Hiring a permanent general manager will be among the more important decisions that Mark Shapiro makes as Toronto Blue Jays president, and it may also be one of the tougher ones. Not only would Shapiro’s ideal candidate build a winning team on the field, the GM would balance out his or her own skillset by assembling a versatile front office.
Tony LaCava now serves as the Blue Jays’ interim GM, heading a group that includes assistant GM Andrew Tinnish, pro scouting director Perry Minasian and manager of baseball research and development Joe Sheehan. Shapiro says he has confidence in the experienced group, though he declined to say whether LaCava will be in the mix for the permanent job.
When the search begins, Shapiro knows what attributes he’ll be seeking.
“Certainly a leader, a decision maker, a communicator, an empowerer,” Shapiro said. “Someone who hires effectively and surrounds themselves with quality people and who empowers those people. But I do think it’s somewhat situational.”
There’s a lot of information available to baseball executives, and Shapiro hopes his front office can gain a competitive advantage by making sense of it as smoothly as possible. That means the GM must be capable of finding and developing front office talent.
“You need a strong, capable staff, a well-articulated system where you can apply the information provided to you and execute good decisions that are part of a plan and part of a strategy,” he said. “Part of a GM’s job is to not just build a team on the field, but build a team in the office. And that doesn’t mean any one set of attributes as a good leader complements himself or herself with people around them that complement their strengths and their skillsets. That’s why I say it doesn’t have to be one thing.”
Shapiro initially expected Alex Anthopoulos to return, and he wasn’t the only one. When Anthopoulos told the Blue Jays’ front office staff that he wasn’t returning to Toronto, LaCava initially tried to persuade him to stay. Once he realized how serious Anthopoulos was, LaCava turned his focus to the job at hand. His state of mind? “Challenged and humbled and ready for it.”
Whether he’s a candidate for the permanent GM job or not, LaCava made his loyalty to the Blue Jays clear.
“I’m a Blue Jay. I’m on the bus,” he said. “(Shapiro) could tell me I’ll be cleaning up this (media room) mess after you guys leave and I’d do it.”
While Shapiro doesn’t plan on overseeing “minutiae,” he said he hopes and expects to foster a collaborative environment in which the GM works closely with others to recommend sound decisions.
“A good GM stewards a decision by gathering information, all the variables that exist – makeup, character, personality, medical, objective analysis, subjective analysis – they steward all that process, they arrive at a strong recommendation and ultimately I think if that process is good, my job to approve the decision is easy,” Shapiro said. “It’s all about the process.”
Indians executives Ross Atkins and Derek Falvey could be considerations for the permanent GM job, and Shapiro could also turn to former Cleveland executives such as De Jon Watson and Josh Byrnes. At this point that’s just speculation, however. There’s an abundance of bright executives around baseball, many of whom could appeal to the Blue Jays, the lone team with a GM opening.
When the formal search begins remains to be seen.
“It’s not because I’m hiding something, I just don’t know yet,” Shapiro said. “Certainly there’s some benefit to getting that done sooner rather than later.”
Any way you look at it, the off-season calendar waits for no one.
