Open Thread for Mark Shapiro Press Conference

Update: Tony LaCava will be Interim GM. As Minor Leaguer pointed out, on Twitter, I talked to LaCava before the 2012 season.

I'm very interested to see Mark Shapiro's press conference. He's dug himself a big hole with Blue Jays fans.

My suggestion....be honest with us. Ed Rogers already tried the lie your ass of method. Telling us Shapiro would only look after the park and revenue was laughable. I gotta ask you, if you were hired as CEO of a baseball team, would you want to do just the boring work, or would you want to be in on the fun of baseball operations. If you gave me the head job, of course I'd want to have my say on trades and free agents and all that fun stuff. I'd delegate all the park and revenue stuff as quickly as I could.

I do figure that Steve Simmons has the story right:

An earlier offer from Shapiro, who today becomes president of the Jays, was for two years and there is some doubt whether the second year in that proposed deal was guaranteed. The two-year offer in a climate in which untested first-year general managers sign on for five years was indication enough that Shapiro didn't really want Anthopoulos as his GM, and the offer was thought by some to be an insult.

The five-year, extensive and expensive offer made from Rogers to Anthopoulos was apparently made after the company was convinced he would say no.

I believe that, I'd imagine Rogers suddenly realized that they had a PR problem, made the 5-year offer, knowing that it wouldn't be accepted, figuring they could sell it to us fans, "see we did everything we could to keep Alex".

Then Mr. Rogers talks to a reporter, claiming that Alex's job wouldn't change under Shapiro, apparently thinking we are all dumb enough to buy it.

I don't blame Shapiro for all this, Rogers hired him, he said yes. Once they said the job was his, he has to do it the way he wants. I can blame Rogers for hiring the guy, but I can't blame him for taking the job or doing it the way he thinks best.

If I'm allowed a second suggestion, I hope that Mark actually answers questions. Not carefully avoid them. Not talk for ten minutes without managing to give us any information at all. Alex has this ability to do a full press conference or an interview, come off as friendly, but not give you one bit of actual information. So, Mr. Shapiro, maybe actually answer questions. I'm not promising that will get us to like you, but, it can't hurt.

I remember, soon after Alex was hired, a Jays PR person telling me that there wouldn't be a lot of information coming out of the new regime, that reporters and bloggers would have to work harder. Maybe Mark could be a little more open, at least answering questions in interviews and press conferences.

Shapiro does have to put on a good show at the press conference today. It starts at 2:00, and will be live on bluejays.com. I imagine Sportsnet.ca will be carrying it too. Let's use this as an open thread to discuss the press conference as it happens.