Anthopoulos rumoured to have 5 year contract extension?

[darth_federer]

There is a strong belief that 23 months into his tenure, Blue Jays ownership has already discussed a contract extension for their 34-year-old GM, Alex Anthopoulos. The problem with the report is that the Boy Wonder has always refused to discuss any terms of his original deal from October 2009, leaving open the all-important question, “An extension to what?” Anthopoulos still refuses to elaborate.

“I’m very happy,” is all the first-time general manager would say. “There are only 30 major-league jobs out there. These are not easy to come by. The organization has treated me well. The one thing I can say is there is nowhere that I’d rather be. I don’t think it’s important to announce the contract status of front office personnel. It’s not like a player. If they want to let me go tomorrow they can and it won’t make a difference. The length of the contract is incidental. You know how I feel.”

Anthopoulos has delivered all that and Beeston has been vindicated. It is easy to believe, despite Anthopoulos’s protestations, that the Rogers ownership group has indeed moved to lock up its GM for at least the next five years. Following is a list of his top accomplishments in the 23 months of his tenure.

http://www.thestar.com/sports/baseball/ ... -he-has-it

Griff has a lenghty article for the Star about all the good thing hes done. No brainer to sign him. This article is really all over the place. The headline says that he has an extension but the article says nothing concrete. I know editors write headlines but they re usually accurate no?

[Back2back2back]

Give him 10 years!!

AA will lead us to the promise land.

[Schad]

I was a bit surprised and skeptical when they gave AA the job over LaCava (who I still think would make a fantastic GM). But man, what a revelation he has been.

[number15]

i dont like extension

o boy... im gonna get alot of hate for this, but listen up

Unless the Jays are scared that AA is gonna take off to another team, why in the hell would u lock him uo for so long. I mean he is not a player, he is a GM and likely will sign an extention when he needs it, so why go out of ur way to gurantee him the years........ i mean i am optimistic as u all, the guy is magic, but didnt we ALL think the same about JP Ricciardi at one point?

Great that they wanna keep him around.... but i dont see why u'd give a GM a 5 year extension when he hasent really taken then next step yet, Like Ricciardi,

Jays are just feeling alittle to antsy if u ask me... rushing into a decision
had they given him a 2-3 year extension, it would have been just as effectiv

hopefully it works out though, since it happening anyway

[Strav]

i dont like extension

o boy... im gonna get alot of hate for this, but listen up

Unless the Jays are scared that AA is gonna take off to another team, why in the hell would u lock him uo for so long. I mean he is not a player, he is a GM and likely will sign an extention when he needs it, so why go out of ur way to gurantee him the years........ i mean i am optimistic as u all, the guy is magic, but didnt we ALL think the same about JP Ricciardi at one point?

Great that they wanna keep him around.... but i dont see why u'd give a GM a 5 year extension when he hasent really taken then next step yet, Like Ricciardi,

Jays are just feeling alittle to antsy if u ask me... rushing into a decision
had they given him a 2-3 year extension, it would have been just as effectiv

hopefully it works out though, since it happening anyway

I thought you were going to label AA a bust. It's called stability. Lock him up.

[RocLaFamilia]

Where in the article did it say it was a 5 year extension?

[evilRyu]

Where in the article did it say it was a 5 year extension?

Anthopoulos has delivered all that and Beeston has been vindicated. It is easy to believe, despite Anthopoulos’s protestations, that the Rogers ownership group has indeed moved to lock up its GM for at least the next five years. Following is a list of his top accomplishments in the 23 months of his tenure.

[Weems]

i dont like extension

o boy... im gonna get alot of hate for this, but listen up

Unless the Jays are scared that AA is gonna take off to another team, why in the hell would u lock him uo for so long. I mean he is not a player, he is a GM and likely will sign an extention when he needs it, so why go out of ur way to gurantee him the years........ i mean i am optimistic as u all, the guy is magic, but didnt we ALL think the same about JP Ricciardi at one point?

