8:06am: Dolan will indeed absorb the business duties left behind by Shapiro, tweets MLB.com’s Anthony Castrovince. Most importantly, the Indians have now announced the move, with both Shapiro and Dolan offering statements on the transition. Shapiro will become the new Blue Jays CEO upon conclusion of the 2015 season, he said in his statement.
AUG. 31, 7:15am: The Indians will not receive compensation for Shapiro’s departure, reports Ken Rosenthal of FOX Sports (Twitter links). The Indians, Rosenthal continues, “follow a different philosophy,” and ownership didn’t wish to stand in the way of Shapiro receiving the role if he indeed wanted to leave.
AUG. 30: The Blue Jays will hire Mark Shapiro as the club’s new president, CBS Sports’ Jon Heyman reports. The official announcement could come this week, possibly as early as Monday. Shapiro plans to retain Alex Anthopoulos as the Jays’ general manager, sources tell Heyman.
Shapiro’s name surfaced in connection to the Toronto job last week (via FOX Sports’ Ken Rosenthal) and the hiring was seen as increasingly likely to happen as the days passed. Since current Jays president Paul Beeston announced he was going to retire after the 2015 season, the Jays have been linked to many experienced baseball names, including Dave Dombrowski, Kenny Williams, Terry Ryan and (in somewhat controversial fashion) Dan Duquette.
It isn’t yet known exactly when Shapiro will take over for Beeston, Heyman notes, as the long-time Blue Jays president may remain in the position until the season is over. It also isn’t clear if Toronto will owe some sort of compensation to the Indians for hiring away their team president, as the details of Shapiro’s contract with the Tribe aren’t known.
Shapiro, 48, has been a member of the Indians front office since 1991, serving as GM for the 2002-2010 seasons and then being promoted to president prior to the 2011 campaign. While Cleveland’s front office dynamic will undoubtedly be changed by losing such a long-time figure, it’s possible Shapiro’s departure may not cause too many ripples within the organization. MLB.com’s Anthony Castrovince guessed that chairman/CEO Paul Dolan may simply become president as well, and manager Terry Francona said he won’t opt out of his contract. Rosenthal speculated that the Tribe could also promote from within, shifting GM Chris Antonetti to president and making well-regarded assistant GM Mike Chernoff the new general manager.
There’s little Shapiro hasn’t seen in his tenure with Cleveland, as the Indians have gone from doormat to contender a few different times and also had similarly large swings in terms of revenue. The Tribe have only had a top-20 payroll once since 2003, so Shapiro will have much more money to work with in his new position, particularly given the Jays’ recent boom in attendance and TV ratings. Shapiro’s role in the recent renovations to Progressive Field has been cited as a key factor in his hiring in Toronto, as ownership has been planning to make significant upgrades (including natural grass) to make Rogers Centre a more baseball-friendly stadium.
It had long been suspected that Anthopoulos was facing a make-or-break season given the incoming president change, though his job security has been solidified thanks to his aggressive moves in the offseason and at the trade deadline, culminating in the Blue Jays’ dominant 21-5 record in August. As Heyman notes, Anthopoulos’ contract is up after the season but was expected to remain with the team if they wanted to keep him.
Good move for the Jays. With a larger check book and a solid core already Shapiro could make the Jays a long term force in the AL East.
It’s a good thing he’s retaining A.A. It would be a little awkward to fire the possible Exec of the Year.
he wouldn’t be firing him, aa’s contract is up at the end of the season.
also it seems weird that re-signing aa is a foregone conclusion. i’d imagine there are organizations that would be interested in signing aa themselves. so aa probably does have options and given that he hasn’t been extended yet, even if it is likely to happen, i dont see it as an absolute guarantee that he’d just re-sign without exploring his other options first.
Good riddance !
If Anthopoulos is gone at the end of the season, and a lousy replacement is named (e.g. Amaro, Colletti, Jack Z), then I’m seriously going to consider following another team. Probably the Cardinals or Cubs.
What a great fan!
I’ve been a fan of the Toronto Blue Jays since 1996, the year Pat Hentgen won the Cy Young award. I’ve only ever experienced the downfall of the late 90’s, the mini resurgence of 2002 – 2006, and the ensuing mediocrity. I’m not a bandwagon fan who claims to have been around since 1992/1993. I never experienced the glory days of the late 80’s and early 90’s.
In my 20 years of watching baseball, I can immediately say that AA is Toronto’s best GM, probably since Pat Gillick.
Bad GMs = Bad Results in the long run
Good GMs = Good Results in the long run
It’s really that simple.
If the execs at Rogers replace AA with a clown, then I’m done. I won’t put up with another Gord Ash or JP Riccardi. It is in my highest preference that AA re-signs with the team; I’d be terribly remiss if he left.
