For such a competitive hellscape, the American League East has, with one notable exception, been a model of patience when it comes to managers.
You know where this is going, right?
Indeed, for all the quirks and pressure points in the five competing markets, four of the five managers have hung in for at least five years. Only one of the four teams has made an in-season managerial move since 2010 and, yes, you really do know where this is going, don’t you?
Truth is, though, it was less John Schneider’s status and more Alex Cora’s musing about his future this week that started me thinking about life at the helm of AL East teams.
Cora is in the final year of his deal with the Boston Red Sox, who might not be very good and have new faces in the front office. He told reporters in Fort Myers, Fla. about how unhappy and, frankly, unhealthy he was in 2023. He was asked to compare himself to another Fenway Sports Group employee, Liverpool FC manager Jurgen Klopp, who announced he’s stepping down at the end of the current Premier League season because … well, because it’s time. Cora talked about Klopp and another Premier League manager, Manchester City’s Pep Guardiola.
“I think I mentioned it three years ago, when I read Guardiola’s book, that he said being in one place more than five or six years takes a toll and I think I got hit with that last year,” said Cora. “I could see it in videos. My mother talked to me at the end of the year. She saw it, too. I’m glad I recognized it. I don’t see myself managing 10 years. I envision myself doing other stuff in the game, at home with family — in Puerto Rico — so that’s where we’re at.”
Cora is entering his sixth year as manager of the Red Sox, his run interrupted only by his firing by the team in 2020 following a suspension for his role in the Houston Astros’ sign-stealing scandal. He was re-hired in 2021. Aaron Boone is going into his seventh year with the New York Yankees and has a club option for 2025. Kevin Cash is entering his 10th year with the Tampa Bay Rays and Brandon Hyde is going into his sixth season with the defending division champion Baltimore Orioles.
The Rays gave Cash an extension earlier this month but, oddly, didn’t divulge its details. It’s rumoured to be through 2028. Hyde, meanwhile … well, he’s under contract as part of an extension (the length has never been made public).
There are a total of 13 MLB managers who will be entering their fifth season in the same job this season. Four are from the AL East. And while I’m sure there are suspicions that Boone, Schneider and, to a certain degree, Cora can’t afford their teams to stumble, let’s keep in mind that the Red Sox haven’t made an in-season managerial move since 2001, when Jimy Williams was replaced by Joe Kerrigan with 43 games remaining. That’s the same season in which the Rays made their last mid-season switch, in their third year of existence. The Orioles had three managers in 2010 and haven’t canned a skipper in-season since. The Yankees? They haven’t made an in-season managerial switch since 1990, when Stump Merrill took over for Bucky Dent.
In terms of managerial continuity, that leaves your Toronto Blue Jays as the least stable organization in the AL East in recent years, with four mid-stream changes since 2002. Three of those occurred in a span of seven years under general manager J.P. Ricciardi, and Schneider took over from Charlie Montoyo in 2022. Could there have been five? Well, John Gibbons believes he was a loss away from being fired in 2015, saved by a 7-2 win over the Washington Nationals in the second game of a double-header on June 2.
There is a clear sense that everybody wants to move on from the Blue Jays’ post-season loss to the Minnesota Twins, that the stilted post-season analysis from Schneider and general manager Ross Atkins is of little import. But the public perception is there was less of a “kumbaya” and more “come by my office” tone to Atkins’ analysis — which has been followed, it seems, by just pretending none of it happened.
So, I’m guessing here that with full-squad workouts commencing Tuesday, we’re a day or so away from the “do you feel under added pressure” questions for Schneider. After all, the guy has Donnie Baseball to the right of him and ready-made skipper DeMarlo Hale to the left of him.
Truthfully? I thought there’d be a bigger bloodletting after that loss to the Twins, beyond punting hitting strategist Dave Hudgens down the organizational ladder. But let’s be honest: there are so many hands all over MLB teams now and so many information channels that it’s hard to know who to blame. The old assumptions about what made a good manager — keeping the people who hate you away from those that are undecided; managing a bullpen; making sure a team is primed out of spring training; playing the organizational political game — don’t seem that relevant. To put it differently, it’s harder in all good conscience to scream for a manager’s firing, which might be why for all the dire predictions that are often heard at the start of each season, MLB teams have made just 12 in-season managerial switches since 2015.
A few other things that occur to me …
Spring training hadn’t even started, and Shohei Ohtani’s media availability is an issue.
