The Jays get back on the Schneid
Thoughts on the Jays removing the interim tag from manager John Schneider, plus a full transcript of today's press conference — including my commentary on each answer — and more!
On Friday morning the Blue Jays announced that they’ve signed manager John Schneider to a three-year contract, with an option for a fourth, removing the interim tag from a guy many thought the front office had wanted as their manager all along. It also puts an end to the notion that Ross Aktins’ odd refusal to anoint Schneider immediately after the season concluded was anything more than a due-diligence-loving front office doing its due diligence.
Though the idea that anybody really knows what the Jays are going to do when it comes to the field manager position should have been put to bed long ago — Eric Wedge wasn’t the manager-in-waiting many thought he was, and Charlie Montoyo’s hiring came out of left field — this was an extremely easy outcome to have bet on. Schneider was tasked with managing the Blue Jays’ golden cohort of prospects, most prominently including Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Bo Bichette, at multiple minor league levels. He moved up to the big league club when they did. He became the bench coach when the expectations got higher — and the hot seat Montoyo was on got hotter. He had felt like the real manager-in-waiting for a long time before this summer’s malaise and the players’ reservations about Charlie handed the front office the chance to make him their guy.
From the day Montoyo was hired there were people who would have told you that this was the exact path they expected the club to take. Those people were just guessing, but they were educated guesses.
And, once given the opportunity, Schneider looked comfortable in the role. The media responsibilities as a manager in the big leagues, and the scrutiny that comes with them, are many degrees more intense than anything Schneider would have experienced before, and he handled it all with aplomb. He communicates effectively, clearly, and with detail. You couldn’t always say that about his predecessor, and while much of that was likely down to the fact that English is not Charlie’s first language, my sense is that it didn’t give fans a lot of confidence that he was in control of the situations he was in. Players also cited communication issues, albeit in a different way, as being part of how Montoyo lost the room enough to cost him his job. With Schneider it appears different, and apparently it feels the same for players as well, many of whom vocal in their support for him after the season ended, and today seem — at least outwardly — pleased that he’ll be back.
“Sense,” “appears,” “seems,” “feels.” These aren’t only journalistic weasel words, and there’s a reason I bring this all up before any of the tedious stuff about Schneider’s strategy and tactics. Setting and maintaining the mood surrounding the team, both internally and externally, is a massive part of the job. I’m not sure I’d go quite as far as saying that it’s less important which in-game decisions a manager makes and more important that people believe in the person making them, but there’s definitely something to that — and not just because the vast majority of in-game decisions that get attributed to managers are hardly theirs alone.
Perception is reality a lot of the time when it comes to these jobs, as I think we saw that throughout Montoyo’s tenure. Personally, I try my best not to use terms that overstate a manager’s import — “Schneider led the Jays to a 42-28 record” or “the Jays extended the contract of their field general” — because I think the industry has made it pretty clear over the last decade or two that this is a middle-management role, but that’s certainly not how front offices would prefer players or fans feel about it.
And if you doubt how much the mood of the fan base can impact things, you don’t need to look much farther than the media rounds Shapiro and Atkins made in early September — which Shapiro himself acknowledged were unusually timed — to essentially impress on fans that “these guys care.” Or you could look at this rather fascinating quote about Ricky Tiedemann from Jays player development director Joe Sclafani in D.M. Fox’s latest newsletter (formerly Future Blue Jays):
“It was hard to hold back - everyone was yelling out on social media, people just wanted him to move quicker. But we stuck to our plan, and Ricky understood the plan and was all in on it, and we really couldn’t have drawn it up any better.”
This stuff matters. And because of social media, the mood of the fan base can permeate the clubhouse a lot more easily than in past eras, which I suspect means it will continue to mean more and more.
Schneider getting this job isn’t only about these kinds of things, of course. His long rise through the organization would have happened with little or none of this in mind. But the way he communicates, and the confidence he exudes, checks many of the same boxes whether your concern is the fans in the stands or the 26 guys in the clubhouse. You know, provided you’re not hung up on garbage like demanding big public shows of accountability or that players stop smiling and having fun so much — stuff you can find cranks whining about in literally every decade in which the sport has been played, as though there’s some magic level of dour a team much achieve before they can ever become champions.
