Kuzul

Are you sitting there wondering why the New York Yankees haven’t seemed interested in building for 2016 this winter?

Here’s a potential spoiler: It might be because they have their eyes on what’s coming after 2018.

It’s not because the Yankees don’t have needs in the here and now. They snagged some outfield depth and a solid second baseman in trades for Aaron Hicks and Starlin Castro, but those don’t look like substantial upgrades for a roster that won just 87 games in 2015. At the least, more starting pitching depth would be good.

Based on the Yankees’ silence to this point, though, they’re in no hurry to dive into an open market that still features plenty of quality starting pitching and, indeed, good depth overall. And this silence may not be a ruse.

“There’s a reason they haven’t been attached to any big free agent,” an anonymous executive told Mark Feinsand of the New York Daily News at the winter meetings. “They’re not in on them.”

Besides, it’s not like the Yankees have a ton of money to spend. Between the $190 million in guaranteed money and about $20 million in projected arbitration payouts, per MLB Trade Rumors, their 2016 payroll is already slated to be in the ballpark of this year’s $217.8 million opening figure.

Mind you, the Yankees do have it in them to eclipse that figure. If they choose not to, one fair criticism to lob at them will be that they missed out on arguably the best class of free agents in MLB history.

What the Yankees may be thinking, however, is that this winter’s free-agent class is a mere little league roster compared to what will be out there in three years.

We knew coming into this offseason that the winter market would have a lot to offer. David Price, Zack Greinke, Jordan Zimmermann and Johnny Cueto gave the market four ace pitchers, and Jason Heyward, Justin Upton, Yoenis Cespedes, Alex Gordon and Chris Davis were the cream of the position-player crop.

Next to what’s going to be out there after 2018, though, that’s a collection of talent we can disregard with a “meh.”

As Anthony Castrovince of MLB.com and others have pointed out, the 2018-19 free-agent class is going to be loaded. Loaded as in L-O-A-D-E-D. Slated to be available are…

• Three MVPs: Bryce Harper, Josh Donaldson and Andrew McCutchen
• One Cy Young: Dallas Keuchel
• Additional Amazing Bats: Manny Machado, A.J. Pollock, Michael Brantley, Dee Gordon, Adam Jones, Nelson Cruz, Hunter Pence and Adrian Gonzalez
• Additional Amazing Aces: Jose Fernandez, Matt Harvey, Shelby Miller, Garrett Richards, Jose Quintana and Adam Wainwright
• Amazing Relievers: Craig Kimbrel, Trevor Rosenthal, Zach Britton, Andrew Miller, Jeurys Familia, Kelvin Herrera and David Robertson

“That’s decent talent,” one general manager told Castrovince, presumably with his tongue firmly in his cheek. “That’s a good year.”

That’s one way to put it. And all this is without considering two other players who could hit the market via opt-out clauses: Clayton Kershaw and Price.

So, yeah. This winter’s free-agent class may be the best baseball has ever seen, but it figures to hold on to that title only as long as Mark McGwire held on to his title as baseball’s single-season home run king.

Now, are all of the aforementioned players going to hit free agency? Presumably not, no.

Rest assured, there will be contract extensions. Teams haven’t been afraid to offer them, and players haven’t minded accepting them. They could wait for a bigger payday in free agency, but the lure of instant and long-lasting financial security has proved to be too powerful for many players to pass up in recent years.

As such, it’s no wonder Yankees general manager Brian Cashman doesn’t want to make any promises.

“You can’t predict free agency multiple years out. I can’t project availability,” said Cashman, per Chad Jennings of LoHud Yankees Blog. He then added: “It’s such a guessing game when you go through that process that far out to forecast.”

Still, it doesn’t take a leap to predict that most of the aforementioned players will hit the open market three years from now. And though Cashman may not want to say he’s gearing up for the 2018-2019 offseason, his actions suggest otherwise.

Those go beyond refusing to spend big bucks in free agency this winter. There’s also how Cashman has refused to part with any of his top young players—namely Luis Severino, Greg Bird and Aaron Judge—in trades in recent years. He was especially adamant about holding on to them this summer.

“We tried to match up where it didn’t involve the [Aaron] Judges, the [Luis] Severinos and the [Greg] Birds,” said Cashman of the summer trade market, according to Ken Davidoff of the New York Post. “Every offer we made that didn’t involve those players wasn’t good enough.”

In retrospect, the Yankees’ inaction on the summer trade market likely played a role in the club’s disappointing finish to an otherwise solid season in 2015. But that inaction was consistent with the club’s stated goal of getting younger and more athletic. That’s something the Yankees haven’t been in some time, and it’s definitely the right idea in today’s MLB.

Assuming the Yankees stick to their guns on this front, they will look to further establish Severino and Bird alongside guys like Castro and Didi Gregorius in the coming seasons, and the team will eventually call on Judge to join the fray. In time, the Yankees will have the young core they seek.

And three years from now, they’ll get their chance to use free agency to build around it.

The Yankees have spent much of the last decade bogged down by expensive contracts, but that’s not going to be the case come the 2018-2019 offseason. They only have $57 million in guaranteed money on the books for 2019, at which point they will be free of Alex Rodriguez, Mark Teixeira and CC Sabathia and could also be free of Brett Gardner and Brian McCann.

That’s obviously well short of what we know the Yankees can spend. Just as important is where the luxury tax threshold figures to be. It’s at $189 million now, and Jeff Passan of Yahoo Sports figures it could be “quite a bit higher” in 2018.

As such, a rough estimate for how much money the Yankees will be able to spend on the open market is something like $150 million. That’s plenty by, um, plenty, and it’s not hard to imagine how the Yankees could put it to use.

Harper is obviously the big target, and he would make sense for the Yankees on multiple levels. He’d only be coming off his age-25 season, he has a swing perfectly suited for Yankee Stadium, and, as a simple Google search can tell you, he’s pretty much destined to be a Yankee anyway.

Of course, Harper wouldn’t come cheap. There’s talk of him becoming not just baseball’s first $400 million player but perhaps baseball’s first $500 million player. Joe Posnanski of NBC Sports didn’t have to do much complicated math to arrive at that figure.

But, hey, a $500 million contract spread out over 10 years would be “only” $50 million per year. That would be only about one-third of the Yankees’ 2018-2019 spending money, so there would be room for additional purchases.

Those could include Machado and Fernandez, who will also be coming off their age-25 seasons. Or, the Yankees could settle for any number of alternative combinations (Harvey and Pollock, Keuchel and Brantley, etc.) and still possibly have room for one of the market’s top relievers and a veteran bat to help tie things together.

