Alex Anthopoulos says he has a good working relationship with Billy Beane, his contemporary in Oakland.

This past offseason, the Oakland Athletics traded Josh Donaldson to the Toronto Blue Jays.

"I have a pretty good relationship with [A's GM] Billy Beane," Anthopoulos said. "We've done a bunch of small deals. The one thing about Billy, he's always open-minded and you can never offend him; you can ask about anybody at any time to make a deal.

"[Donaldson] is somebody we asked about right at the end of the season. We were adamantly told, 'He's not going to be moved.' Then we asked about him a little later. [Beane] was still adamant that [Donaldson] was not going to be moved. Then I guess, about a week before we did the deal, we asked about him again in a conversation, he again said he wouldn't move him, but it seemed in passing that one of the issues was they wanted to win this year. They might retool, but they weren't going to tear it down.

"[Beane] wasn't going to leave a hole at third base. I'm the one who introduced Lawrie at that point. We weren't going to trade Lawrie, but I wasn't getting anywhere with trying to get Donaldson. Once I introduced Lawrie to fill that hole for him, he seemed a little bit more open-minded and we took it from there. That was the only way I think things could get off the ground, because [Beane] still had every intention to win."