Anthopoulos Talks Prospects, CBA, Payroll

General manager Alex Anthopoulos reviewed the Blue Jays’ on-field progress and discussed a variety of off-field issues in an extended interview with Drew Fairservice of the Score. Here are some highlights from their conversation:

• It’s becoming more difficult for teams to get good trade value for players with one or two remaining years of team control, Anthopoulos said. “Now it is starting to shift a little bit, it is three years of control or four years of control,” he said. Players just one year away from free agency don’t have as much trade value now, according to the GM.
• The Blue Jays entered the season with a payroll in the $80MM range and Anthopoulos described it as “a solid payroll to have” (Toronto’s Opening Day payroll was $83.7MM according to Cot's Baseball Contracts and $75.5MM according to USA Today). He repeated that the team can increase payroll, but noted that “it isn’t going to go up for the sake of going up.”
• Draft pick compensation has become less of a consideration for the Blue Jays given the franchise’s minor league depth and recent changes to baseball’s collective bargaining agreement. “Now we are more interested in guys who will be around for a while and have some swing-and-miss stuff,” Anthopoulos said of potential relief acquisitions.
• There’s no formula for extensions, Anthopoulos said. “It always comes down to price.” The Blue Jays discussed a possible extension for Edwin Encarnacion last offseason and ultimately signed him this summer.
• Part of the reason the Blue Jays generally avoid long-term contracts is the unpredictable nature of baseball. “Players change, things change,” Anthopoulos told Fairservice. “Players get hurt and you tend to forget six or seven years is an awfully long time.” The GM added that it sometimes makes sense to wait a little longer before locking a player up, even if it means paying a bit more.
• Anthopoulos knows he wasn’t “hired to react to the whims and the emotions” of a 162-game schedule, but it doesn’t mean he enjoys being calculated all of the time. “To be honest with you, I get sick of having to be so guarded,” he said. “It is exhausting. I know it is important to stay consistent but it is exhausting.”