Indians fans are overjoyed.
Seriously why are most Jays fans on the net enthusiastic about this ?
What did he do wrong? He competed against the big bad Detroit Tigers who outspent everyone in the division by nearly $100M. Once the Indians had the team capable of competing in 2007-2009, Hafner and Sizemore who were the Indians top position players both got hurt and or declined in the snap of a finger.
The Indians made it to game 7 of the ALCS, where have the White Sox or Twins gone the last decade? The Royals took nearly 2 decades of rebuilding to make it farther than the Indians.
Yes but part of being President is also handling business success, Cleveland went from a thriving baseball town with John Hart and friends to a dismal apathetic one during the Shaprio era. I am well aware of the Tribe’s playoff “run” of 2007, I am a third generation fan.
Also you are inaccurate both the Whitesox and Twins experienced more success in the last decade. Twins won multiple division titles (2006, 2009, 2010) and the White sox won it all in 2005. You have no idea what you are talking about. Do your homework.
The Twins haven’t made it past the ALDS of the playoffs since 2002. Often being swept, the division was awful obviously.
The White Sox won the WS in 2005 and made the playoffs in 2008 and haven’t done anything in-between or after those years.
The Indians went from a “thriving” baseball city to whatever you think it is because fans were sour over Thome being traded and the Cav’s became the talk of the town because of Lebron’s dominance. It’s no secret that a lot of former Indians fans left fandom after the 2002 season and coincidentally Lebron entered the league as the hometown hero.
It’s not really Shapiro’s fault he was forced to trade their superstar. The Indians didn’t have enough money to keep their expensive players.
I’ve been living in Cleveland the past 13 years I don’t need you to explain it to me. LB is not the only reason, because using that logic the pass 4 season the Indians should of had sell out crowds.
Shaprio and his golden boys have successfully alienated their fan base.No body in Cleveland really cares about the tribe they all hold a grudge on ownership and the front office, so they boycott the team (not me personally though, I am a season ticket holder). Maybe he will do a better job in Toronto.
People haven’t come back since Thome left, the Indians weren’t drawing crowds even in 2007 with a good team.
baseball-reference.com/teams/CLE/attend.shtml
^Proof is right there, nobody came back after 2002.
You still think Thome was traded ? He left as a free agent. Why would we be angry at the Front office for that, they made a decent push to keep him. Really do homework. Thome has little to do with any of this.
@paulkasp.
One big factor that goes ignored is the diminishing population. A quick search on google shows that it was as high as 500,000 in 1995 and was low as 390,000 (in 2013). That is a drop of 22% in roughly 20 years.
Also, did the franchise experience a large withdrawal of corporate sponsorship in the early 2000s? From the outside, it looks possible. The early 2000s featured the dot-com bust and lots of companies went under. I imagine that the Indians also lost out on lots of sponsorship money.
Of course, this is just speculation on my behalf, but do you think that my line-of-thinking is plausible?
Are you sure you guys are not an Indians fans hah ? I have never encountered an indians fan let alone a fans of a team different team so supportive of our organization and front office.
Also much of what you said is true or could be true, I’m not debating socio economics.
The thing I am faulting the current front office regime, was the inability of operating like a mid-market team (meaning like the rays). For most of the Shaprio era we basically threw away are draft picks every year. Only until recent we started selecting and developing talent better(Lindor, Kipnis). During the Shaprio era, CC Sabathia was are only home grown star. What I can say about our front office they trade well. (.ie Sizemore, Cliff Lee, Brantley, Kluber, Carrasco, Gomes)
Respectfully, Cleveland was a thriving baseball town during that time for a few reasons:
1. The city/region was doing well economically.
2. There was no NFL team to compete with, and the NBA team was not a huge draw.
3. They had really, really great teams with future and/or potential Hall of Famers under longer-term team control.
The competitive decline and drop off in attendance had more to do with aging and cost-prohibitive players, a barren farm system (in which John Hart bears some responsibility (though people would be far more forgiving if some of the young prospects he traded for major-league proven talent translated to a World Series)), and the pendulum of small-market success eventually swinging in the opposite direction. Factor in a declining economy, the return of a (inexplicably) popular NFL franchise (and baseball in general’s decline in popularity to football, among other sports), a suddenly watchable/competitive Cavaliers basketball team (including the best player of his generation), and myriad other factors both big and small that would take too long to detail in a comments section, and that’s a lot of competition for the average fan’s dollar. The team’s radio and television ratings are still strong, and have done well even during their thinner years. Most small-market fanbases would kill to field playoff-caliber teams every five years, and Cleveland either made the playoffs or competed for a playoff spot in six seasons since the Dolans have owned the team, and were at or flirted with a .500 record in four other seasons (possibly three, if a 78-84 record in 2006 isn’t close enough for some).