Great that they wanna keep him around.... but i dont see why u'd give a GM a 5 year extension when he hasent really taken then next step yet, Like Ricciardi,

Jays are just feeling alittle to antsy if u ask me... rushing into a decision
had they given him a 2-3 year extension, it would have been just as effectiv

hopefully it works out though, since it happening anyway

He's very clearly one of the best GMs in the game, after 23 months. He's the best GM we could ever hope for. Why wouldn't we lock him up for 5 years? Because we haven't won a world series?

[RocLaFamilia]

Where in the article did it say it was a 5 year extension?

Anthopoulos has delivered all that and Beeston has been vindicated. It is easy to believe, despite Anthopoulos’s protestations, that the Rogers ownership group has indeed moved to lock up its GM for at least the next five years. Following is a list of his top accomplishments in the 23 months of his tenure.

thanks! I read the article before this was posted, totally missed that part!!

this is why I did poorly at school, I never read that whole thing, just skimmed through bits and pieces

[RocLaFamilia]

Can we get AA a 10 year contract for the Leafs and Raptors too?

[evilRyu]

i'm in total approval of this extension.. get 'er done.

thanks! I read the article before this was posted, totally missed that part!!

this is why I did poorly at school, I never read that whole thing, just skimmed through bits and pieces

ha, no worries..

[LittleOzzy]

I'm not going to comment on the length of the deal as I have no idea if 5 years is the right answer, but he clearly deserves an extension on the money he has saved Rogers alone.

[Michael Bradley]

. i mean i am optimistic as u all, the guy is magic, but didnt we ALL think the same about JP Ricciardi at one point?

Great that they wanna keep him around.... but i dont see why u'd give a GM a 5 year extension when he hasent really taken then next step yet, Like Ricciardi,

Let's set the record straight on this because I hear this a lot.

AA's first two seasons clearly show he is one of the best in the game, if not the best. His two drafts have both been rated very highly by practically everyone, and he has been able to get high upside, all-star calibre talent at SS, CF, 3B, and the rotation by giving up Shaun Marcum, Brandon League, Alex Gonzalez, Octavio Dotel, Jason Frasor, and a bunch of non-elite prospects. He is getting an insane amount of hype.

Ricciardi was highly rated moreso for the Moneyball fad going on at the time and his ability to communicate a vision. The book had just come out and anyone associated with Beane got praise, whether justified or not (DePodesta as well). There was reason to be optimistic with Ricciardi but if was never due to action, it was due to words. His plan, and coming from an organization like Oakland, was the intriguing part. I believe Godfrey was afraid of Boston swooping in and signing JP after his first season, so he offered the five year deal to avoid losing him. It wasn't a "JP is robbing other teams left and right, getting highly rated drafts, saving the team **** of money, let's lock him up" situation. He had a relatively solid first season and that was that. AA is flat out showing amazing results. That is the main difference.

In other words, AA deserves a five (hell, ten) year extension. JP was more of a wait-and-see situation but the club never waited to see because he conceivably may have left to go to Boston (whether that was close to happening or not I don't know). Signing AA now is just common sense.

My point of this reply was not to badmouth JP or anything (even though it is one of my favorite things to do), it is more to illustrate why using JP and Colangelo as reasons to be skeptical of AA long term is faulty logic at best. The situations cannot be any less similar.

[tecumseh18]

My point of this reply was not to badmouth JP or anything (even though it is one of my favorite things to do) ...

OK, so that tells us Griff's identity on this board, but we still have figure out who The Doug is.

As for wondering about locking up AA, I think any hesitation would have to be a Canadian self-denigration thing. But this isn't Triano we're talking about here. The baseball analysts south of the border have fallen over themselves praising AA's moves. Of course some organization could - and dare I say would - easily scoop up the guy if he becomes available.

