Fair or not, MLB managers face the reality that if they don’t win, they don’t keep their jobs. And while optimism reigns in most spring training camps this time of year, some managers will be on the hot seat within a couple of months.
If the Toronto Blue Jays play poorly, John Gibbons will be one of the managers facing pressure to win – or else. Just one year after beginning his second tenure in Toronto, the Blue Jays bench boss finds himself in a decidedly different situation heading into the 2014 season, now just six short days away. It’s certainly a far cry from the workplace landscape he walked into this time last year.
Then, the Blue Jays were the pride of the city. They were the franchise that swung for the fences in the off-season and, because everybody has got a price, went yard and managed to bring in big names and major talent across the diamond. Hell, they were the favourites to win the World Series at one point.
Now? There’ll be three major pro teams (four if you count TFC) playing in Toronto this April, and the Jays might be the only one that won’t be around come playoff time.
And so Gibbons finds himself at the helm of a team desperately trying to meet the expectations of a 2013 season mired in setbacks and disappointment. Another disappointing year and, regardless of why, he could be the one who pays.
“In a way you feel helpless,” says Manny Acta, the former big league manager and current ESPN analyst who was burned by the hot seat twice, with the Washington Nationals in 2009 and most recently with the Cleveland Indians in 2012. “Everybody is going to point fingers at the manager, it always happens that way.”
And it’s not a phenomenon exactly unique to baseball. Pick a sport, it doesn’t matter. Save for the rare exception the coach is typically the first to go when things turn ugly.
Often, a manager ‘earns’ the target on his back, be it through confounding game calling, bullpen mismanagement, or losing his clubhouse to a full-fledge mutiny. And other times he’s just the fall guy.
“If you look at the Blue Jays last year,” says Acta, “I, like many others, picked them to win the division. You don’t want to hear excuses as a manager, but they had so many injuries. What can John do about that?”
Whether or not Toronto’s 74-88 record can be explained so simply, there’s no question that injuries killed the Jays in 2013. Jose Bautista missed 44 games. Ditto Colby Rasmus. Fifty-five for Brett Lawrie and 69 for Jose Reyes, the centrepiece of the deal with the Miami Marlins that cost the Jays multiple top prospects. Edwin Encarnacion missed a good chunk of games, as did Josh Johnson and a host of others. And without the depth to replace the missing parts, the season was essentially over by June.
“How many wins would they have gotten if Reyes stayed healthy?” Acta asks. “If Johnson stayed healthy, if Bautista played the whole year, and on and on and on. Yeah, injuries are part of the season, but the fact is this guy didn’t have an opportunity to manage the ballclub that everybody had envisioned.”
He’ll have that chance now, with the team more or less healthy to start the season. But after the Blue Jays failed to address pressing needs in the off-season — particularly in the starting rotation – it’s possible Gibbons’s best opportunity to win has already passed.
Still, as Acta explains, a manager can’t allow that line of thinking to enter his mind. “You have to find a way to concentrate on the task at hand. Block it out and focus on your team and getting the best out of what you have, regardless of injuries. And I’m not talking about studying stats and getting your matchups right. I’m talking about the mental aspect. That’s the biggest job. When you’re handling 25 players, seven coaches, a handful of trainers, it can be really hard to keep everyone positive through tough times and pulling that rope in the same direction.”
Of course, a hot start to the campaign, which kicks off next week with a series in Tampa Bay against the Rays, and the conversation is moot – as long as the losses don’t pile up.
“That’s how the game works: When you win, the players won and nobody second-guesses any managerial decisions. When you lose, everybody points the finger at you, because you’re supposed to run the ship,” says Acta. “Fact is, you have to learn to live with it yet somehow ignore it. That’s what a coaches life is all about.”
Some things will never change.
