With the Toronto Blue Jays fighting for a wild-card spot rather than the AL East title, the club fired manager Charlie Montoyo on Wednesday, the Blue Jays announced. Bench coach John Schneider has been named interim manager until the end of the 2022 season.
Montoyo, 56, signed a contract extension through the 2023 season in April. The front office and ownership must believe a change is badly needed to cut bait this early in Montoyo’s extension. To their credit, the Blue Jays have taken the Band-Aid off now instead of keeping Montoyo around just because he recently signed a new contract. They felt that change was needed and they were determined.
A year ago, the Blue Jays went 91-71 and missed the postseason by one game. Expected to take another step forward and contend for the World Series this year, Toronto is instead 46-42 and has lost 18 of its last 28 games. They are just half a game out of the third wild card spot. Here are the AL wild card standings:
- Beams: 47-40 (+1.5 GB)
- Red Sox: 47-41 (+1 GB)
- Blue Jays: 46-42—————————————–
- Sailors: 45-42 (0.5 GB)
- Orioles: 44-44 (2GB)
- Guardians: 43-43 (2 GB)
The Blue Jays are a bit underwhelming offensively, ranking just 11th in baseball with 4.56 runs per game, and have really fallen short of expectations on the mound. Toronto allows 4.44 runs per game, 10th most in baseball. José Berríos is having the worst season of his career, Hyun-Jin Ryu has undergone Tommy John surgery and Yusei Kikuchi has had a poor performance.
Firing Montoyo could give the Blue Jays a chance and change the clubhouse culture, but ultimately their play won’t improve until the guys on the mound perform. They need more from Berríos and Kikuchi specifically (Kikuchi is expected to return soon from a neck problem), as well as the middle of the bullpen behind closer Jordan Romano. The trade deadline is less than three weeks away, and all signs point to the Blue Jays being active.
In parts of four seasons under Montoyo, the Blue Jays went 236-236 and advanced to the expanded 16-team postseason field in the pandemic-shortened 2020 season. Montoyo led the club through difficult 2020 and 2021 seasons when the Blue Jays played home games in Buffalo and at their spring training park in Florida before returning to Toronto last July.
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Montoyo is the third manager sacked this season. The Phillies fired Joe Girardi in early June, and the Angels fired Joe Maddon less than a week later. These are the first in-season managerial changes in MLB since the Cardinals fired Mike Matheny in July 2018. It is also Toronto’s first in-season managerial change since replacing Cito Gaston with John Gibbons in 2008.
Schneider, 42, is a former Blue Jays minor league catcher who began his coaching career with the organization in 2008. He gradually climbed the minor league ladder and joined the major league Toronto coaching staff in 20109. Schneider coached and/or managed many of the Blue Jays’ young core players as they rose through the minors.
Before joining the Blue Jays, Montoyo spent two decades with the Rays in various capacities and was the club’s bench coach under Kevin Cash from 2016-18.
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