CP NewsAlert:GM Alex Anthopoulos to ‘reluctantly’ leave Blue Jays

It was there throughout the Toronto Blue Jays’ remarkable three-month run to finish the 2015 season: that nagging, creeping sense of worry about the way the team’s ownership so spectacularly botched the beginning of the year. “Like the fans, we too will miss Alex”, said Rick Brace, the president of Rogers’ Media Business Unit.

“The fact that both sides have a willingness to have it get done, we’re going to do everything we can to have him back here”, he said.

With these developments I am inclined to think the Jays will not make the post-season in 2016. How often does a World Series contender clean house to this much of an extreme?

Mark Shapiro, a longtime executive with the Indians, was named Toronto’s team president on August 31, effective at the end of the season.

“I do feel that baseball is back on the map in Canada and Toronto, and I think this team is positioned exceptionally well and I think it’s just going to continue to get better”, Anthopoulos said.

The move is a pretty big surprise, at least given the success Anthopoulos and the Blue Jays had in 2015.

If anything, it resembled former Blue Jays GM Pat Gillick’s playing for similar stakes in 1992 and 1993 to win it all in Toronto, and for a fan base disappointed by the intervening decades, a return to relevance this season was electrifying.

“We had a great club this year”, Anthopoulos said. Keith Law of ESPN appeared on TSN Radio 1050 this morning and said the move was a bad look for the organization because AA did everything possible to ensure his team was successful.

The next step for the franchise is yet to be determined as it is likely that manager John Gibbons will be moving on in the near future as well. His departure comes less than a week after they were eliminated from the playoffs. “The appropriate time is not today”. “Give us a few time to breathe”. During the offseason he acquired third baseman Josh Donaldson in a trade with the Oakland Athletics. “We walked away from a lot of players that were talented and productive that didn’t fit what we were trying to do”. Instead I began to just support the brain trust of the team, after all they are the ones who put the players on the field in the first place.

Merchandise is also produced for certain World Series matchups, as you’d guess this year we saw items for a Blue Jays-Cubs, Blue Jays-Mets, Cubs-Royals, and the eventual Royals-Mets pairings.

The 2015 championship run came at a price.

There’s already chatter floating that Shapiro was concerned with the number of prospects the Blue Jays gave up in all their dealing.

But nobody complained as playoff baseball returned to Toronto.

Fast forward to their 0-2 start in the ALDS against the Texas Rangers, which pushed Toronto to the brink of elimination. A beard eventually hid the baby face and he proved to be a canny GM.

Anthopoulos informed Rogers executives in a meeting Wednesday afternoon that he would not return to the team for the 2016 season.

At spring training, Anthopoulos would engage with reporters but selectively. Alex Anthopoulos built a team that sold out the Rogers Centre for 20 of the last 21 home games.