FanPost

Antonetti turns down Cards, named future Indians GM

I live in St. Louis and heard it on the radio while getting lunch.

You can read it on the post dispatch here.

UPDATE:  The Indians reportedly convinced Assistant GM Chris Antonetti to stay in Cleveland, declining the Cardinals GM job, by essentially promising him that he would succeed Mark Shapiro, apparently on a somewhat specific timetable.  Per ESPN.com:

It appeared Antonetti was leaning toward moving to St. Louis until Indians owner Paul Dolan stepped up, defined the succession process under which Mark Shapiro will eventually be the club president and Antonetti the GM and made other promises.

Antonetti said he was "very fortunate to have a choice of two of the best jobs there are with two of the best owners to work with," Antonetti said. "The Cardinals may be one of the top five GM jobs in the business, but we are very happy where we are and Paul Dolan made it impossible to leave."

Full story here.  It's unclear how much the lack of free reign under St. Louis ownership affected Antonetti's decision, and it's probably never going to be clear.  The Cardinals expected Antonetti to stick with an incument rising star as head of their farm system as well as La Russa as manager.  Shapiro has often raved about the Dolan family's willingness to give him free reign to run the team's baseball operations within the budget available.  We also don't know if a significant raise to GM-ish levels was part of the Indians' offer, but it does seem likely.  [Jay]

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