One could argue that no general manager in all of baseball is currently under more pressure to have his team take that next step than Alex Anthopoulos of the Toronto Blue Jays. While many an expert had the Jays listed as their pre-season 2013 World Series favorite following a couple of blockbuster deals and some work in the costless agent market that saw Canada’s lone big league club land the likes of Mark Buehrle, Melky Cabrera, R.A. Dickey and Jose Reyes, it was ultimately a year to forget for everyone within the organization.
After crashing out in the fashion they did, few gave them much of a chance heading into 2014 but to their credit, Toronto managed to surprise everyone across the baseball world with an absolutely dominant run through the month of May. Frankly, they were so good that it should have been enough to secure them, at the very least, a wild card spot in the American League. Unfortunately that was not how things played out and because of that Anthopoulos is now on the hot-seat and needs to find a way get this team back to the post-season for the first time since 1993. With that being the case, is sounds as though the Blue Jays GM is open for business when it comes to either the trade or costless agent markets.
After freeing up a good chunk of change in moving Adam Lind to the Milwaukee Brewers for pitcher Marco Estrada, Toronto has apparently inquired about the availability of number of players in a variety of different cities. Included among this list are a trio of Philadelphia Phillies (Antonio Bastardo, Cole Hamels, Chase Utley), Houston Astros centerfielder Dexter Fowler and Los Angeles Angels second baseman Howie Kendrick.
When you add those names to those of Nori Aoki, Russell Martin, Victor Martinez and Pablo Sandoval whom Anthopoulos has already been linked to as potential costless agent targets, suddenly the Blue Jays vision becomes a little less cloudy. .
In a perfect world, the organization would love to re-sign Cabrera to some sort of multi-year extension but by the sounds of it, the left fielder has his sights set on testing the open market. With the lack of quality positional players available among this year's costless agent crop, one would think there will be a team out there who will throw a ridiculous number and/or term at the Jays No. 2 hitter and make it next to impossible for him to turn it down.
Everyone knows this team is in dire need of a second baseman, (or third baseman should they decide to move Brett Lawrie to the middle of the diamond on a full-time basis), and one if not two outfielders to fill out their everyday roster. In all likelihood, John Gibbons will be forced into using one or two of Anthony Gose, Kevin Pillar and Dalton Pompey in some sort of rotation in center field but in order for such a set up to have any chance at working...Anthopoulos will have no choice but to fill the other glaring holes with everyday players. This notion of being able to go out and use a handful of "platoons" at a variety of different positions simply can't continue. While it may work for the Oakland Athletics...it sure as heck hasn't worked in Toronto.
From an offensive production standpoint, there may not be another team in baseball who can put together a more dominant top half of a batting order than the Jays combination of Reyes, Cabrera, Jose Bautista and Edwin Encarnacion. However, from the No. 5 hitter on it became a little iffy and when you remove Lind’s bat from equation, it looks that much worse. Outside of catcher Dioner Navarro and possibly Lawrie, the bottom half of the Blue Jays batting order was generally filled with players who were nothing more than run-of-the-mill bench guys on far too many nights.
All this and we haven’t even mentioned the pitching staff. Chances are Anthopoulos won’t actively pursue a front end of the rotation guy for 2015 but he would certainly entertain the idea of moving one of Buehrle or Dickey, should the club not be forced into eating a large portion of money. While they may have little interest in do so, the Blue Jays may also be forced into moving J.A. Happ and his rather friendly $6.7 million contract in a deal to help fill some of the aforementioned needs, which could very will lead to another bottom of the rotation pitcher possibly being brought in during the summer or Estrada getting a shot at earning a starting job.
With Drew Hutchison, Aaron Sanchez, Marcus Stroman and at least one of Buehrle and Dickey all but guaranteed starting gigs, Toronto will turn their focus towards improving what was arguably their biggest disappointment of 2014…the bullpen. There is next to no chance of Casey Janssen returning and with Sanchez expected to become a fixture in the rotation, it looks as though the only regular contributors out of the pen who will be returning are Brett Cecil and Aaron Loup.
Considering how poor the Blue Jays bullpen was during the better portion of 2014, a complete overhaul might not be such a bad idea. With that said, you can expect Anthopoulos to go on the cheap when it comes to filling out his pen. Spending big money on relief pitchers is generally a disaster waiting to happen and considering this organization had the misfortune of signing B.J. Ryan to a five year deal back in 2005, something tells me they will be in hurry to make similar mistake this time around.
Anthopoulos is no dummy. When he was given the keys to car back in October 2009, he wowed to restock the organizations cupboards with prospects and rebuild it from there. With the emergence of Sanchez and Stroman, the thirty-seven year old Montreal native bought himself another year to try and grab that elusive post-season appearance but not much else.
Anything short of that will not be tolerated by the masses and he is fully aware of what is at stake. While he might be on his last legs as GM, there is absolutely zero chance of Alex Anthopoulos going down without a fight. Make no mistake, the Toronto Blue Jays are open for business…now it just a question of whether or not their general manager can bring in the necessary pieces to help get them over that hump and back into the Major League Baseball Playoffs.
