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Blue Jays fans will talk themselves into anything (Blog)
Posted: Thu Nov 22, 2012 1:47 am
by LittleOzzy
Jays fans reaction to Gibbons' hiring proves one thing: At this point, these people will talk themselves into anything.
Playoff baseball ratings were less than stellar this year. Game Four of the 2012 World Series, a series-clinching game that went to extra innings, was beaten by a somewhat insignificant Sunday Night Football matchup that night. Not only did football beat baseball, it beat it by over a million viewers in the United States. Reports afterward cited the aging demographic still watching America's favourite pastime. The over 50 crowd was still watching, but the under 50 crew, their attention spans shortened daily by social media and DVR's, were less willing to sit through three hours of dip chewing. It appeared to the outside observer that baseball was losing ground fast and in danger of aging as badly as Lindsay Lohan.
That's not the case in the TSN SportsCentre newsroom however. In our newsroom, one would swear that the grand ol' game is as popular as ever, and that's because our newsroom is largely populated by Greater Toronto Area-born and raised sports fans who have grown up loving the Toronto Blue Jays. Many of them, in fact most of them, are too young to remember the World Series victories of 1992 and 1993. Their love for the Jays endures however, and the fact that they are die-hard baseball fans obsessed with fantasy sports and sabermetrics makes them the kind of group that Bud Selig probably wishes he could kidnap, take to a lab, and replicate so he could fill all those empty seats at Rogers Centre.
So it was a fascinating social experiment to be among these rare young die-hards when highly-respected Toronto Sun writer Bob Elliott broke the news that John Gibbons would be returning as Blue Jays manager just minutes before we went live with SportsCentre at 1am et time Tuesday morning. Imagine a roomful of co-workers who had played the lottery together, only to find out they missed winning $50 million dollars by one number. That's the kind of deflated initial reaction that every single person in the room displayed. John Gibbons? Really?
There was no one, no one, calling for the return of John Gibbons to manage the Toronto Blue Jays. In fact, it's safe to say that had you suggested Gibbons as a candidate to this same group just days before the actual announcement on Tuesday morning, you would have been laughed out of the room. The Blue Jays had just acquired several big-time star players in a lopsided trade with the Miami Marlins, and signed 'almost' batting champ and recently suspended Melky Cabrera to a pretty sweet and fairly low-risk two-year deal that ESPN Senior Baseball writer David Shoenfield said could turn into "the best free agent signing this offseason".
The buzz around our newsroom, and more importantly, the entire city of Toronto, was palpable. The Blue Jays had a chance to really contend again, now they just needed a new manager to rally the troops. The possibilities were endless. Who wouldn't want to step in and manage this group of players? There was even talk of luring former Jays and Braves manager Bobby Cox out of retirement!
Then there was the requisite baggage that Gibbons came with: the confrontations with his own players and the fact that he had not actually won anything during his initial tenure with the team from 2004 to 2008. This was not Phil Jackson returning to the Lakers after bringing home multiple championships, this was another in a line of underwhelming Blue Jay managers of underwhelming Blue Jay teams from an underwhelming Blue Jay era that most of us would rather forget. There is something to be said of the phrase: "Your first instinct is your best instinct", and without question, every Jays fan's first instinct when they first heard the news about John Gibbons returning to manage this team was: You're joking, right?
Then the second part of the social experiment started to come to fruition: Denial and acceptance. Suddenly these die-hard Jays fans in the newsroom, who were initially shocked and disappointed by the move, started to rationalize it like a girl dating a guy she knows is probably not right for her but continues to see him anyway because she had no other potential suitors on the horizon. "After the initial shock, I'm starting to warm up to the Gibby hiring" said one of our editors and most die-hard of Jays fans. The reasons for Gibby's return were stacked up one after the other: he's a player's manager, he did a good job of managing the pitching staff throughout his time with the Jays, people around the team really liked him, especially Alex Anthopoulos, and he didn't necessarily get a 'fair shake' during his first tenure with the team because he didn't have the horses to win.
