DelAbbot wrote:Raptors Realtor wrote:We should have kept Anthopolous... I didn't agree with all his moves, and he did empty the cupboards of the farm system in attempts to compete. However, he was/is proactive, never shied away from the media and things were always exciting with him in charge. I remember he'd be a guest on shows like Bob McCowen and Tim & Sid all the time, and always was a straight shooter with his vision and his moves, it was so refreshing to listen to.
That's the biggest lie Shapiro sold you.
Who got Vladdy Jr into our farm? AA
AA turned our farm into real value on the playing field like Josh Donaldson who could have been easily sold after 2016 for a haul of blue chip prospects to replenish the farm.
Don't perpetuate Mark Shapiro's lie. That horse face is a muthafuken liar
The following is not a defence of Atkins / Shapiro. They need to be pushed out. They arguably had the team in a fairly good spot in 2020/2021 (at MLB and below) and seemingly have done everything wrong to push it or sustain it since then. And have had a very good buget since then. Either in trades, acquisitions, analytic decisions, choosing who to keep / let go... and the biggest factor being the consistently failing growth of our actual young players (top prospects or young major leaguers) who constantly underwhelm or just regress. And they failed to be proactive when needed to be .
Nor is it a denial of the greatness that AA has done since leaving Toronto, or that he would be better now as the leader of the Jays I'm sure he would. And not that he did bad here. I would love to still have him as its clear the guy has consistently developed, learned and is now at the top of his craft. He is also more proactive when he feels there is a need.
That being said your one sided presentation of the job that AA did in Toronto has some real holes in it and is faulty in my view
1) You point out that Shatkins was aided by inheriting Guerrero. Who got 2 of the 3 pillars onto our 2015/2016 playoff teams (Bautista and Encarnacion). JP Ricciardi (by mostly luck)
Neither AA or Shatkins inherited a situation with great prospects / controllable MLB players.
2) You point to needing to trade Donaldson out a year after AA left. If AA did such a great job building a sustainable product why are we then feeling the need to trade Donaldson after 2016? (and no Shatkins didn't destroy the team in 2016 - it was just an old declining product)
Why were we such a mess after the 2016 season - the biggest reason was because AA was unable to draft / develop / promote ONE SIGNLE above average position player in his entire reign here that was still with the team in 2015 or 2016 (best was Pillar). As a result our lineup quickly became a declining aging mess - we also had severe budget constraints at the time (Thanks Rogers) so such a failure to develop anything in the lineup was very problematic. As an aside, it's a shame that we now have the budget on our side, and our current clowns are blowing it.
3) You point to Donaldson trade in as effective us of our farm. And that was an absolutely brilliant deal that obviously put us over the top in 2015 Who traded prospects for Josh Johnson, Jose Reyes, and RA Dickey when we tried to move pieces in earlier. That was wasting of the great contracts we had with Bautista/Encarnacion. He had some big misses too. But I like that he swung hard though.
