Trade a prospect for a pitcher?
Alex Anthopoulos wants to make clear he is not averse to doing that – and that has nothing to do with the gentle poke he was given by Jose Bautista at the All-Star Game’s media day.
He was willing to trade a prospect for a starter last winter, when the Toronto Blue Jays sniffed around Michael Pineda before the Seattle Mariners dealt him to the New York Yankees and Gio Gonzalez, who made the National League all-star team after his trade from the Oakland Athletics to the Washington Nationals.
“There were no prospect discussions with other teams that we said a flat-out ‘no’ to,” the Blue Jays general manager said Tuesday. “It was the combinations, maybe of prospects or prospects and players off our major-league roster. All the deals we had in the off-season would have required a big-league guy being added – a core piece. It was never a pure prospect deal.”
That’s as much as you’re ever going to get out of Anthopoulos about trades. It’s other people who will tell you that the asking price for Pineda (now out for the year with an injury) was Brett Lawrie, to begin with, and that the A’s wanted a pair of top minor-league prospects – including Noah Syndergaard, a pitcher whom special adviser Pat Hentgen says reminds him of Roy Halladay – plus a major-leaguer for Gonzalez.
Bautista didn’t seem perplexed at the thought that a prospect or two might have to be dispatched to address the issue.
Anthopoulos made clear he took no offence. “I have pretty good lines of communication with the players. It’s not as if Jose singled out a position. That would have meant he was calling out a particular player. As I’ve said, this roster isn’t built to tear down; it’s built to add players. That might not have been the case in, say, 2010 or 2011. But it is, now.”
Asked if there was one prospect he would consider untouchable, Anthopoulos responded with a quick “no.” But he’s still at the possibility stage, as opposed to being able to promise anything. Him, and about 20 of his peers.