The possibilities are endless, really, and that’s kind of the whole point.

You can argue that the Yankees should be pressing their advantage this offseason, but it’s hard to fault them for playing the long game. They’re overdue for a core of young, talented players, and the money saved in establishing one of those could pay off in a huge way when the open market gets an epic free-agent class in 2018.

The Yankees haven’t come out and said that this is their plan. But it sure seems like it is, and it sure seems like a good idea.

Stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com and FanGraphs unless otherwise noted/linked. Payroll and contract data courtesy of Cot’s Baseball Contracts.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

Twenty-four years after he played his final game for the organization, the Boston Red Sox announced Monday they will retire Wade Boggs’ No. 26 in May.

Boggs was overwhelmed upon hearing the news:

Boggs played in 1,625 games for the Red Sox. According to Baseball-Reference.com, his 71.6 cumulative WAR is the third-highest all time among Boston’s position players, ranking behind only Ted Williams and Carl Yastrzemski.  

He’s one of the best hitters ever to wear a Red Sox uniform, with his .338 average second in franchise history and his .428 on-base percentage good for third place. The Boston Globe‘s Alex Speier also provided his Fenway Park splits, which further cement his place in Red Sox history:

In all but three of his 11 years in Boston, Boggs represented the team in the All-Star Game and was a six-time Silver Slugger winner.

Excluding Jackie Robinson, whose No. 42 was retired by Major League Baseball, Boggs will be the ninth player to receive this honor from the Red Sox, joining Williams, Yastrzemski, Bobby Doerr, Joe Cronin, Johnny Pesky, Jim Rice, Carlton Fisk and Pedro Martinez.

Despite how much he did for the team, the Red Sox have been slow to salute Boggs.

“It would be nice,” Boggs said in 2013 of the possibility of getting his number retired, per Stan Grossfeld of the Boston Globe. “Am I bitter? I thought when I wore a Boston hat in the Hall of Fame I’d be up there. It’s been eight years now. I used to be bitter. But I think those days are over. Was I bitter? Absolutely.”

Many pointed to Boggs joining the New York Yankees in 1993 as a significant reason why his number remained in use by the team. Boggs famously rode around Yankee Stadium on horseback after the team won the 1996 World Series—an image seared into the brains of Red Sox fans for years to come:

In 2012, the Boston Globe‘s Nick Cafardo provided the Red Sox’s official line on the situation—a position which Cafardo noted the team had failed to follow in the past:

Over the years, Boggs has returned to Fenway for various events. He has been told by the Red Sox that his career does not meet the team’s criteria for having a number retired: a player must have spent at least 10 years with the Red Sox and finished his career in Boston.

Yet the Red Sox made an exception for Carlton Fisk, who spent his first 11 years with the Red Sox and then his final 13 with the White Sox. Through some gimmick of employing him as a special assistant to the GM, the team rationalized that he met the criteria and now his No. 27 is affixed with the other retired numbers on the facade in right field.

This past season, the Red Sox retired Martinez’s No. 45 jersey despite the fact he finished his playing career with the Philadelphia Phillies. As a result, keeping Boggs’ No. 26 out of the right-field facade became harder and harder to justify.

At long last, Boggs will receive his just due, giving him one heck of a Christmas present.

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Strictly going off their last four seasons, the Boston Red Sox have a 25 percent chance of finishing in first place in 2016 and a 75 percent chance of finishing in last place.

But in the words of Han Solo, never tell me the odds. Not those odds, anyway. The 2016 Red Sox are custom-designed to avoid the fate of the 2012, 2014 and 2015 clubs, and we’re here to promise they will.

Avoiding another last-place finish has, of course, been the whole idea since even before the Red Sox completed their 84-loss campaign in 2015. They laid the groundwork for a turnaround in August when they hired new team president Dave Dombrowski, and he’s been busy pursuing the rest of the grand plan this winter.

Dombrowski has been busy, notably signing ace left-hander David Price to a huge contract and making blockbuster trades for relief aces Craig Kimbrel and Carson Smith. He’s also rounded out the Red Sox’s depth with platoon outfielder Chris Young and lefty swingman Roenis Elias.

After all this, Dombrowski may be done for the winter. This according to the man himself, who told reporters at last week’s winter meetings that he’s happy with the roster he has.

Do the Red Sox still have needs? Sure. But none look especially glaring. Were they to move into 2016 with their current roster, they’d be ready to take on all comers.

In fact, the projections say it’s the Red Sox that all comers should be afraid of. According to FanGraphs, they’re now projected to produce more wins above replacement than any other American League team in 2016. With a projection like that, heck, what could go wrong?

And when we say that, we’re only half-joking.

Full disclosure: WAR projections have been known to misfire. Sometimes drastically so.

The Red Sox are practically Exhibit A. The 2014 Red Sox projected as an elite team and lost 91 games. The 2015 Red Sox also projected as elite, and they also fell flat.

“Darn,” said the projections. Hence why you’re sitting there thinking, “Darn the projections!”

But here’s the obligatory hear-me-out plea: Rest assured, the 2016 Red Sox are a different animal.

The 2014 Red Sox failed largely because they gambled too heavily on young, unproven talent. The 2015 Red Sox failed because they gambled too heavily on their lineup. The 2016 Red Sox are doing neither of these things.

They’re gambling on young talent, sure, but not unproven young talent. Mookie Betts and Xander Bogaerts, both 23 years old, are coming off star-making seasons in 2015 in center field and at shortstop, respectively. Catcher Blake Swihart (23), starter Eduardo Rodriguez (22) and Jackie Bradley Jr. (25) also broke through. Let’s also not forget super-utilityman Brock Holt, who was Boston’s lone All-Star in 2015.

Just as important, though, is how the 2016 Red Sox aren’t doomed to repeat the big sin of 2015 Red Sox.

These Red Sox still have a good lineup. All the big players from 2015 are back, and that should be a good thing. Mainly thanks to Betts, Bogaerts, Swihart and designated hitter David Ortiz, Boston’s lineup was last seen posting a .766 second-half OPS that played a big role in the club’s strong 34-26 finish.

And come 2016, these guys should get even more support.

Maybe second baseman Dustin Pedroia won’t get any healthier, but the Red Sox stand to get a boost from third baseman Pablo Sandoval and first baseman Hanley Ramirez if they put their awful 2015 seasons behind them. Sandoval could do that by following his orders to shape up, and Ramirez could do that by avoiding running into any walls. Remember, he got off to an outstanding start in 2015 before Fenway Park destroyed his left shoulder.

