Anthopoulos staying the course, extends Morrow
Posted January 24, 2012 6:58 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
TORONTO – In nearly 2½ years as general manager of the Toronto Blue Jays, Alex Anthopoulos has proven resistant to the temptations of the big, splashy off-season move, the kind the Detroit Tigers are reportedly on the verge of making with prized free agent Prince Fielder.
Instead, love it or hate it, he compulsively seeks out elite young players under contractual control either through the draft or via trade, and once he’s comfortable with their ability, character and work ethic at the big-league level, tries to lock them up for as long as they want to stay.
The bulk of his spending during his still young tenure has come on players in-house with, in chronological order, the extensions handed out to Adam Lind (US$18 million, four years plus three options), Ricky Romero ($30.1 million, five years plus one option), Jose Bautista ($65 million, five years plus one option) and Yunel Escobar ($10 million, two years plus two options).
That’s why on the same day the Tigers apparently handed over $214 million for nine years to land Fielder, Anthopoulos stayed the course by finalizing a $20-million, three-year extension with Brandon Morrow, the dart-whipping righty who aspires to pitch with more “asshole” attitude in 2012 and beyond.
Anthopoulos prefers to spend his money on the players he knows most, because unlike a free agent, he can be more confident about the person he’s getting.
“I think it all ties into everything that we’re doing,” Anthopoulos said after a news conference announcing the Morrow deal. “Free agency almost, all times, the value won’t end up being there unless you can do shorter-term deals. …
“There’s no downside to keeping your talented young players and continuing to add to that. If some teams try to build through free agency, they have a right to do that, we’re trying to build through draft, development and trades, to try and keep this core together, to have everything timed. Being able to extend players is important, too, and there’s certainly a familiarity and a comfort level.
“We know the health of our players, we know the makeup, we know the work ethic, there’s just much less risk because we know exactly what we’re getting into. With a free agent, you do as much work and due diligence as you can, but until you get them, you really don’t know.”
Anthopoulos’s limited dalliances into free agency underscore the philosophy.
The $4 million, one-year deal plus an option recently handed to Darren Oliver being the most lucrative contract he’s handed to a player on the open market, although that may be eclipsed by the pending agreement with fellow reliever Francisco Cordero, who will reportedly get $4.5 million to set up Sergio Santos.
Anthopoulos is also yet to guarantee a free agent more than one year, instead working club options into most of those contracts. In total, Anthopoulos has committed just $18 million to the seven most notable free agents from outside the organization he’s signed over the past three off-seasons (Alex Gonzalez, John Buck, Kevin Gregg, Jose Molina, Octavio Dotel, Jon Rauch, and Oliver, Cordero not yet included).
Though a significant portion of the Blue Jays fan base came to expect big moves this winter, Anthopoulos’s method of building isn’t like that, something he’s been saying since September.
Locking up Morrow was on his off-season wish list and talks began picking up in recent weeks. Anthopoulos first broached the subject during the team’s jersey announcement in November, and found a willing partner.
“I always ask the players, ‘Do you want to be here?'” he explained, “because we’re not going to chase our tails to get someone signed to extension that doesn’t want to be here, or feel like they’re only going to be here because of money. It has to work for both sides.”
It certainly works for Morrow, who has found the stability in role he coveted once joining the Blue Jays from the Mariners in a December 2009 trade. In Seattle, he bounced between the bullpen and rotation, never building a comfort level in either spot.
Upon completion of the swap, Anthopoulos told Morrow he would exclusively be a starter, allowing the 27-year-old to make gains without looking over his shoulder. While his progress has been mixed over the past two seasons – Anthopoulos blamed part of his 2011 struggles and the club’s dreadful outfield defence – he remains young as a starter and is still trying to find a consistent level.
Morrow believes he hit upon something in his final three starts last season, increasing his effort level from pitch to pitch to try and max out his velocity rather than trying to take something off in search of early-count contact.
“The whole string of starts leading up to that kind of made me mad, I guess, and a lot of times you pitch better with a chip on your shoulder,” he said. “I hope that’s something I can incorporate into my game more, there’s a certain level of ‘asshole’ that you need to be to really succeed. You look at the best athletes, and they all got a little bit of that in them, especially when things are on the line.
“I think I took a little bit of that mentality.”
Matching the aggressiveness in his mind to the aggressiveness in his arm will also be key for him, as he tired of trying to place the ball in the strike zone only to get burned. He feels now that he must make the opposition beat his best stuff.
“There are games when I’ve tried to pitch like Greg Maddux and games where I’ve tried to throw every ball as hard as I could,” he said. “It’s really finding that fine line between controlling your body and really being aggressive about it, and I think with my stuff, sometimes my mental approach lags a little behind my physical approach. With the stuff I have, I think it pays to be more aggressive.”
Some fans might say the same about Morrow’s GM in free agency, but Anthopoulos has a plan, and clearly he’s sticking to it.