http://www.tsn.ca/blogs/jay_onrait/?id=409955
Re: Blue Jays fans will talk themselves into anything (Blog)
Posted: Thu Nov 22, 2012 2:02 am
by Redeemer
My take on it is that AA had his mind made up before he made the signing of Melky and the big trade. No GM that was going to hire an established manager such as (Hargrove, Torre or so on) would make moves with their consideration. I strongly believe that one of the reasons Farrell left was because AA didn't want to include him in discussions when it came it players. Some GM's use the puppet approach of controlling the manager from the pressbox. JP did it with Martinez, Tosca and Gibbons until he was forced by management to hire Gaston, which led to his demise soon.
Re: Blue Jays fans will talk themselves into anything (Blog)
Posted: Thu Nov 22, 2012 2:03 am
by Randle McMurphy
Many Raptors fans have talked themselves into believing for years that an incompetent like Bryan Colangelo is the right person for the job, so it shouldn't be too much of a surprise how easy it was for the Jays to get people on board with a manager who was actually fine during his time here. People want to believe in and trust in Anthopoulos right now and they want to believe in and trust in this organization's direction. So they will.
Onrait speaks in absolutes too much here, though, as there was a significant segment of the Jays fanbase that liked Gibbons as a manager considerably and found it awesome when Elliott reported his return Monday night. I'd been wishing on his return since he was scapegoated (in fact, I made a tweet about him coming back half-jokingly the evening before the announcement:
https://twitter.com/BFullmer_Fan/status ... 7972553728). I just never realistically thought it would be a possibility, I don't think anybody did. But I was delighted to find out that AA did.
Re: Blue Jays fans will talk themselves into anything (Blog)
Posted: Thu Nov 22, 2012 2:06 am
by Redeemer
Randle McMurphy wrote:Many Raptors fans have talked themselves into believing for years that an incompetent like Bryan Colangelo is the right person for the job, so it shouldn't be too much of a surprise how easy it was for the Jays to get people on board with a manager who was actually fine during his time here. People want to believe in and trust in Anthopoulos right now and they want to believe in and trust in this organization's direction. So they will.
Onrait speaks in absolutes too much here, though, as there was a significant segment of the Jays fanbase that liked Gibbons as a manager considerably and found it awesome when Elliott reported his return Monday night. I'd been wishing on his return since he was scapegoated (in fact, I made a tweet about him coming back half-jokingly the evening before the announcement:
https://twitter.com/BFullmer_Fan/status ... 7972553728). I just never realistically thought it would be a possibility, I don't think anybody did. But I was delighted to find out that AA did.
WOW. Thats the first picture of Brad Fulmer I have ever seen without tobacco in his mouth.

Re: Blue Jays fans will talk themselves into anything (Blog)
Posted: Thu Nov 22, 2012 2:09 am
by BigLeagueChew
Fullmer

That guy was chizzled from ice, I've always wondered if he did steroids it certainty looked like it.
Re: Blue Jays fans will talk themselves into anything (Blog)
Posted: Thu Nov 22, 2012 2:19 am
by Santoki
As someone still completely on the fence about this hiring, this is how I felt as I was reading through the threads. Page after page became more and more positive about the hiring and it felt almost forced. Every transaction we make comes with this hopeful positivity that it will all work out because we just have to believe at this point. If we're talking about making decisions with our gut, and AA is getting all the credit in the world for doing so, my gut still tells me this wasn't the correct decision. Maybe I can't put together an argument using sabremetrics as to why, but something just felt so off about this decision in my mind. All I'm left to do at this point is listen to the rest of you guys and hope you're all right.
Re: Blue Jays fans will talk themselves into anything (Blog)
Posted: Thu Nov 22, 2012 2:25 am
by Kaizen
What was the right decision? Please tell us exactly who the right hire was and why?
These debates actually piss me off. I know nothing about managers and I have a hard time believing some of you are experts on the topic.
Re: Blue Jays fans will talk themselves into anything (Blog)
Posted: Thu Nov 22, 2012 2:35 am
by Santoki
Kaizen wrote:What was the right decision? Please tell us exactly who the right hire was and why?
