MLB: Ranking the decade’s best general managers
By Bill Felber
MLB: Ranking the decade’s best general managers
10. Alex Anthopoulos +58.4 games, (Toronto 2010-15, Atlanta 2018-19)
Anthopoulos’ emergency appointment as general manager in Atlanta following the expulsion of John Coppolella rescued his professional image. This was ironic because Anthopoulos’ performance as GM in Toronto between 2010 and 2015 was generally solid.
Anthopoulos resigned following the 2015 season in reaction to Toronto’s hiring of Mark Shapiro as president despite his basically genius work in elevating the Jays to post-season status.
The building blocks were a series of borderline brilliant trades, including for Josh Donaldson and David Price.
Taken together, Anthopoulos acquired 16 players who contributed value to the Jays in 2015. The sum of those values was +11.2 games. In the process, he traded away 11 players to other major league clubs, and while a few – Adam Lind, J.A. Happ – were missed, the net impact of those 11 on their new teams was -3.4 games. So Anthopoulos’ deals alone netted 14.6 games of value to the Jays.
In 2019, Anthopoulos improved the Braves by 15.1 games short-term. He got high marks for his decision to sign Josh Donaldson for one extremely productive season. As in Toronto, the sum impact of Anthopoulos on the 2019 Braves surpassed 15 games, easily more than the margin by which they reached post-season play.
After graduating from Macalester College, Anthopoulos joined the Montreal Expos staff in 2000. He moved to the Blue Jays as a scouting coordinator in 2003 and was named assistant GM to J.P. Ricciardi in 2009.