The 2014 draft is an important one for the Toronto Blue Jays, who own the ninth pick by virtue of their train-wreck last season, and the 11th selection thanks to their inability to sign Phil Bickford, last year’s first-rounder. The slot values for the two selections – $3,080,800 for No. 9; $2,888,300 for No. 11 – help provide the Blue Jays a total draft pool of $9,458,500 to work with, offering ample room for creativity with their picks. Sportsnet asked general manager Alex Anthopoulos about the club’s approach.
Q: With two first-round picks, are you looking to spend big on high-end talent early or are you considering spreading the money around to accumulate multiple assets?
A: “We don’t have a set strategy. You’re talking about diversifying your portfolio, we’re not sitting there saying let’s take one high-schooler, one college, two high-school, two college – it’s irrelevant. It’s strictly best player available. Part of the analysis is risk, ultimately all these guys have risk, but how much risk are you willing to take on? That factors. I’d say a big part of refining our process is maybe we’re starting to examine the level of risk we’re willing to take.”
Q: How so?
A: “Just anything. More risk, most likely, more reward, and we may just modify it slightly. It doesn’t mean we’ll be risk-averse, but maybe not take the same level of risk. We’re just trying to balance it out a little bit more as we’re going through it. That’s not to say we’re not looking for talent, upside, all that kind of stuff. We’re trying to balance it.”
Q: What are the strengths you see in this draft class?
A: “There’s a ton of high school arms. It’s light in position players, very, very light relative to the arms in the draft. There’s a ton hard high-school throwers, there’s a lot of velocity. My focus really has been on Round 1 because obviously 9 and 11 are so high. Really when you try to take a step back and look at the percentage of dollars spent in Round 1 compared to the others, that truly should be the percentage of time spent doing the work seeing the players.”
Q: In 2011 you drafted left-hander Tyler Beede 21st overall but couldn’t sign him, and now he’s projected to again be a first-round choice near where you pick. Did he sign a consent to reselect card, and would you consider drafting him again?
A: “He signed it and is eligible to be reselected by us. We’d have no issue at all, that’s in the past. Like we said at the time, we weren’t able to come to terms, we wished him luck, he’s had an unbelievable college career, he’s done well, it’s worked out well for him, he’s still pegged to be a good draft pick. We think it worked out for us as well. We got Marcus Stroman with the (compensation) pick for him, we’re very happy with Marcus as well.”
Q: You also didn’t sign Bickford last year. Is failing to sign a first-round pick twice in three years a mistake on your end?
A: “That’s sometime a misnomer. You now have the flexibility to walk away from the player because of the ability to get the pick back. It’s a conscious choice. We have the ability to sign all these players, we have the resources to sign all these players, but knowing you can get the pick back minus one (spot), it gives you that option. That was part of the new CBA and that was an advantage to the clubs. Sure we wanted to sign Tyler, it didn’t work out, but we knew that there would be a pick the following year, and we would most likely be happy. We got Stroman and we’re thrilled with him.”