When the Toronto Blue Jays take the field at Progressive Field Friday evening to open up the American League Championship Series, there will most likely be a familiar face in attendance. It will mark the first time Mark Shapiro returned to Cleveland since the final game of the 2015 season after he accepted the Jay’s offer to become their club president. The organization Shapiro now oversees will attempt to put a dagger into the team he helped create.
In an interview he gave with Robert MacCleod of the Toronto Globe and Mail he said:
“[I] certainly have a deep history there — a deep and a long one and a lot of really strong relationships add a different dynamic going back in there,” he said. “But when pitches get thrown, and we played them seven times this year, you get back to, it’s about the players and it’s about what happens on the field and you just want to win.”
Heading into the playoffs, the Blue Jays were a long shot American League wild card team and the Indians weren’t exactly a hot pick to roll over a Red Sox team that featured 20-game winner Rick Porcello and $217 million pitcher David Price at the front of its postseason starting rotation.
That’s the beauty of the baseball’s four-tiered playoff format. It’s almost impossible to predict what’s going to happen in the single-game wild-card showdowns or in the best-of-five division series. The Blue Jays also made quick work of the top-seeded Texas Rangers after having to battle the O’s into extra innings just to stay alive. The best-of-seven ALCS should be a truer test.
The return of Mark Shapiro is a train that has come full circle. One of the architects of the current Indians roster is now wearing a different shade of blue and rooting against everything built under his watchful eye.
It’s not just the Indians roster Shapiro oversaw but the renovations of Progressive Field as well.
Those that refuse to give Shapiro credit for the success of the 2016 Indians must understand that while he’s not physically present in the front office, his presence is still felt. It was Shapiro, along with current Pittsburgh Pirates general manager Neal Huntington, who gave current Indians President of Baseball Operations Chris Antonetti his first opportunity with with the club. In 1999, when Huntington was the Indians’ farm director, he recommended Antonetti to John Hart and Shapiro for an opening in baseball operations. When the Expos denied the Indians permission to approach Antonetti about the job, he had to quit to interview for it. It was risky. He was one of three candidates. Antonetti has been with the Indians ever since, climbing from an assistant in baseball operations to the team’s director of Major League operations to assistant GM by 2002, building a reputation in contract negotiations and statistical analysis.
If they appear to have gotten to the ALCS on different paths, they are very similar in a couple of important ways. The Jays and Indians rank first and second in the league in team ERA and rank third and fourth respectively with almost identical on-base percentages.
It’s tempting to look at the construction of the Indians roster and try to divine some idea of which direction the Blue Jays will go during the Mark Shapiro era. Shapiro said that it’s difficult to draw any conclusions from the big league rosters of teams in different divisions and in different economic circumstances.
In another interview with Peter Schmuck of the Baltimore Sun, Shapiro went on to say: “I think the bigger thing to look at would be the Indians player development and scouting and not the major league team,” he said. “I think the operating perameters that exist for every team are going to dictate how you make decisions and how you build a team. They are different here than they are in Cleveland and obviously in the division.
“However, the one thing that is absolutely certain is the process for making a good decision is the same…and the fact that if you have a healthy, productive, sustained farm system, you have the best chance possible to have a sustainable championship team. The two things you see that would be similar would be how we make decisions and that we will be relentless in building a productive farm system.”
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