manager thinks he's better utilized as a relief pitcher in the playoffs. So, bad idea, but not egregious. Not enough to say that after all the rest of what he's done, that he's not a great GM.

I didn't like the Price trade either, but we don't make the playoffs without him.

[MikeM]

If you believe in GMs developing just like players do then there's no way AA is overrated. His past year of transactions were all homeruns.

Donaldson trade.
Gose for Travis.
Lind for Estrada
Nothing for Revere.
Colabello off the scrap heap.
Martin signing. Not re-signing Cabrera.
Happ for Saunders (at the time).
Hendriks off the scrap heap (was top 20 in RP WAR).
Reyes + Hoffman for Tulo (closer than people think but still a win I think).

Then there's the trade where he "sold the farm" in the form of Daniel Norris who could be good and Matt Boyd, who is an absolute gas can for David Price.

[Skin Blues]

The Price trade I thought was a bad idea, because it's simply too high of a price to pay. Especially when your pet manager thinks he's better utilized as a relief pitcher in the playoffs. So, bad idea, but not egregious. Not enough to say that after all the rest of what he's done, that he's not a great GM.

I didn't like the Price trade either, but we don't make the playoffs without him.

We would have easily made it without him. We won the division by 6 games.

[Raps in 4]

Made some good moves, mad some bad moves. Ballsy GM, but not the GOAT GM the bandwagoners would have you believe. He had 1 fantastic month and 59 months ranging from good to awful.

Let's not forget that the Jays were bad to mediocre for the first 4-1/2 years of his tenure ship

Find me one GM who could have fielded a contender in 4 years after the mess JP left the team in. He didn't have money to spend or a farm system to leverage. The fact that he managed to rebuild the farm system so quickly is astounding.

and this season was also looking like a bust well into the year.

We had the second best pythagorean record in the majors before the trade deadline.

[Raps in 4]

The Price trade I thought was a bad idea, because it's simply too high of a price to pay. Especially when your pet manager thinks he's better utilized as a relief pitcher in the playoffs. So, bad idea, but not egregious. Not enough to say that after all the rest of what he's done, that he's not a great GM.

I didn't like the Price trade either, but we don't make the playoffs without him.

We would have easily made it without him. We won the division by 6 games.

Are you serious? The Dodgers won the division by 8 games. I guess they didn't need Kershaw. The Cubs won the WC by 13 games. I guess they didn't need Arrieta. That's not how you evaluate a player's impact.

Our ace at the time of the trade was Estrada. What team has ever made the playoffs with 4+ FIP ace? Trading for a guy like Price changed the mentality of the team. He helped stop any losing streaks from burgeoning. Bringing him on meant that Hutch could be pushed out of the rotation when Stroman came back. It bolstered our relief pitching by allowing Sanchez to return to the bullpen.

If you don't see the value of having an ace (especially when the pitching was such a huge weakness before the trade), then you don't understand the first thing about baseball.

[Skin Blues]

I didn't like the Price trade either, but we don't make the playoffs without him.

We would have easily made it without him. We won the division by 6 games.

Are you serious? The Dodgers won the division by 8 games. I guess they didn't need Kershaw. The Cubs won the WC by 13 games. I guess they didn't need Arrieta. That's not how you evaluate a player's impact.

Our ace at the time of the trade was Estrada. What team has ever made the playoffs with 4+ FIP ace? Trading for a guy like Price changed the mentality of the team. He helped stop any losing streaks from burgeoning. Bringing him on meant that Hutch could be pushed out if the rotation when Stroman came back. It bolstered our relief pitching by allowing Sanchez to return to the bullpen.

If you don't see the value of having an ace (especially when the pitching was such a huge weakness before the trade), then you don't understand the first thing about baseball.

A lot of words, but no actual attempt at putting a number on what those players were worth. If you think 2 months of Price is worth 6 wins then I'll just stop talking right now. It'd be like a person that only speaks english trying to have a discussion with somebody who only speaks russian.

[almatic]

AA got lucky as Donaldson took his game to a new level

The Price trade I thought was a bad idea, because it's simply too high of a price to pay. Especially when your pet manager thinks he's better utilized as a relief pitcher in the playoffs. So, bad idea, but not egregious. Not enough to say that after all the rest of what he's done, that he's not a great GM.

Yea, that ONE moment had nothing to do with the lack of available left-handed relief pitchers or anything....

[Raps in 4]

We would have easily made it without him. We won the division by 6 games.

Are you serious? The Dodgers won the division by 8 games. I guess they didn't need Kershaw. The Cubs won the WC by 13 games. I guess they didn't need Arrieta. That's not how you evaluate a player's impact.

Our ace at the time of the trade was Estrada. What team has ever made the playoffs with 4+ FIP ace? Trading for a guy like Price changed the mentality of the team. He helped stop any losing streaks from burgeoning. Bringing him on meant that Hutch could be pushed out if the rotation when Stroman came back. It bolstered our relief pitching by allowing Sanchez to return to the bullpen.

If you don't see the value of having an ace (especially when the pitching was such a huge weakness before the trade), then you don't understand the first thing about baseball.

A lot of words, but no actual attempt at putting a number on what those players were worth. If you think 2 months of Price is worth 6 wins then I'll just stop talking right now. It'd be like a person that only speaks english trying to have a discussion with somebody who only speaks russian.

You can't retroactively add or subtract wins to determine player worth. It isn't Russian vs. English, it's conjecture vs. logic.

[fmradioguy]

From the get go, the plan was to rebuild the farm system over the first few seasons. Go back and Google all the interviews from around the time he was promoted. He started making the big trades to get them over the top when the farm system had been rebuilt. The team that won the division championship is not the result of a hot second half. It was the culmination of 6 years of work. And he did not leave the roster exhausted. Everyone talks about all the years of team control KC has for the future. But Kansas City's 40 man roster was younger than Toronto's by just 4 months (and the Jays had MB, Dickey and Hawkins!)

But...
The Jays have 23 players on their 40 man roster under control through the next two seasons (22 for KC).

The Jays have 22 players under control for the next 3 (just 13 for KC)

The Jays have 17 players on their 40 man roster under control for the next 4 season. KC has 10 (same as the Cubs)

You build up the farm system, invest in the players you want to keep long-term, trade from that surplus of youth and bring veterans onto the team with playoff experience (and proven experience at the major league level) when you have a chance to win, but still ensure you have enough team control so that you don't go through a non-competitive stretch. I think he pretty much nailed the blueprint.

[LLJ]

He is overrated to a degree. But I always admired how he always swung for the fences. Sometimes he whiffed BIG time but I respected that he didn't just go for slap singles and grounders. He was a big dreamer in a small thinking sports city, and we need more of that.