Wait til we get to the next level? You mean to go from one of the worst to one of the best minor league systems? To transform a bunch of aging expensive veterans (Halladay/Overbay/Scutaro/A-Gonzalez/Buck/Barajas/Marcum/Gregg/Frasor) into the young cheap all-star calibre talent we see out there now? To sign the top WAR player in baseball to a 5/65 contract? To believe in EE when no-one else did (OK and JoJo too)? Is that next level enough for you?

One illustrious member on this board actually wanted to resign Overbay. Many or most of us would have gone for Manny or Vladdy. Thank goodness someone with a brain is minding the store, in perpetuity I hope.

[Lockdown]

Wait til we get to the next level? You mean to go from one of the worst to one of the best minor league systems? To transform a bunch of aging expensive veterans (Halladay/Overbay/Scutaro/A-Gonzalez/Buck/Barajas/Marcum/Gregg/Frasor) into the young cheap all-star calibre talent we see out there now? To sign the top WAR player in baseball to a 5/65 contract? To believe in EE when no-one else did (OK and JoJo too)? Is that next level enough for you?

He made fair point. All that stuff's just perception and projection. The reality is that they're what, 3 games over .500 in August? Been here before more than once. Not saying extending Anthopolous is a bad idea, but he hasn't actually accomplished anything concrete yet either.

[Hoopstarr]

People hesitating about this are loony. Name me a GM in sports who has done something like the Wells trade, stealing Morrow, Esco and Rasmus for pennies on the dollar, essentially bought a draft pick in a league where you can't, had tremendous drafts, re-signed players to very team-friendly deals, somehow got value for Dana Eveland, etc. And he's doing it all in a sustainable and cost-certain way. He's the best GM in sports right now. The only thing that can let him down is Rogers.

[s e n s i]

has the man even made one terrible transaction yet? AA's slash line is ELITE right now. his WAR will be well into the 20's when the team is chasing a pennant next year and for the foreseeable future afterward. he is the golden boy GM of baseball, easily the best GM this city has seen in the last couple decades, and has this city in a frenzy over this jays' squad. we are being spoiled by his managerial wizardry and there is no reason not to give him an extension based on what he's done so far - which is build a contender in professional sports most unforgiving division. obviously they are not there yet, but this is the closest any toronto team has been to truly contending since the leafs in the early 00s. AA knows what the **** is up...guy is a baseball lifer and makes other GM's his bitch on a monthly basis.

[righteous015]

i dont like extension

o boy... im gonna get alot of hate for this, but listen up

Unless the Jays are scared that AA is gonna take off to another team, why in the hell would u lock him uo for so long. I mean he is not a player, he is a GM and likely will sign an extention when he needs it, so why go out of ur way to gurantee him the years........ i mean i am optimistic as u all, the guy is magic, but didnt we ALL think the same about JP Ricciardi at one point?

Great that they wanna keep him around.... but i dont see why u'd give a GM a 5 year extension when he hasent really taken then next step yet, Like Ricciardi,

Jays are just feeling alittle to antsy if u ask me... rushing into a decision
had they given him a 2-3 year extension, it would have been just as effectiv

hopefully it works out though, since it happening anyway

I reject everything you said. We want stability if anything. Aside from the magic and all, we have a great GM. Idk how you could possibly think we could just rotate GMs when we have an awesome one right now.

[Avenger]

Unless the Jays are scared that AA is gonna take off to another team, why in the hell would u lock him uo for so long.

you should atleast be a little bit scared about that, there are atleast half a dozen GM openings around the league and some of those jobs are much more high profile and prestigious than what AA has right now. I don't think he's going anywhere but he'd be stupid to not atleast think about an opportunity to turn around historic franchises like the Dodgers or the Cubs, he would practically achieve Baseball immortality if he got those teams to a championship.

[Cyrus]

We need to lock up our Assist GM, obviously ultimately we let him go to a GM position if it opens up, but LaCava needs to be locked up iron clad.