Jays used magic Beane to land star
PERSISTENCE PAYS OFF: Anthopoulos pestered A’s GM until Josh Donaldson deal was finally complete
The first time Alex Anthopoulos called, Billy Beane said no. He said no the second time in early November and the third time and almost every time after that until Beane got terse on the telephone.
“Listen,” Beane said. “I’m not trading Josh Donaldson, so stop asking me.”
So Anthopoulos then proceeded to do what Anthopoulos does. He is either the most diligent general manager in baseball or the biggest pest. Sometimes he can be both. He kept on calling. And calling.
He asked about Jeff Samardzija. He tossed about some other names. But he kept coming back to Donaldson.
The Blue Jays staff had met during the Arizona Fall League, sizing up their best prospects, trying to determine who might be available to trade for. And they, like Anthopoulos, kept coming back to Donaldson. Because he was an Oakland A’s player. Because he hadn’t yet earned the big money he’s going to earn. Because the A’s like to play poor and not pay their stars. Because of all that, Anthopoulos kept on dialing.
He and Beane, the Oakland A’s general manager, talked about a deal with prospects only for Donaldson. That didn’t fly. It didn’t work even though the Blue Jays management team was hating the idea of parting with the names they were considering giving up. The truth: Talk was going nowhere until Beane altered the narrative.
He said prospects were nice, but he needed something for his big-league roster. He said if he was considering trading Donaldson, he had no third baseman to take his place.
It was then that Anthopoulos altered his direction and offered up Brett Lawrie, who he was planning to move to second base if he had somehow been able to acquire Donaldson without having to part with the third baseman.
“We had no intention of trading Lawrie,” said Anthopoulos. “But when I said, ‘What if I add Brett?’ he became a little more open minded.”
“That would help,” Beane told him.
The toughest part for the Blue Jays? It wasn’t moving Lawrie.
It was trading away pitcher Kendall Graveman.
During those organizational meetings in Arizona, coach Dane Johnson had dubbed Graveman as having the best makeup of any pitcher he’d ever had in the minor leagues.
“And he’s had a lot of really good ones,” said Anthopoulos. “We had talked then about trading J.A. Happ. He thought if we move Happ, we can move Graveman into that spot. He was the most ready to step into the rotation of any guy we had. It was tough to part with him.
“It’s the kind of deal that early in my career I had real trouble considering and I had a hard time doing it. Ironically enough, a conversation with Billy Beane (before this) changed my view.”
Beane told him not to worry about what he was trading away in any deal, but to concentrate on what he was getting and what it could do for his ball club. “He told me, you have to be more focused on what you’re getting in a trade. It’s not supposed to be a one-way street. It’s supposed to work out for both teams.
“We agonized over this trade. We were giving up a lot of talent. We didn’t like what we were giving up.”
They loved what they were getting, though. And they got their best player doing it, maybe the American League MVP. And Anthopoulos couldn’t have made the Donaldson trade with Beane’s participation and his advice.
A story circulated after the deal that Donaldson and Beane had a clubhouse war in Oakland and that led to his departure from the A’s.
Anthopoulos can’t believe that story because of all the resistance he was met with while trying to complete the transaction.
“I don’t think there’s anything to that at all. Has anybody confirmed that? You know how many times I had to call him? Believe me, a lot of our conversations didn’t go anywhere.”
And here is Donaldson now, in a race for first place with the emerging Jays, leading the American League in extra base hits, RBIs and runs scored, near the top in home runs, slugging, doubles, and total bases.
Leading in so many different ways that Anthopoulos no longer worries that he sent Lawrie, Graveman and two other prospects packing — he just appreciates what he has in Donaldson and what he has learned about his third baseman.
“I didn’t know how smart he was and how much a student of the game he was,” said the GM.
“And I didn’t know how much of a leader he was. And how driven he was to succeed. And how driven he was to win. You have to give up talent to get this kind of guy.
“We wanted to hang on to our young arms, believe me. But you’re not getting Troy Tulowitzki without Jeff Hoffman in the deal and you’re not getting Josh Donaldson without Graveman in the deal.”
Alex Anthopoulos made those moves, courtesy of something he learned from Billy Beane.