These debates actually piss me off. I know nothing about managers and I have a hard time thinking some of you are experts on the topic.
I don't think anyone knows what the right hire was and you simply can't know until you start playing baseball and see how the team performs. My issue with a lot of posters on this forum is that if you didn't agree with this hire, and you don't have a good statistical reason to back it up, then you're either an ignorant fan or you don't know what you're talking about. At the same time, AA is getting all of the credit for this hire because he doesn't listen to public perception and used his gut. But, if you use your gut to evaluate the decision you're laughed off the page here. Just seems contradictory and it's often hostile and inflammatory here if you go against the grain.
Re: Blue Jays fans will talk themselves into anything (Blog)
Posted: Thu Nov 22, 2012 2:50 am
by Redeemer
Let me put it this way. The Orioles hired Buck Showalter and they showed vast improvement and making the playoffs this year. The Orioles don't have a great team, I don't even think they have a good team.
Gibbons = Trash
AA controlling the puppet strings from the pressbox
Re: Blue Jays fans will talk themselves into anything (Blog)
Posted: Thu Nov 22, 2012 3:09 am
by Yosemite Dan
I think people have talked themselves into thinking this is the right hire simply because of the 2 great moves that AA made prior to it. So people are getting this false impression that AA walks on water now and can do no wrong. Yes they were 2 great moves that AA pulled out of his hat and I was pleasantly suprised as anyone else when it happened.
Would many of you have been nearly as happy with hiring Gibbons if AA hadn't made the trade or signed Cabrera? And I betcha most of you would say no because based on past history Gibbons is not the type of manager who can elevate a team but now that the team has gotten more talented that type of manager is somehow more acceptable now? I would argue the opposite, get someone now who has shown he can take advantage of a multi faceted offense because we're making a run for the playoffs and need all the help we can get.
The Jays are all in now so I would feel more comfortable with a manager who has some success at some level of baseball by having some imagination in their philosophy. Gibbons has never had that. He micromanages and the offense he employs is very unimaginative and lacks aggression, the team we have right now has various offensive weapons and we need to take full advantage of that. We have a large margin of error for next year and I don't think Gibbons brings anything to the table that lessens that margin.
Re: Blue Jays fans will talk themselves into anything (Blog)
Posted: Thu Nov 22, 2012 3:17 am
by Redeemer
Yosemite Dan wrote:I think people have talked themselves into thinking this is the right hire simply because of the 2 great moves that AA made prior to it. So people are getting this false impression that AA walks on water now and can do no wrong. Yes they were 2 great moves that AA pulled out of his hat and I was pleasantly suprised as anyone else when it happened.
Would many of you have been nearly as happy with hiring Gibbons if AA hadn't made the trade or signed Cabrera? And I betcha most of you would say no because based on past history Gibbons is not the type of manager who can elevate a team but now that the team has gotten more talented that type of manager is somehow more acceptable now?
The Jays are all in now so I would feel more comfortable with a manager who has some success at some level of baseball by having some imagination in their philosophy. Gibbons has never had that. He micromanages and the offense he employs is very unimaginative and lacks aggression, the team we have right now has various offensive weapons and we need to take full advantage of that. We have a large margin of error for next year and I don't think Gibbons brings anything to the table that lessens that margin.
Couldn't have said it any better. The fact that AA made these deals before hired a manager gave me the impression that he was gonna hire a "yes man". Think about it, wouldn't you want a manager to talk to about the deals you are gonna make? Thats another reason why Farrell left, he felt he wasn't able to give his input, he wanted more starting pitching during the season but AA didn't see it that way and just got Happ.
Disappointed after the big moves, its gonna be the same old bluejays. Gibbons is gonna take away 5-10 games from his mismanaging. The team itself is good, but not sure we can make this move to the division or even wildcard!
Re: Blue Jays fans will talk themselves into anything (Blog)
Posted: Thu Nov 22, 2012 3:26 am
by jaymeister15
Redeemer wrote: Gibbons is gonna take away 5-10 games from his mismanaging. The team itself is good, but not sure we can make this move to the division or even wildcard!