The tactical stuff? A lot of the player usage and shifting stuff is pretty clearly not entirely in Schneider’s hands. I’ve seen people grouse about the ever-changing batting order, but no more — and probably less — than those who complained about Montoyo’s relatively static one. We can’t hand-wave away the mistakes that were made in Game Two against the Mariners, and I’ve written about them, but does that make them full-blown concerns? Were there bad tendencies on display there? That we can attribute to Schneider himself?
Is he always going to pull Kevin Gausman too early with a seven-run lead for a guy who gets taken deep, on a pitch the batter never hits out of the park, leading to a series of calamities that turns a 99.1% win-probability into a loss? I suppose the jury is still out.
Anyway, it’s fine! Schneider is cool! He’s fun. He’s going to get red and mad and ejected a lot. The way he has risen through the ranks of one organization over 20 years — he was taken by the Jays in J.P. Ricciardi’s first draft — is a great story, and an even better achievement. No one can truly say whether he’s the right guy for the job, but the Blue Jays think so, and theirs is the only vote that counts. Nothing matters! Eat Arby’s!
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Atkins and Schneider speak!
Friday was very clearly not the day that the Jays actually decided that Schneider would remain as manager of the club, as hot on the heels of their morning press release announcing his extension came a press conference featuring Schneider, his family in tow, and Atkins. Sneaky embargoes!
After some prepared statements the pair took questions from the assembled media.
You can watch the presser for yourself in the video below, after which you’ll find my transcript, and some thoughts on each of the participants’ answers.
Ross’s opening statement
Atkins began the proceedings, making official what everybody already knew, and had long suspected would be the ultimate outcome of the club’s “manager search.”
We're obviously very, very pleased to be at this day that we're announcing John Schneider as the 14th manager of the Toronto Blue Jays, and taking that interim title off. Over the course of time, not just over the course of the last couple of months, John has truly has earned the respect and the trust of all of us here. I think, most importantly, of the front office — well, most importantly the staff and players — and he's certainly earned it of the front office as well.
A lot of things stand out about John to us. I could go on and on about the attributes. There's a lot of words that come to mind. And the one that I think about as I work with him, and have worked with him, and I watch how he works with others is — you know, it's one thing to support people, it's another thing to make people feel supported. He authentically does that in a way that I think is exceptional. That, combined with his baseball acumen, his baseball expertise and experiences, and then thinking about the fact that he's been here for twenty-plus years as Toronto Blue Jay — to have him as the leader of an already very cohesive group gives me, and us, a great deal of confidence that this organization is going to continue in a very positive direction in bringing championships back to this country.
You could be forgiven, I think, for noticing that these are the same kinds of things that were said when the club hired its previous manager. You could also be forgiven for looking for any kind of crumb of insight into what went wrong with the Montoyo hire in all this. Or, at least, I hope you can, because that’s sure as hell what I’m about to do!
John’s opening statement
Can I call you John? No? OK.
Wow, where to begin? Thank you Ross, thank you Mark, thank you to the Rogers Corporation for this unbelievable opportunity. This is a dream scenario for me. Over 20 years with this organization, there are so many people that have helped me to get to this point. My family, obviously, Jessie and the boys, Gunnar and Greyson. My parents, Kath and Dave, and my brothers, Matt and Kev, who aren't here. But, from them to coaches, teammates, staff, up and down the minor leagues and here in the big leagues, couldn't ask for a better situation to be in. This organization has made me feel like a family member since day one. We absolutely have fallen in love with the city here, love being here. And I'm just extremely humbled and honoured to lead this group and hopefully achieve our goal of winning a World Series here. So, thank you, and it's going to be a fun ride.
Apologies to Kath if it’s actually Cath!
Schneider speaks!
