TORONTO – The first time Alex Anthopoulos returned to Toronto as a member of the opposition, he had mixed emotions about being back.
It was May of 2016, a little more than six months after Anthopoulos helped end the franchise’s 22-year playoff drought only to leave unexpectedly as the off-season began. By the next spring he was a few months into his tenure as the Dodgers’ vice-president of baseball operations, but his departure was still so fresh that the Blue Jays roster was largely a product of his moves.
As the media requests poured in, Anthopoulos realized he’d likely have to answer questions, but was wary of creating a distraction for either team, especially since he wasn’t the GM of the Blue Jays or the Dodgers.
“To be honest with you I didn’t even want to come to the park,” he recalled. “Not because I don’t love this place, I just was very apprehensive about being a distraction with a new club in the role I was in. I just didn’t think it was appropriate.”
Now he’s with a new team in a new role, creating a renewed sense of comfort at his longtime workplace.
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“It’s great to be back,” Anthopoulos said from the visiting dugout at Rogers Centre Tuesday.
He returns as the GM of the Atlanta Braves, the team he joined last November after two seasons with the Dodgers. Though the Braves weren’t generally considered a playoff contender before the season, they arrived in Toronto 42-29 atop the NL East. Young players including Ozzie Albies, Ronald Acuna Jr. and Mike Soroka have combined with veterans such as Kurt Suzuki and Nick Markakis to form a surprise team.
“We didn’t know what to expect,” Anthopoulos said. “We knew there was a lot of talent here. All the GMs before me from John Schuerholz to Frank Wren to John Hart, those guys did an amazing job. … They all should be really, really proud of what’s going on here.”
To this point, Anthopoulos has refrained from making franchise-changing moves, preferring to assess the Braves’ own players first. Over the years his style of deal-making has evolved, incorporating his experiences as GM in Toronto and as a top executive for the Dodgers, who lost last year’s World Series to an Astros team he had considered joining in 2016.
“I didn’t get the ring, but both places were going to achieve what I wanted to achieve, going to a place where I could get exposed to some new things and grow and get better,” Anthopoulos said. “I think a lot of things I learned here I tried to bring a little bit to Atlanta, and things I learned in L.A. I bring a little bit and take a lot of the good that Atlanta already had and keep it going.”
If the Braves keep winning for another month, they’ll likely be buyers ahead of the July 31 trade deadline. With the Blue Jays positioned to sell, there’s a potential match on paper, and a solid working relationship exists between the two clubs nearly three years after Anthopoulos declined to stay on as GM under Blue Jays president and CEO Mark Shapiro.
“Those guys are great,” said Anthopoulos, who later praised the club’s recent trades for Yangervis Solarte and Teoscar Hernandez.
The Braves and Blue Jays discussed potential trades over the winter without agreeing to a deal, and even before that Anthopoulos handled talks with Toronto while working alongside Dodgers executives Andrew Friedman and Farhan Zaidi in Los Angeles.
“It’s not new for me,” he said. “As much as I was out of the formal (GM) role for two years, I did a lot of the same things (as before).”
Braves third baseman Johan Camargo has slowed down at the plate after an impressive start, so it’s conceivable that Anthopoulos could call the Blue Jays about Josh Donaldson, arguably his best acquisition in six seasons as Toronto’s GM. On a smaller scale, the Blue Jays can trade intriguing relievers in Tyler Clippard, John Axford and Seunghwan Oh.
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It was three years ago this time that Donaldson’s MVP season helped the Blue Jays win 93 games on their way to their sixth ever AL East title. From his vantage point in the first base dugout Tuesday, Anthopoulos reflected on the meaning of the 2015 AL East Champs banner hanging in centre field.
“Don’t get me wrong, I would have been very happy with a wild card and getting into the playoffs,” he said. “But winning the division felt like a great accomplishment.”
The Blue Jays’ success on the field corresponded to a huge surge in fan interest that was reflected in league-leading attendance numbers and record TV audiences across Canada. Now that Anthopoulos has had the chance to get to know the Braves’ fan base better, he sees parallels to Toronto.
“There are a lot of similarities to the Blue Jays and Canada,” he said. “Braves fans are everywhere and I’m not surprised now seeing it and being around it, but I would not have dreamt that this was the reality when I took this job.”
