Last Wednesday, Jays fans were disappointed to find out that Alex Anthopoulos, the man behind the excitement these past three months, has left the Blue Jays organization. Team owner Rogers Communications, Inc. pulled every trick in the book in an attempt to convince the King to return, but was without success after hiring incoming President Mark Shapiro on August 31st of this year.
Speculation as to why Alex chose not to come back has been rampant. To cut to the chase, it is most likely that this goes back to the mishandling of the Paul Beeston affair back in 2013. Edward Rogers, the man in charge of overseeing the Blue Jays at Rogers, let rumour get out that he was going to fire outgoing Jays President Paul Beeston. Beeston would of course find out, and subsequently announced his retirement following the end of the 2015 season.
Under Beeston, Anthopoulous had final say on all things baseball. Every deal, from those that went swimmingly well (i.e. this year’s trade deadline) from those that did not turn out quite as we might have thought (the Marlins trade, 2013), was engineered and finalized by A.A. himself. Beeston cited A.A. as being ‘his horse’ and trusted him with all the baseball decisions.
Though incoming President Mark Shapiro is yet to be tested in Toronto, back in Cleveland he was known to weigh in on baseball decisions, particularly where prospects are concerned. Some say that Shapiro over-values prospects, and that he was critical of A.A.’s big moves at the deadline this year. Again, this is only speculation, and even so, Shapiro deserves a clean slate when he gets started here.
Given that A.A. can now go to any team he wants, it is reasonable to assume that he will go somewhere where he feels that he is guaranteed to have the final say. Bet on him having a new home by the winter meetings.
Wherever you go A.A., best of luck, and thank you from all Toronto Blue Jays fans—you did a fantastic job!
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