• When did you first envision a day like this?
This is going to sound weird, but right when I started coaching. When I turned the page from a very mediocre playing career to coaching in the minor leagues, this was kind of the end goal. Now, understanding that it may not happen with the organization I was working with, but I think it makes it that makes it that much more special, to be sitting here with this hat, with this jersey on. That was kind of the goal, knowing to start coaching early, to hopefully get to this point. So to be here now is pretty cool.
As I said above, it really is a great story — and something that has to be incredibly rare in the modern game.
• Was it your idea to start coaching, or someone else’s?
It was a little bit of both. I think it was something I knew I wanted to pursue. I love being around the game, I love understanding people within the game, and I think that kind of sparked my interest into the coaching aspect and trying to help others.
There were a few people that kind of suggested it was maybe a good fit for me, Dick Scott being one of them, who was the farm director at the time. So it kind of made sense to turn the page. Evolved along the way, learned a lot along the way, and ultimately here I am.
Dick Scott was one of J.P. Ricciardi’s first hires, and one of the first guys let go when Alex Anthopoulos took over as GM in October 2009. Scott was replaced as farm director by Tony La Cava. The length of time Schneider has been with this organization will simply not stop boggling my mind.
• Now that you’ll be in charge from the start of camp, will you be making changes to day-to-day processes?
There's things that I think — you're always trying to get better, or you're always trying evolve and tweak things, whether it's the way you get prepared for a game, the way you communicate with players, the way you communicate with staff. It's been really fun over the last week or so to talk with Ross and the front office group, (about) how we're going to try to approach that, and the things we're going to put in place to try to make our whole process better. So, there's a lot of different things. I think it's a talented group — you have to recognize that — but it's just being aware of what our strengths are and what our areas of opportunity are, just in the offseason, and hit the ground running in spring.
Boilerplate stuff. Ross would be proud!
• Why did the team come up short this year, and where can you get better given much of the same core is likely to return?
It was really encouraging, I think, the last month or so. I said that as the season went on — how close this group got and how comfortable they became around one another, just in the clubhouse and on the field. So, that's something to definitely build on. And in terms of coming up short, it's extremely difficult to be the last team out of 30 standing, and you're going to be disappointed if you're not every year. Certain things, and I think certain experiences, that both players, staff, everyone went through this season, with the postseason included, will help us get better for next year. And when you're talking about a young core group that has won together before and is hungry to do more of it, as bad as an ending is when you don't win, I think it's really good going forward for the next year.
The implication in the first part of this response is, of course, that the group wasn’t necessarily as close as it could have been prior to that. That’s definitely interesting, especially given the fun-loving way the group appears outwardly.
In Kaitlyn McGrath’s excellent piece at the time of Montoyo’s firing, she wrote that it seemed as though the club “needed a firmer touch,” and that “according to sources, there was a belief within some corners of the clubhouse that the firing was necessary because of a lack of leadership from the former manager.”
“Some corners,” but not all.
One way to interpret this is that there could have been a lack of cohesion between the players who felt more leadership was necessary and those in the other corners — suggesting the problems may have gone a bit deeper than simply a lack of communication from on high.
Or maybe that’s just a thing you say about how things went when you were the interim manager now that you’ve just been hired in full.
• Will there be changes to the coaching staff?
The coaching staff is very unique, but we've been around each other for a long period of time. It was a very cohesive unit. We've all spoken recently, and we're still working through everything — and I think Ross can probably speak to it a little bit — but I think that's the expectation, is hopefully everyone is back in some capacity.
People love to point fingers at the coaching staff when things go wrong, but this seems entirely reasonable. Or, at the very least, not unreasonable. We don’t know much about what, specifically, the coaches do to help elicit better performance from their players, but we do know they’re not out there swinging the bats for these guys.
We also know that the Jays take a very player-driven approach to coaching and development — not only from all the things Atkins has said about it over the years, but from Robbie Ray’s comments at the outset of the Jays-Mariners Wild Card Series as well.
