The worst fear of Toronto Blue Jays fans has come true. On the same day general manager Alex Anthopoulos won the Sporting News Executive of the Year, he also resigned from his post with the team and will not return in 2016.
It's hard to believe new CEO and team president Mark Shapiro already made his biggest mistake and he doesn't even officially take over until Monday. Shapiro was hired on Aug. 31 after spending 24 years with the Cleveland Indians and there was belief Anthopoulos' future with Toronto might be in danger because of the new hierarchy making its way north of the border after the 2015 season.
Anthopoulos became general manager of the Blue Jays in October of 2009. He inherited a team that was coming off a losing season, hadn't made the playoffs since 1993 and was experiencing a sharp decline in attendance, which went from 2.36 million in 2007 to 1.49 million in 2010.
Here's what the team looked like when Anthopoulos took office:
C - Rod Barajas
1B - Lyle Overbay
2B - Aaron Hill
SS - Marco Scutaro
3B - Scott Rolen
LF - Travis Snider
CF - Vernon Wells
RF - Alex Rios
DH - Adam Lind
Jose Bautista and Edwin Encarnacion were also on the team, but they hadn't even come close to breaking out yet. The club also ranked 22nd in ERA during the 2009 season and had the 19th-ranked farm system in the MLB.
Here's what the team looked like after Anthopoulos' sixth season as general manager:
C - Russell Martin
1B - Chris Colabello/Justin Smoak
2B - Ryan Goins/Devon Travis
SS - Troy Tulowitzki
3B - Josh Donaldson
LF - Ben Revere
CF - Kevin Pillar
RF - Jose Bautista
DH - Edwin Encarnacion
Toronto finished the season with the MLB's top offense and the 12th-best ERA as well as the No. 10-ranked farm system before the year began. Although Anthopoulos traded a number of the team's top prospects, he got good value in Donaldson, Tulowitzki and Revere - all of whom the team has under control for the foreseeable future. And on top of that, the organization is still ripe with young talent from Aaron Sanchez to Roberto Osuna to Devon Travis to Dalton Pompey to Marcus Stroman and more.
The Blue Jays won the AL East, made the postseason and reached the ALCS - all for the first time since 1993. The attendance in 2015 (2,794,891) was the highest since 1995 (2,826,483), according to Baseball-Reference.
And sadly, because baseball has a new obsession with establishing hierarchies in every front office and putting a bunch of nameless faces underneath the president of baseball operations, Anthopoulos is out of a job. He would not accept being in a position where he's responsible for doing a ton of legwork to put the pieces together and yet not have final say over those crucial decisions. He worked too hard to get to where he was, kind of like Ben Cherington, who likely felt disrespected when the Red Sox brought in Dave Dombrowski as president. Cherington resigned as GM after Dombrowski told him he could remain in the position.
Why? Because GMs are phasing out.
Here's the latest from Richard Griffin of The Toronto Star:
"The new offer from ownership and incoming president Mark Shapiro would take away the final say on player personnel moves, handing them to the new guy who had discovered in his role as a business-only Indians president, that he missed his role as a trade/free-agent power broker like an alcoholic misses Jaeger bombs. The insulting responsibility offer to Anthopoulos was akin to the man who built a business being asked to come back as an executive assistant. Loyalty with the Blue Jays is not a two-way street, it's a cul-de-sac."
Based on Anthopoulos' response on the matter earlier today, it's clear there was an issue regarding a potential power struggle between him and Shapiro.
"I just didn't feel like this was a right fit for me going forward," Anthopoulos told Brendan Kennedy of The Toronto Star.
"I don't know if I've had to make a harder decision in my life, but I did what I felt like I needed to do."
The Blue Jays were premature in giving Shapiro final say in player-personnel decisions. Nothing against Shapiro, but although he won MLB Executive of the Year in 2005 and 2007 as general manager of the Cleveland Indians, he doesn't have much to show for it. Shapiro served as GM of the Indians from 2002-2010 and then was team president from 2011-2015. The Indians made the postseason just once when he was GM in 2007 and had winning records only twice. In nine years as GM, Shapiro amassed a 704-754 record and as team president he oversaw a 406-403 record with one playoff appearance (they were eliminated in the AL Wild Card Game).
Shapiro inherited an Indians' club that was at its peak as a franchise under general manager John Hart, who now runs the Braves. Cleveland was in the postseason six times from 1995-2001 and appeared in the World Series twice as well as the ALCS once.
Shapiro has been in a power position for 14 seasons and during that tenure he made the playoffs just twice, captured one division title and recorded five winning records (including a not-so-impressive 81-80 campaign in 2015). According to Baseball-Reference, the Indians had their worst year of attendance this past season (1,388,905) since 1992 (1,224,094).
Additionally, their farm system ranked 29th in 2012, 20th in 2013, 18th in 2014 and 22nd in 2015.
And in the midst of the Blue Jays' best season in 22 years, the team's ownership gave Shapiro final say on player-personnel decisions after their general manager executed the greatest set of trade deadline moves in MLB history, not to mention the offseason acquisitions that kept Toronto afloat until the end of July when he took the league by storm.
The now-somewhat-depleted Blue Jays' farm system, which lost Daniel Norris, Matt Boyd, Jeff Hoffman, Miguel Castro, Jesus Tinoco and Jairo Labourt in the David Price and Troy Tulowitzki deals, is still in fine shape with Anthony Alford, Sean Reid-Foley, Max Pentecost, Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Richard Urena and more.
A report from Rick Westhead of The Sports Network indicated Shapiro "scolded" Anthopoulos for trading so many top prospects in the past year.
A guy who ran an organization for the past five years and possessed one of the worst farm systems in all of baseball is apparently scolding a GM that surrounded himself with tremendous talent evaluators to help build a deep farm system so the club would have some ammo to make trades and propel the hapless Blue Jays into contention.
I mean, with the world we live in, it only makes sense that Shapiro would do something like that. Because why not? Each day on Earth is usually more senseless than the last.
But hey, Shapiro, in case you didn't notice, Anthopoulos pretty much matches you in achievements in only six years of work compared to your 14. Oh yeah, and it was in a division that's eons better than the one you ran your operation in.
OK, you want stats?
Since 2002 the AL Central has had 15 teams notch 90 wins or more
Since 2009 the AL East had had 14 teams notch 90 wins or more
Forget stats. The people have spoken.
There's already a petition on Change.org that is calling for the Blue Jays to fire Shapiro and re-sign Anthopoulos.
Mark Shapiro's 1st big move as Indians GM was Roberto Alomar trade. He was as popular w/ Tribe fans then as he is with Blue Jays fans now.
— Anthony Castrovince (@castrovince) October 29, 2015
I might not know anything about how to build a successful front office, but I do know you don't unseat a 38-year-old hitting his stride as a multi-faceted general manager. Sitting here, as a Yankees fan, I can't even help but express my disgust toward Shapiro (if the reports are true) and the Blue Jays' ownership for making such short-sighted decisions over the past couple of months, culminating in today's disaster.
Gob Bluth from Arrested Development could sum it up swimmingly:
And that's how the Blue Jays are going to feel unless Shapiro does what he couldn't do in 14 years as a GM and president - get to the World Series.