I didn't remember anything about Gibbons, so was neutral on the hire. But, the people supporting the hire have made way more compelling arguments than the ones against it. This quote for example is just plain ridiculous...It would take an absolute awful manager to cost a team 5-10 games (and even then I'm not sure if it's possible). I've read several of your posts in the last couple days and haven't seen you give one legitimate reason to think he is going to cost us games.
And like others have said, I haven't seen anyone come out and say who they would prefer and give any reasons for preferring that guy
Re: Blue Jays fans will talk themselves into anything (Blog)
Posted: Thu Nov 22, 2012 3:33 am
by s e n s i
Yosemite Dan wrote:I think people have talked themselves into thinking this is the right hire simply because of the 2 great moves that AA made prior to it. So people are getting this false impression that AA walks on water now and can do no wrong. Yes they were 2 great moves that AA pulled out of his hat and I was pleasantly suprised as anyone else when it happened.
Would many of you have been nearly as happy with hiring Gibbons if AA hadn't made the trade or signed Cabrera? And I betcha most of you would say no because based on past history Gibbons is not the type of manager who can elevate a team but now that the team has gotten more talented that type of manager is somehow more acceptable now? I would argue the opposite, get someone now who has shown he can take advantage of a multi faceted offense because we're making a run for the playoffs and need all the help we can get.
The Jays are all in now so I would feel more comfortable with a manager who has some success at some level of baseball by having some imagination in their philosophy. Gibbons has never had that. He micromanages and the offense he employs is very unimaginative and lacks aggression, the team we have right now has various offensive weapons and we need to take full advantage of that. We have a large margin of error for next year and I don't think Gibbons brings anything to the table that lessens that margin.
just curious, who specifically would you have preferred? which unemployed former manager or alleged candidate could take advantage of this multi faceted offense and also have imagination in their philosophy, and at the same time be someone who is both respected and experienced is realistically available? are you upset we didn't bring in joe torre or tony la russa? all the other speculated candidates had their share of major flaws as well.
Re: Blue Jays fans will talk themselves into anything (Blog)
Posted: Thu Nov 22, 2012 4:09 am
by raps4589
^^^ lol ya people are acting like manny acta was our saviour
Re: Blue Jays fans will talk themselves into anything (Blog)
Posted: Thu Nov 22, 2012 4:18 am
by raps4589
and honestly can everyone go check out shea hillenbrand's wikipedia and read about his career, dude was a good player but his attitude got to a point where no team wanted him, tid lilly gave up 8 runs in the 3rd inning got tooken out and wanted to fight gibbons.... pretty much what im saying is gibbons is judged for those 2 incidents and it was with a hole cancer players.... like if he had fought vernon wells or halladay that would be something to hold against him but he fought shea cancerbrand and ted lilly
Re: Blue Jays fans will talk themselves into anything (Blog)
Posted: Thu Nov 22, 2012 4:30 am
by Randle McMurphy
s e n s i wrote:Yosemite Dan wrote:I think people have talked themselves into thinking this is the right hire simply because of the 2 great moves that AA made prior to it. So people are getting this false impression that AA walks on water now and can do no wrong. Yes they were 2 great moves that AA pulled out of his hat and I was pleasantly suprised as anyone else when it happened.
Would many of you have been nearly as happy with hiring Gibbons if AA hadn't made the trade or signed Cabrera? And I betcha most of you would say no because based on past history Gibbons is not the type of manager who can elevate a team but now that the team has gotten more talented that type of manager is somehow more acceptable now? I would argue the opposite, get someone now who has shown he can take advantage of a multi faceted offense because we're making a run for the playoffs and need all the help we can get.