“Honestly, they allowed me to be myself and learn some things on the fly and learn a little bit about myself that I hadn’t known. I think, for me, that was something that was missing. [With other clubs] it was always, ‘You need to do this, you need to do this.’ With the Blue Jays it was, ‘We are just going to let you be yourself as far as your workout routine, your pitches that you choose, game-planning, stuff like that,’” Ray explained to reporters earlier this month. “They just allowed me to be what I needed to be and let me learn what it really means to be here and to take ownership of what I do. That’s exactly what I needed at the time.”
Might some say that the Jays could be player-driven to a fault? Sure. But that’s how they do it, which means it makes even less sense to get mad at Jays coaches for not figuring out how to “fix” guys and imposing changes on them.
Anyway!
• Have you spoken to any players yet?
I called a few last night, a handful of the guys. Their reactions were great. It's cool to have those conversations with guys that you know and you trust. They were very excited for me, just about as excited as I am to be leading them and the rest of the group. It's cool that some of them are — they're like family to me. They could be sitting right there my other two boys. So, those conversations were special. I'm going to remember them for a long time. And their reaction was great.
Schneider may have had a “mediocre playing career” but he can still hit a softball out of the park!
• How did communication become so important to your managerial style?
I think that's me, in general, off the field as well. I try to talk things out.— I think Jess can sit there and laugh at that too — sometimes to a fault. But that seemed to work for me as I came up the ranks. Players responded to it. And you have to evolve a little bit as you go. I've always been kind of an open book, whether it's a good conversation, tough conversation. I think having the conversation is really important. And more times than not players really appreciate that.
[Stamps on foot] Hello, Mr. Montoyo.
• What was it like having discussions about this job over the last few weeks?
Excitement, for me. I've said it, I said it a couple of months ago, this is the place that I've always wanted to be. With this group of front office, with the players, with the staff. This is a very unique opportunity, and one that I am not taking lightly. So, conversations were excitement.
But at the same time, understanding the magnitude of it. Understanding how hard it is to be sitting here right now, and everything that goes into it. Respecting the thoroughness of it. But the one thing that sticks out is just excitement, I think. And mutual interest in me sitting here.
It took me a minute, but I believe he’s talking in the second paragraph here about the magnitude of the opportunity, how hard it is to get one of just 30 big league managerial jobs, and respecting the Jays’ need to be thorough about the process. Makes sense!
• What do you see as the biggest challenges in the role ahead?
There's always going to be challenges. You're trying to identify areas that we can get better, whether it's at the plate, on the mound, in the field, or on the bases. When you step back and look at the year that we had, it's easy to see some areas for us to get better, it's just tackling those head-on. Challenges are going to come every day, whether it's an opponent or whether it's what you're trying to get better at. It's something that I'm looking forward to, the staff is looking forward to, and you gotta meet it head-on.
So what you’re saying is that you “gotta meet” challenges in “some areas” for the team to “get better” that are “easy to see” by “tackling” them “head-on.” And what you were saying earlier is that a “tough conversation” is “really important” to be “having” and that “players really appreciate that.”
Hey Bo, come over here for a second! No, no need to bring your shortstop glove…
• How do you feel you’ve grown as a coach over the years?
For one, understanding how hard the game is and how good the players are. Having empathy for them, and understanding that mistakes are going to happen. I remember when I was younger and starting out as a coach, you wanted to win every game, and you wanted to be the loudest one and show everyone that you're in charge. As you go you kind of figure out that it's not always the best thing to try to run your same best players out every day, or try to yell a little bit louder if they're not understanding or making adjustments. So, having empathy for the difficulty of the game. Understanding the person, not just the player, I think is a big thing. And always keeping them in the forefront of what you're trying to do.
Great answer. 10/10. No notes.
• Was there anyone who reached out after the news broke that was particularly special to you?
Oh man, a lot. I haven't checked my phone. My college coach reached out, Jim Sherman, which was cool. A lot of different former teammates, a lot of different staff members that I've crossed paths with — with other organizations, with the Blue Jay organization. It's been a lot, and it's been overwhelming excitement and support from a lot of different people. So, pretty thankful for that.
