Are Blue Jays hatching plans on the fly?
If there has been one constant among Toronto sports franchises in recent decades — other than wearying mediocrity — it has been faceless predictability at the ownership level.
Corporate boards of directors tend not to do anything too exciting, lest they give shareholders the flop sweats, which is why the swirl of intrigue surrounding the Toronto Blue Jays and their president-in-limbo is so out of character.
But if it’s true that the move to replace Paul Beeston as team president is being driven by Edward Rogers, deputy chairman of Rogers Communications and controller of the family’s majority voting shares, and that discussions with the Baltimore Orioles over compensation for the services of Dan Duquette have included the possibility of blue-chip assets heading out of Toronto, then we are looking at ownership hijinks not seen around here since the Harold Ballard era.
What we know for certain amounts to very little because this process has been conducted on the Toronto end with all the transparency of granite. But the Orioles — and the Chicago White Sox before them — have confirmed that someone representing the Jays contacted them in search of a replacement for Beeston, whose contract expired in the fall but who has said he expected to return for the 2015 season. The Toronto Sun’s Bob Elliott has reported that it was Edward Rogers, the 45-year-old son of the late Ted Rogers, who made the calls. No one with the Jays’ ownership has disputed the suggestion, but neither have they confirmed it, because they aren’t saying anything. Since a bevy of activity in the middle of last week and conflicting reports about whether the Jays and Orioles were in advanced Duquette talks, the Toronto team has continued to embrace silence on the issue.
Word out of Baltimore remains hazy, too. Orioles owner Peter Angelos has stated flatly that a deal to send Duquette, his team’s general manager, to a division rival “is not going to happen” and said he was “not in any negotiations with Mr. Rogers,” which if nothing else appears to indicate that it was Edward Rogers is at the root of it. But at the same time there are those close to the Orioles saying that Duquette’s willingness to entertain the Toronto possibility raises concerns of divided loyalties and that Baltimore should smooth his exit. The narratives are not mutually exclusive: Angelos could indeed be willing to part with Duquette, while saying he wants no part of it just to drive up the price.
It’s here where the various rumours and reports should be alarming to Jays fans. One suggests that Jeff Hoffman, the pitcher Toronto selected ninth overall in last spring’s entry draft, was part of the talks. Another has the Jays taking back salary ballast in the form of the three years and almost $39 million US remaining on the Orioles contract of Ubaldo Jimenez, who won six games — with a 4.81 ERA — in Baltimore and didn’t make any appearances in the post-season. Such scenarios would constitute madness for a Toronto team that might be good enough to contend in a still-soft American League East this season, provided the Jays don’t give up key parts in order to placate Angelos, whose team is the defending division champion.
Beeston isn’t irreplaceable, and there’s an argument to be made that a team that hasn’t made the playoffs since 1993 should absolutely be pursuing a change at the top. But that hardly justifies the apparent pursuit of an executive who still has four years left on his current deal, which would necessitate the steep price. And, leaving aside the shoddy treatment of Beeston, bringing in someone with Duquette’s specific baseball pedigree would not signal a vote of confidence in Alex Anthopoulos, the current general manager. Duquette has been a GM in Montreal, Boston and now Baltimore. Would there be any reason to believe that Anthopoulos’s autonomy to make baseball decisions would not be seriously eroded with a longtime baseball personnel guy installed as his boss?
Again: maybe someone at Rogers has decided that Anthopoulos’s record, like Beeston’s, is wanting, and that a complete regime change is needed to improve upon the record of the present cast, which has been good at building hope but not much for following through on it.
Rogers owns the team, it’s their call. But everything about this seems like it is a plan being hatched on the fly. Anthopoulos started this off-season with the widely lauded signing of free-agent catcher Russell Martin and the trade of infielder Brett Lawrie for Oakland’s all-star third baseman Josh Donaldson. These were moves made by an organization that wants to win now, in the brief window remaining for Jose Bautista and Edwin Encarnacion. You don’t do what the Jays just did in the off-season if you are going to blow up the organizational hierarchy before the new season even begins.
And maybe they won’t. Maybe the talks with Baltimore die if they aren’t dead already, and Toronto will just wait until the right time to announce Beeston’s return without it feeling too embarrassing.
The boring option, considering the others that have been floated, would be the right way to end all this.