Yesterday I went over a few things that I was hoping we were going to hear about in Shapiro's 1st public appearance as the leader of the Jays, so today i'll give 5 quick thoughts on some of the things that he talked about on this 1st day on the job!
1. As he pretty much had to Shapiro started out the press conference speaking about Alex Anthopoulos and had to deal with about half of the questions thereafter being ones about AA and how things went down. For me in both of these insistence's I think he did a great job of talking to the topic and providing enough detail/respect to the topic that I expected. I really think we all should just move on. AA isn't coming back and it does nobody any good to keep dwelling on it.
2. I think it's very safe to say that the organization is in for a big change! Shapiro remarked for the need of structure, process and collaboration. I can't comment on whether or not these things were present or not in the previous admin, but I can't see why you would comment on it rather vigorously if your assessment of the team that it was something that was noticeably missing to the point to comment on the need for it.
3. One interesting comment I took form the the press conference was when he mentioned that the organization's direction is determined by the resources that they have access to. It's interesting to me as Shapiro has had to use the draft as their main focus in building their team in Cleveland since they wouldn't have the same financial commitments that would be available to Shaprio and the Jays in Toronto. This tells me that Shapiro clearly knows that he will now be able to spend some $$, but still needs to respect the need for the team to develop it's own players. Should be fun to see how he goes about it since it's not something he's been able to oversee before.
4. Great to hear that John Gibbons is going to be back in 2015 and it's just as great that Tony LaCava will be the interim GM for the Org. In a time that we will probably be seeing a bunch of change within the organization it's going to be very important to ensure that there is some sort of consistency. Knowing what you have and how you've done it is just as important as knowing where your going!
5. I'm not sure if it was actually mentioned in the Press Conference or not, but I know it was mentioned in an interview there after, but Shapiro mentioned that his Family would be moving up to Toronto and his kids would be transferring to school in the area at the end of the school year! I know this may seem like a non issue since there has been tons of Toronto Sports executives who have chosen not to live in Toronto but I think it should be taken note of since it's actually very telling on how Shapiro plans on making this a LONG standing job for him and he is going all in.
Huge Props to Shapiro for rocking the Poppy today!
Oh BTW, I think Shapiro did a great job in his opening Press Conference! Really appreciated his approach and hope that people give him a chance to work without a net so to speak!
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