TL;DR Baseball is great! Cleveland fans don’t have it nearly as bad as they think. Shapiro and the Dolans aren’t that bad as far as on-field product (don’t get me started on the 20 year extension on the sin tax).
I know it’s never as bad as you think. I believe we use Shapiro as a scapegoat excessively. I think most of my sourness is personally fueled. New renovations scheduled for next year are removing my seats hah. I need to be mad at someone hah. So I guess I’m highly biased on this topic hah.
They had a new stadium in the mid-90’s also, and that tends to drive attendance for a few years. Couple that with the good teams they had and some of the other factors mentioned, and it was the perfect storm for the Indians to be extremely popular. Eventually the new stadium’s allure wears off and the team declines, and the fans usually go with it; same thing happened more recently to Philadelphia, which had the new stadium/great team thing going on; now the stadium is old news and the team has to rebuild and their attendance has tanked.
Not saying you are entirely wrong about the decline of the Indians in Cleveland but most of it had to do with the ownership change. Sure, the Indians didn’t have to compete with the NFL or the NBA really but it definitely had more to do with the new ownership group allowing every asset to leave town and shrinking payroll to the point where they became noncompetitive. The fan-base saw this and haven’t shown up since. Look at payrolls of the 1990s dynasty teams and look at the payrolls for the 2000s with the new owner. HUGE difference. Fans see this and have been alienated ever since. Additionally, the Indians have some of the worst ticket packages out of any team I have ever seen. I’ve been in Cleveland for about 6 years now and its pretty shocking at the lack of options to buy packages compared to other teams. The Dolans clearly prioritize making money rather than fielding a competitive baseball team and to be honest Shapiro has done quite a bit with limited resources. It will be interesting to see what he can do with more payroll flexibility and more of a commitment from ownership to winning.
@TheNextEpstein
Respectfully, correlation does not equal causation. The highest payrolls in club history came in 2000 and 2001, when the Dolans owned the team. Dick Jacobs insisted that the team net an 8% profit every year, so had he retained ownership, you could expect an even bigger slash in payroll than what the Dolans did a few years after taking over. Around this time was also a dramatic change in revenue throughout MLB. Gone were the days in the ’90s when teams profited from season ticket sales (particularly the luxury box suites), and cable television deals are now the biggest source of profit. As a result, televised games were no longer on public channels, thus cutting out a chunk of the viewing fan base.
lol, the guys in charge of the Blue Jays are fans of Moneyball… they couldn’t get Beane, so they went after Duquette, then Shapiro…. “This is how we do business in Toronto”
JP Riccardi was the director of the Oakland A farm system in the late 90s. JP Riccardi was hired to be the Blue Jays GM in the early 2000s. This is not a coincidence.
So what does this mean for Francona, who has an out clause if Shapiro leaves? Do the Tigers have a shot?
He has said he doesn’t plan to opt-out. But I’m sure that will depend on what the front office structure looks like in a couple months.
Ugh, wish Toronto would have taken Kenny Williams, but apparently their ownership at least wants to win.
You know, whatever team is put on the field by the front office, regardless of who the “GM” is, the players still have to play, and the manager still has to manage.
At first as an Indian fan, I liked the idea of Shapiro moving on. Now that I learn that Dolan is replacing him changes everything. Much rather Shapiro over Dolan, I am now viewing this as a major loss now. Plus no compensation also doesn’t help.
I feel Mark Shapiro did a great job for the Indians. With a limited budget here in Cleveland it’s difficult. Toronto doesn’t have as many restrictions & higher payroll. Plus with Skydome needing renovations, Shapiro is a perfect choice for President for the Blue Jays. Shapiro is getting positive reviews here on the renovations at Progressive field. The fanbase is a tough sell, no championship since 1964. My belief is if we win a World Series in our late 90’s run we would be middle of the pack in attendance. Not at the bottom with Miami & Tampa every year. Cleveland is a football first city, thus Browns sell out no matter how lousy the product is. The Indians product is very much compared to those 90’s powerhouse lineups. We’ll never see that again, so the only remedy is to win consistently. Unfortunately we’ve only have 3 playoff appearances the last 15 years. That wasn’t Mark Shapiro’s fault, I blame ownership. The Dolan’s need to expand payroll to win. I understand they’re business men trying to make a profit but at some point you have to improve the baseball team on the field . Hopefully this search for minority owner w/ Dolan’s equal increase in payroll. Anyways, best wishes to Mark Shapiro in Toronto.