TORONTO -- Rarely is Alex Anthopoulos as publicly gleeful as he was sitting on the dais alongside Jose Reyes, unveiling the superstar he had long coveted and finally acquired in the Toronto Blue Jays' transformative November blockbuster with the Miami Marlins.
Clearly, as Reyes donned his No. 7 jersey for the first time, this was a moment for the general manager to revel in and perhaps also to reflect on, given how close his team's off-season apparently came to following a similar narrative, only with different characters.
Anthopoulos revealed Thursday that not long before he pulled off the 12-player deal that landed Reyes, Josh Johnson, Mark Buehrle and Emilio Bonifacio, he nearly pulled off a massive trade with another team he wouldn't name.
The blockbuster that wasn't came undone right around the Oct. 31 deadline for clubs to exercise player options for 2013, he said, and would have added roughly the same $44 million in 2013 salary the Marlins deal did, minus the payroll implications in subsequent years.
Given the timeframe and that Anthopoulos's priority was pitching, it makes sense to think that starters with decisions on option years looming were involved. Three guesses from here are:
-- The Chicago White Sox, who faced decisions on both Jake Peavy and Gavin Floyd. Eventually they extended Peavy and exercised the option on Floyd.
-- The Los Angeles Angels, who faced decisions on Dan Haren and Ervin Santana. They had a trade for Haren to the Chicago Cubs fall apart and eventually declined his option, and dealt Santana to the Kansas City Royals.
-- A third possibility, is a deal with a team rich in pricey pitching like the San Francisco Giants, who have big tickets coming off the books next fall in Tim Lincecum and Barry Zito. They held on to both and retained the key free agents from their World Series champion roster.
http://www.sportsnet.ca/baseball/2013/01/18/toronto_blue_jays_jose_reyes_mystery_deal/
