Blue Jays shake up scouting, player development

Oct 9, 2009 - 9:10 PM TORONTO(AP) -- New Blue Jays general manager Alex Anthopoulos shook up his front office on Friday with a raft of changes to the team's scouting and development departments.

Former assistant general manager Tony LaCava was hired as director of player personnel, Charlie Wilson was named director of minor league operations and former Double-A manager Doug Davis became minor league field coordinator.

"Primarily, Tony is going to be in Toronto with me on a day-to-day basis, handling the day-to-day operations of the club," said Anthopoulos, who made his first moves since replacing J.P. Ricciardi as GM on Oct. 3.

On the scouting side, Toronto named Andrew Tinnish director of amateur scouting, Perry Minasian as director of professional scouting and Jon Lalonde as a professional scout.

Toronto fired director of player development Dick Scott, scout Rob Ducey and Triple-A manager Mike Basso.

Anthopoulos considered scouting and development "the No. 1 avenue to tackle" upon replacing Ricciardi, who was fired after failing to deliver a postseason berth in eight seasons as GM.

"Where it needed to start was the foundation of the club and the foundation of this organization is going to be scouting and player development," Anthopoulos said. "Scouting and development is very important to me, it's going to be the pillar of what we do here."

Scott was one of the first people hired by Ricciardi when he joined the Blue Jays in November 2001.