BASEBALL REPORTER
In his quest to reconstruct the Toronto Blue Jays front office, neophyte general manager Alex Anthopoulos values one characteristic above the rest when looking for new hires: the ability to evaluate baseball talent.
"The more evaluators that we can have - and I tell you even in the front office, I've told everybody this - I want everybody with some capacity to evaluate," the 32-year-old Anthopoulos said. "I don't care if it's an administrative assistant or whatnot.
"If someone can evaluate and give an opinion, bring something to the table, have an idea, I don't care where it come from. It can only make us better."
Anthopoulos, who took control of the Blue Jays on Oct. 3, when J.P. Ricciardi was fired, continued his front-office makeover yesterday as the American League club confirmed it had hired Dana Brown away from the Washington Nationals.
Brown, 42, who was the Nationals scouting director, will join the Blue Jays as a special assistant to the GM. His exact duties are still being worked out, but for the immediate future, Brown will help the Blue Jays prepare for the 2010 draft next June.
"Further to that, he'll be involved in trades, he'll be involved in evaluating our minor-league players, he'll be involved in evaluating out staff," Anthopoulos said. "That's something we don't do enough as an organization."
Brown had been with the Nationals since 2002, while they were still in Montreal as the Expos. It was in Montreal he first got to know Anthopoulos, who had joined the organization two years earlier as an intern.
"Contagious energy," Brown responded when asked of his first recollections of Anthopoulos. "When Alex came on he was so energetic and passionate that he was putting us to shame, the guys that had been in the game for a little while."
The Blue Jays also made two other moves in their baseball operations department yesterday.
Ryan Mittleman was promoted to co-ordinator, amateur scouting, while Harry Einbinder was appointed co-ordinator, professional scouting.
"I think the theme of this office, we're going to be relentless and we often joke that we want people who are animals," Anthopoulos said.
"And we say it because they love it, they're driven, this is what they're all about - they eat it, breath it, sleep it. I think we want to have that type of attitude top to bottom. We're going to push each other to make this a great organization."
In his first moves after becoming the general manager, Anthopoulos named former assistant GM Tony LaCava director of player personnel and fired three others from Ricciardi's regime, including former player development director Dick Scott.