Charlie Montoyo Out
So Charlie Montoyo’s time with the Toronto Blue Jays is over after a disastrous west coast road trip, which was capped off with a four-game sweep in Seattle over the weekend.
All of a sudden, the Orioles (winner of 10 in a row) are sitting right there and the whole thing is just a mess. Three of the four games in Seattle were very close. It was just more of the one-run game torture that has haunted the Blue Jays in the last few seasons.
I don’t think Montoyo, despite all the positive news media, was ever the long-term guy for Shapiro and co. The heir apparent has always been John Schneider. As soon as he was asked to fill in when Montoyo was otherwise unavailable last season, despite Dave Hudgens being the bench coach, it indicated to me that Schneider was The Guy.
There was some general chatter on Twitter about calling John Gibbons, but I knew that was never going to be something. So many decisions in this business involve who you know and who likes you. Are you their man? John Gibbons was Alex Anthopoulos’s man who got to stay because the Blue Jays had made it to the ALCS in 2015 and that was not the kind of PR smoke the newly-arrived Shapiro was going to take on.
I’m pretty sure the Blue Jays planted the “John Gibbons wants to move on” story in the summer of 2018 to gauge the public’s reaction before outright firing him. Gibby saw the writing on the wall and is savvy enough not to fight it and got a “ride off into the sunset” edit.
There were rumbles over the weekend, but Mark Budzinski’s daughter’s funeral was on Monday (which was attended by the team) making this move more delicate than it might otherwise be. Montoyo appeared deeply affected by the accident and there has definitely been a cloud hanging over the team.
When Montoyo and Guerrero had that minor little disagreement over whether to challenge the call in the fourth inning of last night’s game, I sensed an issue and that there might actually be an announcement.
What I think happened: Guerrero knew he pooched it and didn’t want the pooch to be broadcast on that brand new giant screen that hangs over centre field. Vlad waves them off. Montoyo, for whatever reason, decided to challenge anyway. So the pooch was reviewed.
Faces of death were exchanged.
I'm not going to argue that Charlie Montoyo was absolutely the best manager for this team. But I also recognize that the Blue Jays have to appear to do something after the terrible week. When a team is underperforming or there are questions about any kind of team construction, the executives who built the team need to point the finger at someone.
The clock starts ticking as soon as the papers are signed. These guys are hired to get fired.