The Jays are all in now so I would feel more comfortable with a manager who has some success at some level of baseball by having some imagination in their philosophy. Gibbons has never had that. He micromanages and the offense he employs is very unimaginative and lacks aggression, the team we have right now has various offensive weapons and we need to take full advantage of that. We have a large margin of error for next year and I don't think Gibbons brings anything to the table that lessens that margin.
just curious, who specifically would you have preferred? which unemployed former manager or alleged candidate could take advantage of this multi faceted offense and also have imagination in their philosophy, and at the same time be someone who is both respected and experienced is realistically available? are you upset we didn't bring in joe torre or tony la russa? all the other speculated candidates had their share of major flaws as well.
Can't say I've heard a clear answer on this one from any of the whiners out there over the last two days. If you're going to criticize a managerial hiring, you need to have a realistic alternative that you preferred (and also most importantly, a reason for why that realistic alternative would have been better than the Gibbons choice). If you don't have that, what are you complaining about?
Re: Blue Jays fans will talk themselves into anything (Blog)
Posted: Thu Nov 22, 2012 4:31 am
by Yosemite Dan
s e n s i wrote:Yosemite Dan wrote:I think people have talked themselves into thinking this is the right hire simply because of the 2 great moves that AA made prior to it. So people are getting this false impression that AA walks on water now and can do no wrong. Yes they were 2 great moves that AA pulled out of his hat and I was pleasantly suprised as anyone else when it happened.
Would many of you have been nearly as happy with hiring Gibbons if AA hadn't made the trade or signed Cabrera? And I betcha most of you would say no because based on past history Gibbons is not the type of manager who can elevate a team but now that the team has gotten more talented that type of manager is somehow more acceptable now? I would argue the opposite, get someone now who has shown he can take advantage of a multi faceted offense because we're making a run for the playoffs and need all the help we can get.
The Jays are all in now so I would feel more comfortable with a manager who has some success at some level of baseball by having some imagination in their philosophy. Gibbons has never had that. He micromanages and the offense he employs is very unimaginative and lacks aggression, the team we have right now has various offensive weapons and we need to take full advantage of that. We have a large margin of error for next year and I don't think Gibbons brings anything to the table that lessens that margin.
just curious, who specifically would you have preferred? which unemployed former manager or alleged candidate could take advantage of this multi faceted offense and also have imagination in their philosophy, and at the same time be someone who is both respected and experienced is realistically available? are you upset we didn't bring in joe torre or tony la russa? all the other speculated candidates had their share of major flaws as well.
I never said anything about experience at managing at the major league level, I said experience at some level that shows some innovation.
I favoured 3 candidates.
1-Dave Martinez(and we are going to regret not going after him because he will be hired by someone else and excel. The guy is learning from the best manager in baseball (by a landslide) which is good enough for me. And you know he wouldn't be lining up to go back to Tampa if Madden left.
2-Tim Wallach- the guy excelled in the PCL, was manager of the year and employed a very exciting national league managerial style and our team has a national league type offense. Unfortunately Gibbons doesn't even know how to spell sacrifice so don't expect him to be doing much of that to take advantage of our speed. Even the AA team Gibbons managed this year was 10 games under .500. Wallach has already been passed over in LA in favour of Mattingly so he would have no sense of loyalty to go home to manage there not to mention if he excels here then he would have no reason to go to back to LA which would be in a mess if they were firing Mattingly.
3-Brad Ausmus- this one is a bit of a wildcard but he was a catcher and is considered very intelligent and forward thinking and has wowed teams he's interviewed for. He took himself out of the running for the Jays and other jobs though so he was a longshot anyways.
Is that good enough for you?
The funny part is if the Jays crash and burn because of a unimaginative offense or because the the bullpen burns out because Gibbons keeps using 6 pitchers every game with 4 of them pitching a 3rd of an inning then guys like you will be the first ones to bitch and whine as to why we hired a recycled manager like Gibbons who's never won anywhere and was never even looked at by other teams as a managerial candidate.
Re: Blue Jays fans will talk themselves into anything (Blog)
Posted: Thu Nov 22, 2012 4:42 am
by Waylon Mercy
Onrait is bang on and I can't stand him because he plays the corny goofball on tv didn't know
he had this in him.
