The Man Behind the Curtain Goes to Work

Occasionally it’s best not to know what’s going on behind the scenes. Unfortunately for the Toronto Blue Jays, over the course of this past season the disarray and inner workings of their organization were revealed for all to see. Now, Alex Anthopoulos has the dubious task of taking his place behind the curtain and starting the magical Oz machine once again.

Anthopoulos didn’t waste any time this week as it was a relitavely busy weekend  – first there was the “state of the franchise” conference call on Saturday, and lately it’s been the rumblings about the Jays wanting to trade Lyle Overbay to the D-Backs for Chris Snyder.

According to the Arizona Public, trade talks were well underway but were put to a halt when the Jays realized that Snyder’s back wasn’t all it was cracked up to be (sorry … I couldn’t help myself).

It appears as though AA is making good on his word that he would be active in the trade market this off-season and the wheels are already set in motion because a move like this would benefit the team two-fold:

1. Foreseeing any other major injuries from Snyder, the Blue Jays would have a full-time catcher up until the end of 2011. Hopefully by then, J.P. Arencebia will have made his triumphant debut and will be well on his way to becoming the future star catcher of this team.

 

2. Trading Overbay also sets in motion a search for a long-term first baseman. Although the move makes perfect sense, it sounds like AA does not want to move Adam Lind to first base no matter what. This must mean that he working on something else entirely that we don’t even know about to bring in a first baseman long-term. Your guess is as good as mine on this one.

Moving on to the other big deal that didn’t happen late last week … it appeared as though the Blue Jays all but missed the boat on the J.J. Hardy trade and that the Minnesota Twins cashed in on this blog’s most beloved mancrushes.

Little did we know, apparently Anthopoulos was working behind the scenes and the Blue Jays were one of the teams in the hunt according to Jeff Blair. Reports indicate that it would’ve taken Adam Lind or Travis Snider to land J.J. Hardy, and if that’s true then it’s no surprised the Jays balked at that proposed deal.

Maybe most surprising of all is that Russell Martin is another name being tossed around as a possible replacement behind the backstop for the Blue Jays. He could be an integral piece of a trade with the Dodgers which might ship Roy Halladay to Los Angeles for Martin and a couple of others. This is just a theoretical trade, but since this is just a sliver of information that’s been leaked out, who knows what AA could be cooking up.

Whether or not any trades come to fruition this week at the General Manager’s meetings, it’s refreshing to see a General Manager take a different approach at this ballclub. Although it’s uncertain how this team will finish in 2010 or  even 2011, I am confident that Alex Anthopoulos is putting together a winning team.

In the meantime, may he work his magic from behind the curtain and hopefully he won’t come back out unless he has something spectacular to show us.