The Manager, a Simple Man?

Today seems as good as any to share a few thoughts about John Michael Gibbons a.k.a Gibby.

The first go around for Gibby here in Toronto was a bit of a mixed bag.  After he worked his way up from bullpen catcher all the way to Manager (seriously who the hell does that) one could make the argument that he was a bit in over his head.  Except he wasn’t.  Strategically he is likely the 2^nd best Manager the Jays have ever employed, maybe just behind Bobby Cox.....who left town when I was 9, so who the hell knows.

Gibby’s downfall was that (i) he had a poorly constructed roster thanks to the flawed thinking of JP & meddling of ownership and (ii) his apparent “temper”.  On the first point, I think he did pretty much the best he could with the cards he was dealt.  It was a cast of misfits and other team’s castoffs.  Entertaining misfits, but misfits nonetheless. 

I mean good guys but you can’t win with these players as key contributors.

As for his temper, well that was a bit overblown.  Shea Hillebrand was freaking a moron and the incident with Ted Lily was a necessary reaction.  When he was fired it was probably a bit unwarranted, but for the best given the disarray of the organization at the time.

But I believe bringing him back this year was a stroke of genius.  No one manages a bullpen better than Gibby and he runs a team the way it should be run.  He tries to get out of the way of his team for the most part, doesn’t believe in the bunt and seems to have the backing of the players.  Really that is all you can ask for.  Sportsnet did special on him earlier this year where they keep playing this over and over:

It got engrained into my head, and although I get the point of argument, Gibby is not a country bumpkin. He is simply (see what I did there) the right guy at the right time for this team. Sure, he might make a few moves that blow up in his face, but that is bound to happen.  If at the end of the year our biggest pet peeve with him is that he pitch hit for Colby in the 7^th inning of a tie game to go with RHB against a LHP, then I think it he will have been a successful return as the Jays manager.