Re: Blue Jays fans will talk themselves into anything (Blog)
Posted: Thu Nov 22, 2012 4:46 am
by Randle McMurphy
At least you've provided alternatives. Few can even do that much. I'm not sure, however, that you've provided a good enough reason for why any of them would have been better than Gibbons (especially when you promote Wallach utilizing the sacrifice, or in other words, throwing away outs, which is an incredibly poor, dated baseball tactic).
I have to ask, what specifically have Martinez, Wallach, and Ausmus done that "shows some innovation?" Because I'm not sure Martinez working under Maddon, Wallach "excelling in the PCL," and Ausmus being "considered very intelligent" really count in that respect.
And considering all of these guys have never managed in the MLB (or in some cases, never managed at all any level), I'm not exactly sure why you think you know anything about how'd they do in such a situation. It also begs the question about why you would trust a contending team that's all-in with a first-time manager who we really don't have much (if any) information on.
Re: Blue Jays fans will talk themselves into anything (Blog)
Posted: Thu Nov 22, 2012 5:14 am
by Yosemite Dan
Randle McMurphy wrote:At least you've provided alternatives. Few can even do that much. I'm not sure, however, that you've provided a good enough reason for why any of them would have been better than Gibbons (especially when you promote Wallach utilizing the sacrifice, or in other words, throwing away outs, which is an incredibly poor, dated baseball tactic).
I have to ask, what specifically have Martinez, Wallach, and Ausmus done that "shows some innovation?" Because I'm not sure Martinez working under Maddon, Wallach "excelling in the PCL," and Ausmus being "considered very intelligent" really count in that respect.
And considering all of these guys have never managed in the MLB (or in some cases, never managed at all any level), I'm not exactly sure why you think you know anything about how'd they do in such a situation. It also begs the question about why you would trust a contending team with a first-time manager who we really don't have much (if any) information on.
Obviously Martinez is no sure thing but anybody who is learning the trade under Joe Madden can't be a bad thing and I always remember us losing to the Rays for the last few years because we were always out managed and Tampa's team, especially during their playoff runs closely resembles the type of team we now have in Toronto. I would sure feel more secure having a poor man's version of Madden at the helm than the dinosaur we have in Gibbons who seems to want to sit there and delegate authority to his pitching and batting coaches so even his micromanaging the bullpen is more of a result of the pitching coach he had at the time which is even more pathetic because he doesn't have a philosophy himself, managing by committee seems to be his modus operendi.
Wallach is not a sure thing either but he has success in the PCL and the minor leagues tend to favour a more fundamental type of baseball and use speed to thier advantage and while sacrificing all the time is not wise, being able to do it at crucial times late in games is important when you have have that added speed that we now have. And to bring back the Tampa example, they excel at manufacturing runs late in games.
Just because Farrell crashed and burned doesn't mean we have to go for recycled managers now. He was a pitching coach who was best buddies with management. His pedigree came from the Bosox over inflating his worth and we fell for it hook, line and sinker. Sure he learned under Francona but Francona had a stacked lineup so it was pretty easy to manage that team. I like Francona but he's not on the same level as Madden who's managed a perennial contender with a team that is incredibly frugal and has had to contend with many players going for greener pastures. If Madden managed the Sox, they would have won 5 years in a row.
With Gibbons forget about advancing the runner, it will be let's gets a couple of singles and a 3 run homer and as much as we think we are a power team we are really not. Outside of Bautista, the only real power threat is Edwin and even the biggest optimist can't expect for him to hit 40 homers again. All we really have after that is a streaky JPA, if he's not traded.
Sure the Jays can get into the playoffs with Gibbons, I like the guy's personality but it can't be just that. A manager who recognizes the tools at his disposal and takes full advantage of it can easily be responsible for 5 or 6 extra wins in those close games in a season. I don't think Gibbons gives us that. A guy like Madden has made a living out of ekeing out those close wins with smart substitutions and double switches and had this knack for hit and runs at the perfect time and Showalter showed the same late game savvy this year. The Jays will really need those extra wins to make the postseason.