Also, Ramirez’s switch to first base should help Boston’s defense. He may not be a good first baseman, but it’s hard to imagine him being any worse than he was in left field.

That’s one small reason the Red Sox should also be better in the department where they need to be better. With MLB‘s sixth-worst ERA since 2014, that would be run prevention.

And now, for the big reasons why the Red Sox should be better in that department.

One place where the Red Sox are unquestionably better now is in their bullpen. Scott Lauber of the Boston Herald is among those who have noted the Red Sox have felt the “Kansas City Royals Effect.” The Royals have spent the last two years showing what a team can do with a trio of dominant relievers, and the Red Sox now have one of those.

In Kimbrel, Boston’s bullpen now has MLB’s most valuable reliever over the last five seasons. Next to him is Koji Uehara, who has been nearly as good since 2013. In Smith, the Red Sox have another setup man who was arguably underrated by the 2.31 ERA he posted as a rookie in 2015.

“It’s not going to matter if the starter goes six innings or if he goes eight innings,” said Kimbrel, via Aaron Leibowitz of MLB.com. “We’re not going to lose games when the starter comes out. We’re going to expect our bullpen to go out there and carry those innings throughout the entire season.”

Kimbrel is right to feel confident. In 2015, the Red Sox bullpen was a bottom-five unit with a 4.24 ERA. On the strength of the Kimbrel-Uehara-Smith trio alone, it could be a top-five unit in 2016.

As for Boston’s rotation, projecting it to be elite is probably a bit much.

But it should at least be a lot better.

Price will help see to that. He’s been one of the baseball’s 10 best starting pitchers for a while now and is coming to Boston off his second American League ERA title in four years. The Red Sox know he can succeed in the AL East, and we’ve previously discussed how he shouldn’t be fazed by Fenway Park.

Things are a little more uncertain behind Price, where the Red Sox don’t have an obvious No. 2 starter. What they do have, though, is three good candidates for the job.

One is the aforementioned Rodriguez. The young left-hander used his hard fastball and developing changeup and slider to carve out a 3.85 ERA in 21 starts as a rookie in 2015. Dombrowski opined right off the bat that Rodriguez has ace potential, and he’s not alone in thinking so.

Then there’s Clay Buchholz, whose durability is a question mark. But his talent? Maybe not so much. Buchholz authored a rock-solid 3.26 ERA when he was healthy in 2015, which was largely the gift of a rejuvenated changeup. After 2013, that was the second time in three years he’d shown ace potential.

There’s also Rick Porcello. He was mostly terrible in 2015, but he did end on a positive note with a 3.49 ERA over his last 12 starts. Brooks Baseball shows that he got back to using his sinker and benefited by watching his ground-ball rate go from 43.0 percent to 49.1 percent.

If Rodriguez, Buchholz and Porcello are able to pick up where they left off, Price’s supporting cast won’t be a liability at all. On the contrary, Mr. Straw Man, it has the potential to be quite good.

All told, you’re looking at a Red Sox team that has its bases covered much more thoroughly than the 2014 or 2015 Red Sox. Those teams looked good but couldn’t hide their fatal flaws. The 2016 Red Sox look at least as good, and it’s hard to see where the fatal flaws are.

Elsewhere in the AL East, the Red Sox don’t have too much to fear.

The Toronto Blue Jays are the reigning division champs, and they still have a killer offense. But their acquisition of Price had a lot to do with their rise to power in 2015. His jumping ship to Boston was about the worst scenario they could have imagined. And to date, they haven’t yet filled his shoes with an equivalent ace.

The New York Yankees earned a wild-card berth in 2015, but they did that largely on the strength of a strong first half that featured star performances from aging regulars. Barring regular shipments of Michael’s Secret Stuff, that’s not happening again.

Then there are the Baltimore Orioles, a .500 team in 2015 that’s in danger of losing first baseman Chris Davis and starter Wei-Yin Chen. That just leaves the Tampa Bay Rays, an 82-loss team that has done little to improve.

The relative inaction of these four clubs this winter makes what the Red Sox have done look all the more important and is a big reason why they’re circling a return to form in 2016. While the rest of the AL East has either stayed the same or gotten worse, the Red Sox are returning a dangerous lineup and have established a much-improved rotation and a dominant bullpen.

So, heck. They might as well not even play baseball in the AL East in 2016. Just go ahead and give the division title to the Red Sox and get it over with.

Again, we’re half-joking. But only half.

Stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com and FanGraphs unless otherwise noted/linked.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

The Toronto Blue Jays signed veteran pitcher Brad Penny to a minor league deal Thursday with an invitation to spring training, according to ESPN.com’s Jerry Crasnick. The team has not released the figures of the contract.

According to Ben Nicholson-Smith of Sportsnet.ca, the deal includes a player opt-out option at the end of spring training.

It looks as though Penny is continuing to attempt a comeback. The 37-year-old right-hander has pitched only 26.0 big league innings over the past three seasons. In fact, Penny was out of the majors in 2013 and 2015. 

Penny attempted to crack the starting rotation of the Chicago White Sox during spring training in 2015 but did not make the team, spending the season in Triple-A. There, he posted a 4.46 ERA, 81 strikeouts and 33 walks in 135.1 innings, per NBC Sports’ D.J. Short. 

His last stint in the majors came in 2014, when he went 2-1 with a 6.58 ERA in four starts with the Miami Marlins. He has a career record of 121-101 with a 4.29 ERA and two All-Star appearances, including a 2006 season in which he led the National League with 16 wins. 

Toronto has been going after pitchers throughout the offseason, having already re-signed Marco Estrada and acquired J.A. Happ. But the Blue Jays lost their ace when David Price, a trade-deadline acquisition in 2015, signed with the Boston Red Sox.

Toronto’s pitching couldn’t keep up with the team’s potent offense last year, falling short in the American League Championship Series to the eventual world champion Kansas City Royals. Toronto’s pitching allowed five runs or more in four of the six games in that series.

There’s little risk in signing a veteran such as Penny to a minor league deal. If he is able to spin together a solid spring training, Toronto might keep him close by.

The Blue Jays already have a number of starters who will likely be appearing in the rotation next year with Estrada, Happ, Marcus Stroman, Jesse Chavez, R.A. Dickey and Drew Hutchison. But if anything were to happen to any these starters, Penny’s experienced arm could prove to be useful at the end of the rotation.

Stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

It was Tuesday, Sept. 1, when they all filed into the Fenway Park baseball conference room: pro scouts, amateur scouts, administrators—all for one of those change-of-command meetings that can lead to sleepless nights and bottles of Tums.

Dave Dombrowski, hired a mere two weeks earlier as Boston’s incoming president of baseball operations, walked in to conduct the meeting and, as he did, carried with him a couple of the thickest notebook binders that maybe had ever been seen in Fenway.

The reams of information and notes contained within did not lead directly to the landing of ace free agent David Price for an astounding $217 million over seven years.

They did not yet trace directly to San Diego and the acquisition of All-Star closer Craig Kimbrel.

But inside those binders were the organized thoughts and keys that would help produce the highly systematic and productive winter that the Red Sox are confident will put them back in contention, and soon.

Inside that room, Eddie Bane, a former big league pitcher-turned-super scout, and currently a Boston special assistant for player personnel, couldn’t help but smile.

“I had told the guys about his thoroughness,” said Bane, who was rescued by Dombrowski in Detroit after the Angels unceremoniously fired him as their farm director in 2010 despite the fact that he was the point man for drafting Mike Trout.

Bane worked for the Tigers under Dombrowski in 2011 before moving to the Red Sox in 2012. In the uncertain days following Boston’s bombshell, in-season hiring of Dombrowski on Aug. 18, not surprisingly, Bane fielded many inquiries from his Boston colleagues: What, exactly, are we getting into with this new guy?

“The Red Sox are world-famous for all of their computer stuff, and David walked into that first meeting, like I knew he would, with these unbelievably thick binder notebooks that carry all the information in the world,” Bane continued. “He is unbelievably comfortable in front of a computer, but Dave likes his information written in front of him, the written word.

“Our guys have never seen books that thick in their lives.”

As an organization, the Red Sox had plenty of work to do. They were headed for a second consecutive last-place finish in 2015 for the first time since baseball instituted divisional play in 1969. Worse, wrapped around that 2013 World Series title, Boston was on its way to finishing last in the AL East for a third time in four years.

Considered one of the finest executives of this generation, Dombrowski had been fired by Detroit Tigers owner Mike Ilitch just two weeks earlier, on Aug. 4. Immediately, several teams, including Toronto and Seattle, reached out regarding the possibility of hiring him.

With a clear sense now that things were moving quickly, and with his wife Karie, daughter Darbi and son Landon out of town visiting Karie’s side of the family in Oklahoma, Dombrowski had time alone the weekend of Aug. 14-16 to figure some things out. He sat down with a couple of long sheets of notes and jotted down some of his thoughts.

All things considered, from Dombrowski’s perspective, the Boston fit was the best. Like Detroit, the Red Sox have a century’s worth of rich history behind them. Lots of talent already was in place. And he had worked closely with John Henry, Boston’s principal owner, when Henry owned the Florida Marlins and Dombrowski was the general manager.

He now knew two things: He wanted to get back to work immediately. And he felt that doing it during the season, rather than waiting to start a new job after the season, would be advantageous.

He reached a deal with the Red Sox on Aug. 18 and went right to work.

“It was very helpful,” Dombrowski told Bleacher Report this week. “It gave me the chance to get a firsthand impression, get to know the club myself and also get to know people in the office before you have to move forward into the winter when the bulk of our work is done.  

“It gave me a chance to get to know them and get to know their responsibilities. I don’t think it would have been possible to come in during the winter, not knowing the club, trying to ask intelligent questions, taking the pulse and learning things, like which scouts are high evaluators and low evaluators.

“That six- or seven-week period was extremely important.”

He immediately scheduled meetings with some baseball operations folks who were based in Boston during his first week on the job. After starting on Tuesday, Sept. 1, he sat down with then-GM Ben Cherington for probably a total of six hours over two days, that Thursday and Friday.

Dombrowski appreciated Cherington’s willingness to share his thoughts and opinions on a variety of organizational issues. But he failed to convince Cherington to stay, given that the final say on baseball matters would become Dombrowski’s.

“He gathered information from us at a very early stage right when he took the job,” Mike Hazen, whom Dombrowski promoted to GM from assistant GM, told B/R last week in Nashville, Tennessee, at the winter meetings. “Where are the limitations on the roster? Where do we need to fix? Where do we need to improve? How do you guys see the team?

“He talked to a number of people, I’m sure, externally as well. And then he formulated that plan and we tried to execute it as best we could.”

Most of Dombrowski’s key advisers had remained in Detroit. Al Avila, his right-hand man for years, was named by Ilitch to replace him with the Tigers. Other key Dombrowski lieutenants such as Scott Reid, David Chadd and Scott Bream stayed with Avila and the Tigers, too.

In Boston, Dombrowski hired only one new special assistant, Frank Wren, the former Atlanta Braves GM. The two worked together in the Marlins’ organization nearly two decades ago.

Right away, he met with Hazen and Brian O’Halloran, another assistant GM who, among other things, specializes in rules.

“Just to get his bearings,” Hazen said. “Because we were in the middle of the season. Roster situations, this is what we have. I think we had someone on release waivers at the time.

“It was, ‘Hey, get me up to speed on where we’re at. What do we need to get done? Don’t let me miss anything.’ And that’s fair, because things already were in place in a lot of cases. We were playing games. Do we have any impending roster situations? Is anyone hurt? The tactical day-to-day stuff.

“After a few days, he met with the entire front office, explaining, ‘This is who I am, this is my plan, this is what I want to execute. I’ve heard a lot of good things about you guys. I don’t know a lot of you. I know some of you.’

“From that point forward, it was just sort of get back to work. It was great. I think he put everybody at ease very quickly.”

Through the day-to-day details, relationships were formed and then strengthened. As small tasks got done, they moved on to the bigger stuff.

“Over time it became, ‘Look, I’m going to hire a GM; you’re a candidate to do that, you’re auditioning, you’ve been interviewing for me for weeks now. Keep doing that and we’ll sit down and talk and have an interview at some point once I’m ready to tackle that position,'” said Hazen, who formally was named as GM on Sept. 24.

Once the season ended, Dombrowski summoned all of the Boston pro scouts for a second meeting, this one in Phoenix during the Arizona Fall League season, the weekend of Oct. 23-25. With the World Series now underway, free agency was coming quickly. It was time to set a final winter strategy blueprint and start to move.

“Just like David did in Detroit, we got together at the end of the year and you talk about next year and the future,” Bane said. “Same thing, I’m sure, as when he worked with Roland Hemond [the legendary former executive who was honored by the Hall of Fame in 2011] when he was with the White Sox.

