You can’t see it, but I’m giving Toronto Blue Jays general managers Alex Anthopoulos (and the entire management team) a standing ovation right now.
Just a few days after dealing for the best shortstop in baseball, Troy Tulowitzki, from the Colorado Rockies in a move that had lots of fans and media (myself included) saying, “That’s great, but this team still needs serious pitching help,” rumours swirled that the Jays were one of a handful of teams in conversations with the Detroit Tigers to acquiring David Price, a legit front-line starter with big game experience and the potential to do for Toronto what C.C. Sabathia did for the Milwaukee Brewers a couple years back.
But Anthopoulos wouldn’t really deal a bushel of prospects for a rental, right? Wrong.
Thursday, the Blue Jays pulled the trigger on a trade with the Tigers, sending pitchers Daniel Norris, Matt Boyd and Jairo Labourt to “The Motor City” in exchange for Price in a deal that signals that Toronto is all-in on making the playoffs this year.
There were two very distant instant reactions to this deal.
Most people were surprised and excited – getting Price seemed like a pipe dream at the start of the week and less likely after the Tulowitzki deal, so to see the news that the former Cy Young winner was coming north earlier today led to the Blue Jays bandwagon filling up quickly and prompted fans to start making plans for the playoffs.
There were, of course, those that mocked the deal, suggesting Toronto was going to be the best third-place team in baseball and that all of this would look real bad when Price leaves for greener, non-Canadian pastures at the end of the season (he’s a free agent) and Toronto is left with a depleted minor league system and no front-end starter to show for it.
They’re legitimate concerns, but chances are those people wouldn’t be saying those things if their team just pulled off a pair of massive deals that made August baseball in their town the most exciting it has been in 20 years. While these twin deals – and there could still be more to come before Friday’s non-waiver trade deadline – are incredible and thrust the Blue Jays into the spotlight as they ready for the stretch drive, I actually think that Anthopoulos’ recent moves make it less critical for Toronto to make the playoffs, at least in a bigger picture, grand scheme of things sense.
Making the playoffs and winning the World Series is the obvious goal, but the simple fact that Toronto has made these moves and given themselves the best chance possible to accomplish those feats is more than this team has done in recent years and definitely counts for something. For all the revisionist history and after-the-fact hand-wringing that will come if the Blue Jays don’t make the playoffs or get bounced right away, at least Anthopoulos put this team in a position where making the playoffs feels like a very real possibility. It’s better to try and fail than never to try at all.
Don’t get me wrong, coming up short would suck, but missing out because you didn’t make any moves is very different than taking a shot and things still not shaking out in your favour. Maybe I’m alone on this, but seeing this team do nothing and finish in third place would be more frustrating and painful to watch than whatever the worst-case scenario going forward is could be.
For the last couple months, everyone (again, myself included) has been asking for Toronto to make a move – to swing a deal that gives them a chance to make a real run at things in the American League – and now they’ve done it in the biggest way possible.
That’s all you can ask for; the rest is up to the baseball gods. No matter how it plays out, Anthopoulos made this team demonstratively better as they prepared for the final two months of the season and regardless of the outcome, he deserves to be applauded for that.
