TORONTO — As players bounced into the Toronto Blue Jays clubhouse at Rogers Centre Thursday afternoon, they could barely contain their excitement.
David Price was a Blue Jay.
"Man, you should’ve seen everyone in here at 2:00. We had the music bumping, the vibes were good, we were all real excited," Blue Jays reliever Aaron Sanchez said. "When you get a player of that calibre, a really special talent like that, who’s going to take flight with us for the next two months — you know it’s going to be a lot of fun."
The mood was somewhat different from the day the Blue Jays acquired Troy Tulowitzki earlier this week, which featured a much more reserved celebration due to the departure of popular clubhouse presence Jose Reyes. On Thursday, no member of the Blue Jays’ major-league roster was leaving. But there was one very notable, Cy Young-award winning member joining.
"I saw on social media that they were getting close and I was like, ‘I’m not going to believe it just yet,’" Blue Jays third baseman Josh Donaldson said. "Then, when I saw it was confirmed I was very happy because you know what a guy like that brings to the table. He’s one of those guys who’s a front-of-the-line starter who’s going to help the ball club in more ways than one."
Most players found out about the deal the same way fans did — on social media Thursday afternoon. But one member of the Blue Jays who had an inkling the move was in the works was manager John Gibbons. Blue Jays GM Alex Anthopoulos told him Wednesday night that he had a shot at acquiring Price. Then he told him Thursday morning it was happening.
"I was like, ‘You’re screwing with me or something,’" Gibbons said. "That type of player, there’s not many of them out there. So you really never expect it to happen. But hopefully he’s just what the doctor ordered."
Several Blue Jays have interacted with Price over the years, but not many know him as well off the field as R.A. Dickey, the Blue Jays knuckleballer who shares an agent with Price and calls him a good friend.
"You’re getting the total package with this guy," Dickey said. "The way that we’ve been throwing the ball lately, I feel really good about putting him at the top [of the rotation] and us all slotting in behind him and running with it. I feel really good about that."
One Blue Jay who was especially excited — or perhaps relieved — to hear about the deal was Troy Tulowitzki, who’s had a busy couple days himself since being acquired in a separate blockbuster on Tuesday. He’ll be happy to take a back seat in terms of attention when it comes to Toronto’s ever-demanding media horde.
"Hopefully this is the last day I have to deal with it and all the attention goes to David now while I can kind of run out the back door," Tulowitzki joked.
Of course, the veteran shortstop was also delighted about the ability Price will bring to the suddenly new-look Blue Jays, and how he’ll help down the stretch, especially considering the situation he came from with the Rockies.
"It’s obviously exciting. Being in Colorado for as long as I was, we never made any moves like that. We had some times when we were coming down the stretch run and still in it, but we stuck with our team," Tulowitzki said. "So to hear that we got David today is obviously a huge acquisition. It’s exciting. Hopefully, he can come in and give us another arm to go along with these guys and help us with that push."
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The sense in the Blue Jays clubhouse is that Anthopoulos — whether he makes another move before Friday’s deadline or not — has now given the team the tools it needs to win.
"This is what everybody, I thought, was hoping for and anticipating over the last three to four weeks since people started talking about what we were going to do at the deadline," Dickey said. "You’ve got to give Alex a lot of credit. He really wants to win badly. And he’s doing a good job of getting us the personnel to be able to do that. You like it when it’s up to us. You feel like, it’s all on us. If we don’t make it, it’s all on us. So it’s good to have a GM that really wants to fight for that."
That clubhouse mood differs from last season when Anthopoulos wasn’t able to make a deadline acquisition to bolster a floundering Blue Jays club, and several players publicly voiced their disappointment at not receiving reinforcements.
"When you don’t make a move, you can often see teams kind of tank. I think we were a victim of that last year as a matter of fact," Dickey said. "I don’t know how you quantify it, but I certainly think it gives us a big boost in morale."
Every player in the clubhouse talked about the difference in confident and attitude a big move like the trades for Tulowitzki and Price can give a team. Even Gibbons could feel it from his chair in the manager’s office.
"I can sense a little more enthusiasm today. Similar to when Troy [Tulowitzki] showed up," Gibbons said. "We need to do something now, no question about that. You look at the two trades [Alex] made, they’re impact guys. They’re top of the MLB guys. They’re guys who have been productive their whole career. We dove in head first."
But with all that said, the line of the day went to Donaldson.
"You look around the clubhouse and you’re going to see a lot of all-stars," he said. "It feels like you’re almost playing fantasy baseball."