“Being so organized, it makes your job easier and others feel appreciated.”

By that point, the Red Sox, of course, had done extensive work on Price. Obviously, Dombrowski knew the pitcher well from their time together in Detroit. Bane scouted “probably four of David’s last five starts.”

“As far as the contract, I didn’t have anything to do with that,” Bane said, chuckling. “I know it looked like it was sudden, but it was anything but.

“We were planning on having an ace. We didn’t have an ace before.”

By the time those meetings in Arizona were finished, the Red Sox’s winter plans called for more than just an ace.

“Really, that starts at the end of the season when you meet with your major league staff,” said Dombrowski, who retained manager John Farrell, bench coach Torey Lovullo, hitting coach Chili Davis and pitching coach Carl Willis, among others. “I knew some of the people, not as well as in the past like, say, Jim Leyland, whom I had worked with for a few years.”

But based on internal meetings with the staff, and others, the winter goals and needs came into sharp focus:

• Top-of-the-rotation starter.

• Someone who could step up and close immediately, given that Koji Uehara will be 41 when the 2016 season starts.

• A fourth outfielder.

• A beefed-up bullpen, given the workload setup man Junichi Tazawa has carried for the past three seasons (190 total innings).

“You have some thought processes, and you really know what your needs are at the end of the season. You can identify those,” Dombrowski said. “You crystallize your rankings—who you like, who you want to pursue. That’s done in Arizona, when you get everyone together.

“Then, you sit down with the owner and you move forward. If you’re ready to go, you may as well go ahead and do it. Things fell together very quickly.”

On Friday, Nov. 13, just three weeks after the Red Sox’s AFL meetings, they acquired their closer, Kimbrel, by sending four minor league prospects to San Diego.

On Monday, Nov. 30, the Red Sox agreed to terms with outfielder Chris Young on a two-year, $13 million deal.

The Price mega-deal dropped two days later, when the left-hander agreed to the seven-year contract with an average annual value of $31 million.

Then, in a winter meetings swap in Nashville on Dec. 7, the Red Sox sent excess starter Wade Miley and a prospect to Seattle for starting pitcher Roenis Elias and young setup man Carson Smith.

Bingo. Over an adrenaline-filled 25-day span, the Red Sox had checked off all four items from their winter wish list:

• Kimbrel is perhaps the game’s best closer.

• Smith is the setup man who they hope will help pull things together in the bullpen.

• Young is the veteran outfielder who should add depth behind Rusney Castillo (the intriguing Cuban import in left field), Jackie Bradley Jr. in center and Mookie Betts in right.

• And Price is the centerpiece as the Red Sox look to put two lost years behind them and swing for the fences again.

“One thing is, he’s very direct and honest,” Hazen said. “It’s not surprising, but everyone has a different style and different approaches. That’s been the one thing that stands out, and it reverberates through a number of people on our staff.

“Ben was one of my best friends and is a great guy, and honest, so they’re very similar in that way. Dave is just very direct in what he wants to do, whether it’s lining up going after acquisitions or identifying needs on the trade market or otherwise. It’s, ‘Hey, let’s do it, let’s get it done.’

“We haven’t gotten everything done we want to do, but in a lot of ways that course has been charted.”

And following that brief period of internal uncertainty in Fenway Park for those who wondered what their futures held under Dombrowski, it’s been full steam ahead.

“Joe Klein (a former major league executive) told me a long time ago, just remember there’s good people in every organization,” Bane said. “And when you think your team is the only team with good people, you’re going to get beat.

“It seems David goes by the same thing. He had great people in Detroit, people like David Chadd and Scott Bream and Scott Reid. But he also knew we had good people in Boston.”

Last week in Nashville was only the third time Boston’s entire baseball group gathered in one place, following that Sept. 1 meeting and the October get-together in Arizona. Hemond, now retired, visited the Red Sox suite to see Dombrowski and share memories.

This week, with most of the heavy lifting done for the winter, things finally are beginning to slow down.

“It’s not quite as hectic as it was before,” Dombrowski acknowledged. “But you’re always moving forward under any circumstances.

“We’re going to experience things together as an organization that will be new for us, doing things for the first time—how do you do this, how do you do that? Going to spring training. Opening talks, how do we handle them? Who wants to talk?”

Then, there will be the moving vans. The Dombrowskis already have purchased a home in Boston, but with his daughter in the middle of her senior year of high school in Michigan (his son is a sophomore), they will wait until June to move.

Though they have seen one another fairly frequently since dad set off to lead the Red Sox, two weeks at Christmas will be the longest the family has been together since mid-August. Dave is eager for the short break, and he knows one thing before he even sets foot back in the house: His son, Landon, who flew to Boston for the Price press conference, already has junked his Tigers gear.

“We’re all Red Sox,” Dave said, not missing a beat. “Through and through.”

Scott Miller covers Major League Baseball as a national columnist for Bleacher Report.

Follow Scott on Twitter and talk baseball.

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The Baltimore Orioles agreed to a deal with star South Korean left fielder Hyun-soo Kim on Wednesday, pending a physical, according to the Baltimore Sun‘s Dan Connolly.

Per Connolly, Kim’s contract with the Orioles is a two-year deal worth $7 million, and the money is evenly distributed with $3.5 million in salary for each season.

Jon Heyman of CBS Sports confirmed the deal and implied Baltimore got strong value out of it:

Kim is a three-time Gold Glove Award winner and a .318 career hitter in the Korea Baseball Organization League as a member of the Doosan Bears. The 27-year-old has been with the club since 2006 but is heading stateside to boost Baltimore’s outfield.   

In addition to his evident defensive prowess in the outfield, the blend of plate discipline and power Kim exuded during his time in the KBO was remarkable.

He batted .326 this past season with career-best totals in home runs (28) and RBI (121) while striking out only 63 times and drawing 101 walks. If Kim merely manages to imitate that sort of production with the Orioles, he’ll be viewed as quite the offseason steal.

Outfielder Gerardo Parra is a free agent, so there ought to be a spot for Kim to fill in and start right away. Kim’s bat will be especially useful if Baltimore can’t persuade slugger first baseman Chris Davis to stick around.

After failing to meet expectations this past season and missing the playoffs, pressure is on for the Orioles to perform well in 2016.

There will be plenty of hype following Kim around, but he appears equipped to handle it. Based on his steady production, the strong season he’s coming off of and a solid all-around game, all indications are Kim has the goods to make an instant MLB impact.

Note: Stats and background information on Kim courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com.

