It’s not entirely Alex Anthopoulos’ fault that the Blue Jays were supposed to be the “it” team of the 2011-12 offseason.
After all, team president Paul Beeston hinted last winter it might not be long before the franchise’s player payroll had doubled. And Rogers Communications was indeed flush with cash. And the Blue Jays did have 166 wins over the past two slogs through the AL East, which, incidentally, extended to four their run of consecutive fourth-place finishes, despite being six games over .500 in that time.
This wasn’t a bad winter for a team to be ready to make its move, either. Albert Pujols, Prince Fielder, Yu Darvish and Jose Reyes were out there, and the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox weren’t going to be players. On the trade market, there was young pitching to be had in Oakland, Seattle, Chicago and San Diego.
By some sort of miracle, the Jays had relieved themselves of the bloated Vernon Wells and Alex Rios contracts. Painfully, they’d done the same with the Roy Halladay contract.
As the World Series wound down, rumors – OK, rumours – persisted that the Jays would be active, that Anthopoulos had set them up just right with his clever maneuvering, that the Jays were the winter’s sleeping giants.
Even Anthopoulos’ goals – obtain a frontline starter, a power bat, bullpen help and a backup catcher – fit the supply.
Well, he rebuilt the bullpen and he did get that backup catcher.
As Pujols, Fielder and Darvish flooded the American League, and as the Yankees added Michael Pineda and Hiroki Kuroda, the Blue Jays would not or could not commit.
http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/news?slug=t ... oll_013112
