Q-Sorry Richard,
I like everything about your mailbag but I have a criticism to make. There is never enough accountability of Alex when he does things. He kept it secret about the $5 mil he gave the Angels in the Wells deal, the $500,000 payout to a player you don't want to get. Hopefully you will say something about this joke of a draft that Alex made. He had picks of 21, 35, 46, 53,and 57, and what did he do, he selected the 33, 157, 81, 49 and 102 ranked players. Is this what you call being prepared for the draft? He should have just picked the players who were ranked by MLB at those spots. With these choices, he shouldn't have to pay big bonuses, especially for their 2nd pick who was ranked 157th, 122 spots lower. I know drafting is a crap shoot, but still when your picks are that far off what the experts say there is something wrong. If all teams do as the Jays, then why not eliminate MLB scouting?
Angelo Romanin, Woodbridge
A-Oh, there's plenty to criticize about GM Alex Anthopoulos and much of it has been done in this space, but the negative gets lost in the larger body of other things that he's done well.
When Anthopoulos took over as the club's GM he had been a keen observer of what got his predecessor and immediate boss J.P. Ricciardi into trouble. Thus, he has tried to be the anti-J.P. in the eyes of ownership and his mentor Paul Beeston.
It's why we get the ultra-secretive GM who shares info even within his organization only on a need-to-know basis. He's a GM who in winter meetings trade discussions prefers one-on-one talks with the other GM or at most four people in the room so he can narrow down the sources of leaks, a GM who sweeps the room for listening devices and looks under table lamps for bugs before he begins to speak about any personnel decision -- okay maybe that's a slight exaggeration, but you get the point.
Under AA, every trade rumour involving the Jays finds legs with no input from the Jays. On the other hand, under Ricciardi, every trade rumour began in the GM's office or else was expanded upon and corrected from there.
In November, we criticized AA for not revealing the length and value of his new manager John Farrell's contract. He explained it just complicated things, but he was wrong. He was critiqued for the unannounced extra money as you point out, that was headed to the Angels in the Vernon Wells deal. He's criticized for not allowing any of his lieutenants to have a voice when it comes to Jays' policy, for not admitting that service time, free agency and Super-Twos have anything to do with some seemingly shady player options to the minors, involving players clearly ready for prime-time.
But he must be doing something right. He has re-established respect for the Jays around baseball. Agents like dealing with his people. Players love the way they are treated as men and respected as equals -- except for some that have failed here were shipped out and must blame someone.
After Wells was traded, Vernon admitted in Anaheim that he sent Anthopoulos an expensive Cartier watch with a gushy note. That was after he had been dealt, but was in appreciation for the way he had been dealt.
Yes, we don't always agree with the way Anthopoulos handles his information. Sometimes you feel that in his passion to be the anti-Ricciardi plus the pro-Anthopoulos that in a previous life he may have been a Zamboni driver at Flyers home games – doing his job at both ends of the Spectrum. But as he matures into his Jays job, we expect him to loosen up and to be less secretive on issues that are standard information in the rest of baseball.
The bottom line is that Anthopoulos in his two years has not been perfect, but has been the best thing that happened to the floundering Jays in terms of getting them seriously back into the AL East fray. No whine, no fear, no excuses.
As for this just-completed draft, I have a question for you. What exactly is it about MLB and MLB.com that makes you believe that their rankings are better than individual club rankings, including the Jays. These are MLB people that as evaluators wish they could work for clubs. They are compiling their rankings based on information they receive from club scouts and from what little video is out there for them to see.
According to Jays' scouting director Andrew Tinnish, a total of eight different Jays' evaluators saw at least one of first round pick Tyler Beede's starts. Not enough? They have area scouts and regional supervisors and cross-checkers who have sat down in kitchens with the families of the top players. They know personalities and signability. They know their needs. Every high school player has a letter-of-intent for school. But many times money and organizational trust can carry the day.
Face it, if a team wanted to fire all its scouts and just go with MLB.com or other Internet sites as the basis for its draft, hey, more power to you. It's been done before. In the late '70s when Baseball America began doing its extensive pre-draft work as the basis of Canadian Baseball Hall-of-Famer Allan Simpson's powerful new publication, renegade, eccentric A's owner Charlie Finley decided “who needs scouts.” Charlie O. lived in Chicago and the fact is for a while his chief executive on site in Oakland was a 13-year-old batboy, a clubhouse kid who went on to become hip-hop artist MC Hammer. No kidding. Doo, doo-doo-doo, U Can't Touch This. Maybe the Jays could hire Bieber.
http://thestar.blogs.com/baseball/2011/ ... ation.html