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A whopping $217 million…for a freaking pitcher?!? Now I know I’ve seen it all.

After a half-century of baseball, blizzards, college students and traffic, my bucket list is nearly complete. I’ve even seen Pablo Sandoval leg out a triple.

Happy 50th birthday to me: I am Boston’s famed Citgo sign.

On this week in 1965, my then-neon red and blue hues first lit the sky above Kenmore Square. I have been a fixture for Red Sox fans, Bostonians and visitors from everywhere ever since.

My view from atop 660 Beacon St. is spectacular, even if my vantage point has not budged since Zoilo Versalles was American League MVP.

I was once a “Cities Services” sign. But the company’s name was changed to Citgo.

See It Go. Get it?

That was once considered wicked clever.

You have seen me on TV whenever the Boston Red Sox play at home and someone hits a fly ball or home run to left center. In person, I’m much prettier. 

A sparkling red triangle just behind the green Triangle. 

I am a beacon on Beacon Street. Find me when you’re headed to Fenway Park, and you’re never lost. I cannot, however, do anything about the traffic, that jerk who just cut you off on Commonwealth Avenue or those $50 parking spots.

The best things in life remain free, including my view of Fenway Park from behind and above the left-field wall. Watching the Red Sox, on the other hand, can be costly both emotionally and financially.

In 1966, box seats at Fenway Park were $3. Those same seats will be $145 in 2016.

They come complete with gluten-free beers.

For $9.

Hey, someone has to pick up the tab for David Price, who signed a seven-year, $217 million deal with the Red Sox earlier this month.

When I first peeked inside Fenway Park, the average MLB salary was $17,664. At 100 pitches per start over 35 starts per season, Price will be averaging $8,857.14 per pitch. 

This past season, the MLB average salary was over $4 million.

That’s a 226-fold increase. The Red Sox, meanwhile, have only folded maybe 25 or so times since. 

Things were bleak at first. During my rookie season of 1966, the Red Sox lost 90 games. That was a feat they would not match until 2012.

I’ve since illuminated both Yaz and Taz—also known as Carl Yastrzemski and Junichi Tazawa.

My arc of history begins when Lyndon B. Johnson was in the White House. It continues with Jackie Bradley Junior in right. That’s LBJ to JBJ for those scoring at home. 

President Nixon came and went. As did Russ, Otis and Trot. The other John Kennedy played the infield during my childhood. Sam Kennedy reigns as team president as I enter my sixth decade.

I’ve studied the windups and deliveries of Lonborg, Looie, Rocket, Pedro, Schilling, Beckett, Lester, Lackey and Buchholz.

My all-time alphabetical scorecard begins with David Aardsma and ends with Bob Zupcic.

Epic choke jobs and crushing defeats scarred my childhood.

St. Louis and Cincinnati celebrated world championships on my watch. I never saw Tony Perez’s home run off Bill Lee come back to earth in 1975, either. By the age of 10, I had witnessed the Red Sox lose Game 7 of the World Series twice.

Too bad Bobby Orr and John Havlicek didn’t play baseball.

For an oil company’s neon sign, this kid had it rough.

I’ll always believe Carlton Fisk was waving at me in Game 6. Thankfully, all those fans were not giving me the finger whenever Reggie Jackson, Thurman Munson or A-Rod came to the plate.

But none of those damn Yankees broke my circuits like that puny little Bucky F. Dent.

I was the last thing millions of fans watching on TV saw before his home run landed softly in the left-field screen back on Oct. 2, 1978. I was 12 at the time.

How could that have happened? It was supposed to be our year!  

The Red Sox won 99 regular-season games that season and missed the playoffs? The 2015 world champion Kansas City Royals only won 95! Life is never fair. The cynicism grew.  

Playoff sweeps followed live and in person at the hands of Carney Lansford and Dennis Eckersley’s Oakland A’s in 1988 and 1990. Both were jettisoned by Boston and eventually teamed up in Oakland.

Gory eventually evolved into glory. 

My midsummer’s night field of dreams came to life before the 1999 All-Star Game when Ted Williams made one final splendid appearance.

He was almost upstaged by Pedro Martinez, who struck out five of the six batters he faced. Down went Barry Larkin, Larry Walker and Sammy Sosa in the first inning. And Mark McGwire and Jeff Bagwell in the second. 

Impossible and improbable dreams also came true on my watch. Duck Boats rolled three times for the Red Sox. Gold bottles popped. Cigars ignited.

Thanks to the 2004 team winning Boston’s first baseball title in 86 years, fans could finally stop the nonsense about some stupid “curse” of a fat guy named Babe. 

And to do it by shattering the hopes and haunting the nightmares of every last Yankees fan in the country in the process? Hahahaha, freaking priceless!

I saw the game on TV through the windows of Kenmore Square, but witnessed the postgame celebration firsthand in the streets below. 

Talk about retribution; no one would believe it even if it were a movie—oh yeah, it became one. I was in it, too. And caught the world premiere live at Fenway Park. 

That euphoria was in large part due to David Ortiz, David Ortiz and David Ortiz.  

In 2013, the Red Sox won a World Series at home for the first time since 1918. It was their third title in 10 seasons. I beamed with pride. 

Overall, four pennants were clinched (1967, 1986, 2007, 2013) and one was lost (1999) within my field of vision.

Oh, and remember all that chicken and beer in 2011? The smell from that Popeyes in Kenmore Square is right under my nose.

Gross.

Fall classics. Classic falls. 

Fifty years of bleeping baseball in this bleeping city can drive you bleeping crazy.

The Boston Patriots, Boston College’s football team and the Boston Bruins have looked up to me at various times, as did Paul McCartney, Bruce Springsteen, Jay Z and J.T., the Police, and plenty of actual police.

Ray Charles and Stevie Wonder could not see me, but I got to hear them, which is all that mattered.

The runners in 50 Boston Marathons have used me as a bellwether to mark the final mile (or so) of the race. 

An entire army of runners stopped at my feet when the Boston Marathon bombers struck in 2013. An entire city then stood still and vigilant for days. Six months later, millions filled the streets in celebration.  

As for me, I am double-sided and stand 60 feet tall and 60 feet wide. My caretakers tell me I’m the largest such sign in New England and somehow even energy efficient.  

There have been lots of stories written about me. Before I was three, I was even the subject of the short film called Go, Go, Citgo in 1968.

Stop laughing, did I mention it was 1968?

As if I’d visited far too many Irish pubs after a big Red Sox win, I blacked out from May 1979 until August 1983.  

