In a move that hardly anyone saw coming, the Blue Jays have fired manager Charlie Montoyo. The news came out Wednesday afternoon and bench coach John Schneider was named the interim manager. Triple-A manager Casey Candaele has been appointed as the interim bench coach for Schneider. GM Ross Atkins spoke with the media a few hours afterwards and took responsibility for this outcome, calling it a “collective setback.”
“I truly wanted this to work with Charlie and wasn’t able to make that happen,” Atkins said. “I’m extremely disappointed with where we are. I think we are better than how we’ve played. There’s been a lot of good individual things happen, but I think we could be playing better as a team. Having said that, this is a collective setback, and ultimately that starts with me. I’m the one who needs to be most accountable for that, and I have a great deal of respect for Charlie Montoyo.”
It would be an understatement to say that the Jays haven’t lived up to expectations so far this year. A team that was thought to win the division, is barely holding onto a wildcard spot right now. When a team with expectations as high as the Jays isn’t living up to them, fans can grow restless and demand change; that change is usually at the expense of the manager. Even though a team’s record isn’t indicative of how good or bad a manager is, front offices will look for someone to “blame” and more often than not, the manager is the scapegoat.
Despite having a strong start to the season, the Jays have struggled for a little while now, and have had a brutal month of July. They lost three out of five to the Rays, and had a horrendous west coast road trip which included getting swept by the Mariners in four games. There didn’t appear to be any indications of issues in the clubhouse, however Mariner’s beat writer Ryan Divish reported that, “It seemed like he, (Montoyo) had already lost the players by the time they got to Seattle.” If this is true, then it may only have been a matter of time before the Jays moved on from Montoyo, and the poor performances in Seattle only expedited things.
Managing in 2022 is a lot different than what it was in the past. There’s more data and analytics than ever before and front offices have more say in decisions. There is more of a collaborative effort between the manager, coaches, and the front office in decisions like lineup construction, players’ off days, and even bullpen management. It’s for these reasons that it is hard to directly tie a team’s success or failure to how good a manager is, but again, when a team with such high expectations is not meeting them, the blame will fall on the manager.
Charlie wasn’t a perfect manager by any means, but he wasn’t as bad as some believed he was. I also think he was the perfect manager for this team as the young kids got called up and got their feet wet in the big leagues. However, now with the players more experienced, and expectations sky-high, it’s time for a new leader to take this team to where it ultimately wants to be, and that’s the World Series.