In a previous existence, a local fish-wrap charged me with the task of chronicling the final days of Barry Bonds’ sudden, silent, death march towards breaking Henry Aaron’s home run record. Nobody liked it — the reporters, fans (outside of San Francisco, at least) and Bonds’ teammates. Reliever Steve Kline, whom I’d known from his days with the Montreal Expos, responded with a “(expletive) no” when I asked him if he’d had Bonds sign any memorabilia. “I just want this (expletive) over with and you guys gone.” And he liked the media! He was a goofy, affable, quote machine.
Anyhow, I thought about this when the Los Angeles Dodgers signed Shohei Ohtani, because it’s one thing to be a big deal with the Los Angeles Angels and another to do so as a $700-million man with a team that matters. With the Angels, Ohtani usually spoke after his pitching performances and certain offensive outings, so there was at least a semblance of a schedule. But he won’t be pitching in 2024 with the Dodgers, and manager Dave Roberts, who remembers what it was like to be one of the “go-to” guys in that Giants clubhouse, is sensitive to the situation.
Roberts knows that the only thing players hate more than the media hanging around their clubhouse is getting asked about a teammate for the 12th time when the teammate isn’t talking. Look, the Dodgers pulled this off swimmingly with Fernando Valenzuela and Hideo Nomo. But that was a different, less intrusive and immediate media age. It was an age of slow media: print, radio, as well as TV.
I told you life post-Vladdy and post-Bo was a thing.
I’m sure Blue Jays GM Ross Atkins raised some eyebrows when he acknowledged to our Shi Davidi that one of the team’s off-season calculations was keeping open a pathway to the majors for Orelvis Martinez and Addison Barger. I don’t get why: this is a team that will look different because of free agency in the next two years and it’s just smart business to get a read on top position prospects ahead of that inflection point.
That’s why spring training is littered with the Eduardo Escobars and Daniel Vogelbachs of the world. Disposable is good, especially if ownership won’t balk at a significant acquisition at the trade deadline, when salary is less of an issue. I know we all love Alex Anthopoulos, but does anybody else remember the pickle he was in at the 2014 trade deadline when he didn’t have any money to spend?
You don’t get to report to spring training saying you’re in the best shape of your life if you’re under 26.
It’s the least you can do.
DJ LeMahieu might be the Yankees’ difference maker in 2024.
You’ll be surprised to know that the influence of analytics was a bigger off-season talking point with the Yankees than with any other team — including the locals. Indeed, Boone sounded very much like our guy Atkins this week, when he talked about how “making sure things are streamlining in the right way,” had been a focal point of an organization that made “subtle” organizational changes after “some pointed meetings.”
But Boone also made clear that the leadoff spot was his biggest question mark going into spring training and –— this just in! DJ LeMahieu is in the best shape of his life! A total of 29 players hit 30 home runs in 2023, including Aaron Judge, who belted 37 in just 108 games. But of those 30 players, nobody had as few RBIs as Judge’s 76. That explains why in addition to Juan Soto hitting in the No. 2 spot, a healthy LeMahieu, whose on-base percentage and average crated by 50 points in 2023, is important to Boone.
LeMahieu will lead off, with cameos from Alex Verdugo. Judge, then, will be planted in his preferred No. 3 hole.
‘Back in Black’ is a terrific banger, although I prefer Bon Scott AC/DC to Brian Johnson AC/DC. At any rate, a black-and-blue City Connect Blue Jays uniform is a crap idea.
The Blue Jays recaptured their identity when then-president and chief executive officer Paul Beeston burnt those awful, crass, black-and-blue abominations and brought back the updated, classic look that re-established the team as a national brand. And don’t get me started on those ‘T’ hats.
Honestly? Since everybody keeps saying that when you’re a Blue Jay “you aren’t just playing for a team, you’re playing for a country,” I’d call upon the creativity of our Indigenous community to turn it into a ‘Country Connect’ jersey.
Today’s dumbing down of the discourse …
I see fantasy islanders are clamouring for MLB to have a free-agent signing deadline because … well, because we need something to write about. And talk about! How dare these players and their agents slow-play the market to maximize their earnings?! We need to have stuff to send out into Elon’s garbage pit because … just because.
It creates interest, dammit! Clicks! Excitement. Sells tickets. People, you’re better than this.
Teams getting better sells tickets. Teams winning sells tickets. More comfortable stadiums sell tickets. Faster games sell tickets. More action sells tickets. I mean, I’m not averse to letting my guys Jeff Passan and Ken Rosenthal get some of their lives back but, seriously: if you get your jollies watching players move teams, join a fantasy league. Stop with the fake deadlines. Keep the free market free, you socialist rabble!
Jeff Blair hosts Blair & Barker from 10-Noon ET on Sportsnet 590/The Fan and Sportsnet 360.