Luckily for me, my 10 miles of neon had little to brighten when it came to the Red Sox at that time, anyway. I even missed a baseball strike in 1981.

Like anyone else who is 50 this year, I’ve had my share of health issues, including a minor fire in 2008 and renovations in 1983, 2004 and 2010.

But my future is bright. There are no plans to permanently turn me off or take me down. And I continue to inspire future generations of baseball fans. 

One of my many admirers is a five-year-old boy named Dash. He was born in New York, but now lives in Boston. His mom, Boston.Com writer Hilary Sargent, says she helped Dash create a Citgo sign project the day after the Boston Marathon bombing in 2013, before he ever saw the sign in person. 

“He had no idea this was a real sign until we moved back,” Sargent said. “He called all red triangles ‘Citgo signs.’ For his fifth birthday, I told him he could have any cake he wanted. He asked for a Citgo sign cake with his name on it. Despite spending his earliest years in enemy territory, he’s a proud Red Sox fan.”

Ahh, start ’em young. 

At 50, I remain an ionic, err iconic, landmark—at least until the next energy crisis or alien attack.

I cannot blow out my own candles on this landmark birthday, but I’ll take any #GiftOfSox being offered.

My baseball wish remains relatively modest: At least one more championship before I turn 51.

Bill Speros is a Bay State native and award-winning journalist. Like the Citgo sign, he, too, turned 50 this year. Follow him on Twitter @RealOBF. 

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The New York Yankees have taken a second base situation that impressed nobody and have addressed it with a trade that doesn’t seem to be satisfying everybody.

But if you’re among those who are on the fence, rest assured. The Yankees have had worse ideas.

If you’re just now joining us, the Yankees acquired second baseman Starlin Castro in a trade with the Chicago Cubs on Tuesday night. Joel Sherman of the New York Post first reported the deal in the wake of Chicago’s signing of veteran utility man Ben Zobrist, and the team confirmed it shortly thereafter.

Alongside Adam Warren, the player to be named later in the deal is veteran infielder Brendan Ryan, per Jon Heyman of CBS Sports. He was most certainly expendable. But after Warren did such a fine job in a swingman role in 2015, his expendability is up for debate.

In the meantime, the Yankees are getting a 25-year-old with a track record that features triumph and frustration in roughly equal measure.

There’s the good, which is that Castro is a three-time All-Star with a .281 career batting average. And there’s the bad, which is that Castro has been a subpar hitter in two of the last three seasons and has generally been about as up-and-down as a human pogo stick his entire career.

Which player are the Yankees going to get? It’s hard to say, frankly. But we can give them this much credit: They’re not wrong for wanting to find out.

You know what’s important in this situation? Context. Only context can tell us that even if Castro doesn’t improve the Yankees’ situation at second base, it’ll be hard for him to make it any worse.

Ever since Robinson Cano followed the smell of coffee and cash to Seattle two winters ago, things have been pretty rough for the Yankees at second base. According to FanGraphs, Yankees second basemen rank 29th in MLB in wins above replacement over the last two seasons. Gross.

Another important bit of context is what Castro means for the Yankees from a bigger-picture perspective. They’ve been trying to get cheaper, younger and more athletic. Call it a mission statement, one that Yankees president Randy Levine repeated mere hours before the Castro trade went down.

“I think at the end of the day, this is becoming a young players’ game, and I think it’s important to recognize that,” Levine said Tuesday afternoon, via Brian Heyman of Newsday. “I think that it’s been shown that you don’t need a $200-million payroll to win because I believe, except for us in 2009, nobody’s come close to that.”

As a middle infielder who’s only heading into his age-26 season, Castro is plenty young and athletic. And with roughly $40 million owed to him over the next four seasons, he’s not outrageously expensive.

Ergo, Yankees general manager Brian Cashman saying (via Bruce Levine of 670 The Score) Castro “fills our needs at second base and our vision moving forward.”

Of course, where this notion goes out on a bit of a limb is the reality that Castro is a recent convert to second base. He’s a shortstop by trade and has only been playing second base on a regular basis since Cubs skipper Joe Maddon moved him there in August 2015.

The experiment went pretty well, though. Castro played what the advanced metrics rated as passable defense, and his bat caught fire to the tune of a .353 average and .968 OPS over his final 44 games.

As we discussed a few weeks ago, there are tangible explanations for Castro’s hot finish. He started making contact much more frequently, and pretty good contact to boot:

Maddon attributed Castro’s hot hitting to an improved focus on the moment. Also, Matt Goldman of Beyond the Box Score highlighted a mechanical adjustment that erased one of Castro’s big weaknesses at the plate. If he holds on to these changes, maybe his hot finish will prove to be something.

But lest anyone get too excited, said hot finish is best taken with a few grains of salt.

Castro was definitely good the last time he was on the field, but not over a particularly large sample size. Certainly not large enough to completely overrule the rest of his track record, anyway.

And as far as that goes, Castro’s inconsistent results are just what’s on the surface.

On defense, Castro has long been plagued by mental and physical lapses that have dragged down his ratings. On offense, he’s an aggressive swinger who doesn’t take enough walks or hit for enough power to justify his good-not-great contact habit.

Given all this, it must be understood that the Yankees’ deal for Castro is not a sure thing. It’s an upside play. And as I proposed a few weeks ago, it arguably made more sense for the Yankees to simply let Rob Refsnyder be their upside play at second base. Maybe he didn’t offer as much reward, but he certainly offered less risk.

Even still, this is not a time for ranting and raving.

After all, there is no denying that the Yankees are fulfilling their desire to get younger and more athletic with this trade. And though there’s more risk involved in rolling the dice on Castro than there would have been with Refsnyder, at least the Yankees minimized the risk.

They’re not going to miss Ryan. And though Warren was an underrated asset in 2015, the Yankees didn’t necessarily have a role for him. He didn’t have a home in their 2016 starting rotation, and as such, he would have been slotted for long relief in the bullpen. Rather than let him waste away, the Yankees sold high on him.

As for Castro’s contract, the roughly $40 million he’s owed over the next four years is likely less than they would have had to pay Howie Kendrick or Daniel Murphy in free agency. That’s without even considering the lost draft pick that would have accompanied either one of them. Or the fact that both are on the wrong side of 30.

The Yankees are indeed taking a risk with Castro. If his hot 2015 finish turns out to be more of a blip rather than the start of something big, he’ll go back to being his usual frustrating self. That would inspire a good amount of rabbling.

