Toronto Star: Alex Anthopolous's worst deal

[Randle McMurphy]

When the quantity of fringe prospects is FIVE it's very significant. They weren't quite as fringe back then either.

They were pretty fringe (and have largely become even more so with the exception of Woj over the last year). You're probably not getting a MLB quality starting pitcher back (which Happ is) for only a couple of these guys.

[flatjacket1]

Rollins and Woj join the rule 5 eligible this year.

Correct... but last year, only Perez was eligible. And there was zero chance of losing him last off season to the rule 5.

Either way we'd have to make some serious decisions to protect some of the players this year. The rule-5 was invented to trash teams like the Jays for just loading up on specs.

[dkmo]

His best deal: dumping Wells to the Angels.
His worst deal: dumping Napoli to the Rangers.
Ain't that funny?

[tecumseh18]

Here's the thing about the Napoli deal. We weren't going for it in 2011. We wanted to play the kids, including *sigh* JPA. We wanted to leave space for Lawrie to come up and shift EE to first/DH along with Lind.

"Playing the kids" also meant protecting the young starting rotation. What AA has been attempting to do every year he's GM is build up a fearsome relief corps. Finally he achieved it in 2013, but it wasn't for lack of trying in previous seasons. Francisco meant more to the Jays long-term development than Napoli did.

What I've always wondered was that if we had somehow managed to keep Rolen and Doc and pick up Napoli while Bautista still emerged the way he did, whether we could have been a contender. Not as good as the Phillies, but perhaps able to play meaningful games in September.

[Randle McMurphy]

What I've always wondered was that if we had somehow managed to keep Rolen and Doc and pick up Napoli while Bautista still emerged the way he did, whether we could have been a contender. Not as good as the Phillies, but perhaps able to play meaningful games in September.

The Jays could have potentially contended with the 2008/2009 core that they broke up to rebuild/save some payroll, but it would have definitely required some improvements (they made none in the 2008 offseason). And you also have to consider the fact that Bautista never likely would have emerged if Rios was never waived as part of that cost saving effort, so that hypothetical doesn't really work anyway.