Anthopoulos has Jays relevant again
Yes times a million of these: !!!!!
That was Jose Bautista’s giddy reaction — via text message, via-via the general manager’s open-mike relay — to the OMG acquisition of David Price.
The lefty stud who didn’t come to Toronto at the trade deadline a year ago, detouring to Detroit instead.
The marquee starter who didn’t grab his head in agony upon discovering that he had become, presto-gonzo, a Blue Jay, for at least the balance of this season — and no one’s looking beyond that because this is the moment that matters. The AL Cy Young award winner three years ago, who has been a Toronto nemesis, 7-0 here in nine starts.
The five-time all-star who may pass this way merely for a few fleeting months — a la David Cone, circa1992 — but we’ll take it.
Alex Anthopoulos took it, in the middle of the night – ’round 3 a.m., witching hour — with some five hours of follow-up arm-twisting to finalize the last player in the transaction with Detroit counterpart David Dombrowski. Anthopoulos, at his Thursday afternoon presser and in interviews later, wouldn’t reveal the identity of that individual and who may have been pushed in Player X’s stead. “We haggled over the third player for about five hours.”
But as it all shook out in the end — once Detroit had accepted there would be no contract extension sufficiently enticing to keep pending free agent Price in Motor City — it seems an Honest Ed’s bargain for T.O.
The Jays have got pitching prospects coming out the yin-yang, a stash of trade-bait goodies for which Anthopoulos rightly attributes his canny scouting staff because he’s not the guy sniffing around sandlots in the dog days of summer.
It’s a drag to see Daniel Norris, in particular, disappear from the Blue Jay underclass because he looked like such a keeper at spring training and, also, the kind of maverick eccentric around whom many tales will be spun, no doubt, in years to come. He lost his way a bit, after breaking with the parent club in April, and lost the plate — he was still figuring things out in Triple-A when abruptly transformed into a Tiger.
But, golly, we all thought the price for Price would have been so much steeper than this.
So bully for A.A., who has proven himself yet again a shrewd barterer, pulling another gobsmacking ta-da out of his heinie, getting a massive upgrade to the starting rotation, delivering unto the Jays the ace they’ve so sorely been lacking since the Roy Halladay and Roger Clemens days.
And who’s to say he is even done yet, as the minutes tick down to Friday’s 4 p.m. trade deadline. What next might he set his fancy on — another starter, a bullpen arm, a left-handed hitter?
Thus far, in a whirlwind week, Anthopoulos has well and truly done Toronto a solid, good enough — whatever transpires — to justify a new contract for himself.
With Price, set for 11 or 12 starts for Toronto through the rest of the season, set alongside R.A. Dickey’s return to dancing knuckleball form, the standard reliability of Mark Buehrle, and the quite respectable acquittal of Marco Estrada, that playoff berth doesn’t look quite so steep an upward climb. The wild card, two games back as of pre-game last night, is tantalizingly accessible for a club with the longest post-season drought in pro sports. Somebody bring me some water, as Melissa Eth-bridge sang.
Did Anthopoulos leave it too late? A week ago, hear him tell it, Price wasn’t even available. So the timing worked in Toronto’s favour. Price in Blue Jay druthers vaulted Toronto into 16-1 odds for the World Series (from 25-1) as per @LVSuperBook. From a certain perspective, the Jays may be a better October classic bet — that is, once into the playoff season — 26.1per cent odds, according to bookmakers, behind the Astros (34.7 per cent) and the Angels (37.5 per cent). Every game counts now — most toweringly those 13 against the Yankees — and, goodness, if feels like the late ’80s again, the early ’90s, when baseball was paramount in Toronto.
In the end, that’s what we owe A.A. above all — making the Jays ultrarelevant and baseball buoyant in a crowded local market where the Leafs always rule and every other sport dukes it out for No. 2.
It’s a risky business, this rent-aplayer tactic, and assessing the equation from a .500 starting point — which brings to mind all those blown saves the non-closers racked up in April, May and June.
On top of the totally unexpected but delightful get of Troy Tulowitzki, Anthopoulos is batting 1.000. If he turned his feverish brain to politics, he’d mop the floor right now with . . . those other guys.
Everybody in the Toronto clubhouse was walking a foot taller yesterday.
“He’s going to fit very well with this group,” predicted Anthopoulos. “There’s a great dynamic in that clubhouse. The mix there is very, very good. But at the same time you still need to win games. I think every team gets better when you add a player like this.” This is the team that did it, though. This is the GM who pulled it off. Bask in that glow, A.A. — while it lasts. After four o’clock, you become a spectator like the rest of us.