The potential reward, however, is definitely there. Castro is young and athletic, and the end of 2015 wasn’t the only time he’s ever been good. The Yankees did not pay through the nose to find out if he can be good again in one of their uniforms.

Meet the new second baseman. Maybe not the same as the old second basemen.

Stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com and FanGraphs unless otherwise noted/linked.

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For years, the New York Yankees won the winter the traditional way.

They bought it.

The Yankees are different now, and if you didn’t believe it when they wouldn’t enter the bidding for David Price or Zack Greinke, perhaps you will when you hear (per Joel Sherman of the New York Post) that they never bid on Jeff Samardzija, either. Maybe they’re saving all their money to sign Jason Heyward—but don’t count on it.

No, if the Yankees are going to come out of this week as winter-meetings winners, they’re going to do it the hard way. They’re going to need to be more persistent and more creative.

They’re going to need to convince the Cleveland Indians that they really should trade Carlos Carrasco in some form of deal for Brett Gardner, or—even better—talk Oakland A’s boss Billy Beane out of his pledge not to deal Sonny Gray.

“Sooner or later, he trades everybody,” said one rival executive.

The Toronto Blue Jays got an MVP third baseman because Alex Anthopoulos kept asking and eventually gave Beane what he wanted. Could the Yankees get a potential Cy Young winner if Brian Cashman keeps asking? And if not Gray, what about Jose Fernandez of the Miami Marlins?

Gray or Fernandez would make any team a winter-meetings winner, but what if it really is true that neither will be available this week? What if Cashman decides Shelby Miller isn’t enough of a sure thing to trade his most prized prospects?

Enough of the questions. You came here for answers.

The Yankees didn’t seem to like our last bit of advice, which was to take advantage of the unusually pitching-heavy top of the free-agent market. So this time, we’ll try to keep things a little cheaper.

After all, talk is cheap, right? The suggestion here is for Cashman to do plenty of talking.

Talk to the A’s about Gray, and even if Beane is serious about not moving him now, lay the groundwork for whenever he eventually does move him. Do the same with the Marlins about Fernandez.

Revive the efforts to deal Gardner. Cashman told George A. King III of the Post that it’s now more likely he keeps Gardner and closer Andrew Miller, perhaps because there’s more of a glut on the outfield and reliever markets than there was a month ago. But Gardner’s defensive skills and his ability to play center field should still make him valuable, particularly if the Yankees pay down some of the $38 million remaining on his contract.

The Indians are a natural fit, because they have pitchers the Yankees could use (Carrasco or Danny Salazar) and because with Michael Brantley hurt, they could use an outfielder. But as Nick Cafardo pointed out in Sunday’s Boston Globe, the Los Angeles Angels could really use a left-handed hitting outfielder. New Angels general manager Billy Eppler was Cashman‘s assistant in New York (and seems to love players who excel on defense).

The Yankees could also trade Ivan Nova, especially if they acquire a starting pitcher elsewhere. They could still trade Miller, perhaps to the Houston Astros since they have reportedly lost out on Aroldis Chapman (the Yankees and Astros have talked, according to league sources).

If he does trade Miller—and even if he doesn’t—Cashman will need to add relief pitchers. The Yankees went heavy on bullpen arms last winter, trading for Justin Wilson and Chasen Shreve, but by the end of the season, manager Joe Girardi barely seemed to trust anyone but Miller and Dellin Betances.

Adding bullpen help doesn’t even need to be expensive. The Kansas City Royals signed Ryan Madson to a minor league contract last winter, and he pitched so well that he just agreed to a $22 million deal with the A’s (according to Jerry Crasnick of ESPN.com).

You might have noticed that every suggestion so far has involved pitching. The Yankees do have one open spot in their lineup, at second base. They might be able to reacquire Martin Prado, whom they dealt to the Marlins last winter for Nathan Eovaldi, or sign free agent Howie Kendrick, who has a .342 career batting average against them.

A recent report by Fox Sports’ Jon Morosi also links the Yankees to former All-Star Asdrubal Cabrera, though he cites budget concerns as a potential roadblock.

That probably wouldn’t be enough to make the Yankees a winter meetings winner, though. Maybe none of this would be enough—unless the Yankees could somehow come away with Sonny Gray or Jose Fernandez.

Keep talking.

Danny Knobler covers Major League Baseball as a national columnist for Bleacher Report.

Follow Danny on Twitter and talk baseball.

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The Toronto Blue Jays have reportedly hired Ross Atkins as their new general manager with hopes to make another run at the American League pennant, according to Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle. 

Joel Sherman of the New York Post and Jon Heyman of CBS Sports confirmed the report, though the team hasn’t yet made an official announcement.

Atkins, who has spent the past 20 years with the Cleveland Indians—most recently as the vice president of player personnel—was hired by his former boss, Mark Shapiro, who left Cleveland to become Toronto’s CEO in November.  

Atkins has the lofty task of replacing former Toronto GM Alex Anthopoulos, who was named baseball’s Executive of the Year by Sporting News just before turning down a multiyear extension after six seasons in Toronto because of what was a speculated rift with Shapiro over power and autonomy.

In Atkins, Shapiro gets a candidate he’s established a trust with over the past two decades and one with a pedigree in player development. Atkins was drafted by the Indians—under Shapiro’s watch—then, after five unsuccessful seasons in the minors, transitioned to the front office, where he climbed the ranks in player development. 

Indians president of baseball operations Chris Antonetti sent his congratulations, per Jordan Bastian of MLB.com: 

Atkins will head to Toronto with both short- and long-term agenda items as the Blue Jays aim to defend their American League East title. The bullpen and bench command immediate attention, and looming free agents next winter include sluggers Jose Bautista and Edwin Encarnacion, as well as top reliever Brett Cecil.

Anthopoulos was praised for returning to Toronto to prominence by aggressive offseason and deadline trades that brought in key contributors David Price, Troy Tulowitzki, Russell Martin, R.A Dickey and others while hitting on draft picks such as Marcus Stroman—all with a manageable payroll, 10th highest in MLB last year, per Spotrac. Anthopoulos hasn’t yet been picked off the open market since leaving Toronto.

Interim GM Tony LaCava was the other finalist for the job, according to Heyman. He will reportedly remain with the team “as an integral part of the club’s decision-making process,” according to Shi Davidi of Sportsnet. 

Bob Nightingale of USA Today believed it would be Atkins all along:

The Blue Jays claimed were 93-69 last year and reached the playoffs for the first time since 1993 before falling short in the American League Championship Series to the eventual World Series champion Kansas City Royals.   

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