Smart not to offend anyone by omission here. 🤷♂️
• How much of the discussions these past couple of weeks were looking back on what you did, and how much were looking forward to how you want the relationship to work going forward?
I think a little bit of both. You get so locked in to trying to win every night in a pretty unique circumstance, taking over in the middle of the season. We had brief discussions about things that we think we can get better at, and I think those really shifted when the season was over to, 'OK, how are we really going to tackle this?' And looking back and seeing areas that we did improve at from a preparation standpoint, performance standpoint, but also areas where we can kind of tighten it up.
So I think having open conversations with Ross, and hearing his feedback and input, and him hearing mine — from sometimes a different vantage point — and then arriving at a place where we think is best for the team and for the organization. So, that's kind of where it shifted, from trying to win tonight to trying to win for the future, for a lot of years in a row.
There was definitely a lot more on Schneider’s plate, day-to-day, during the season than there was afterwards, so this makes sense. What’s interesting is that it doesn’t make it sound like he was left in limbo about his job status for as long as fans were — if at all.
Could the Jays have simply chosen to wait until the temperature cooled after their ugly exit before announcing that Schneider returned? Absolutely. But given the way they do things like kicking the tires on absolutely every free agent every year, regardless of fit of likelihood of acquiring them, I would still probably bet that their love of due diligence was a significant aspect of the delay as well.
• What has your experience been like with the front office when it comes to day-to-day game planning?
I've learned a ton — a ton in the last three months, and a ton in the last three-and-a-half years, or four years being up here. It is a very cool dynamic to have the platform to give your opinion to speak your mind from, 'Hey, this is how I'm feeling in the dugout.' And understanding how objective numbers may line up with certain strategies, and also understanding that you're dealing with people. It's been a very, very cool back-and-forth from not only Ross, but everyone that's involved from the front office, hearing us, us hearing them, and learning from each other along the way. It makes decisions in the moment a lot easier. It makes decisions in the moment a lot slower — you feel comfortable about the ones that you are making.
Collaborative process! Drink!
Actually, though, this is a pretty interesting peek behind the curtain — brief though it may be. Based on this and the earlier comment about it not necessarily being the best to run your best players out there every day, one thing is for sure: Schneider has bought in on how the front office wants this relationship, and this team, to function.
That, of course, is made plainly obvious by the fact that they’ve chosen to hire him. Teams don’t hire mavericks for these roles anymore. I know that bothers people who worry about the nerds upstairs taking decisions away from baseball men’s guts, and that it’s probably weird to see a manager talk about being just one voice of many, but if this really is the broad shape of how things work, it seems like a pretty sensible way to do it.
But none of this is really new, is it? The extent to which the front office imposes its ideas on the coaching staff is the real question, and Schneider, smartly, isn’t giving us anything on that here.
Atkins speaks!
The GM also fielded a couple of questions during the press conference, and… well… things got a bit Atkins-y.
• What was the negotiation process like for the front office?
Well, the negotiation process with John Schneider is not something I would get into the details of, out of respect for him and others. But the actual process was powerful. Having the exchange to talk about where the opportunities are, where the alignment is — or potentially isn't. We felt that working through that in a respectful and thorough way was best, with the magnitude of the decision for the organization, and also best for John.
Honestly, it’s completely fair to have wanted to sit down, outside of the whirlwind of the season, and have some real discussions about where they want the organization to go and what needs to be done to get there, before actually announcing that Schneider would be back. The front office would have obviously had a sense of this stuff already, with him having been on the staff, and some discussions having been had after he was named interim manager. But it’s not like they would have sat down last spring to talk to Schneider about it all behind Charlie’s back. I mean… probably.
• How did this process differ compared to when you last hired a manager?
I think the circumstance is entirely different. Over the course of the last — I believe it's been less than two weeks — thirteen days, I believe — since the last day of the season to where we are today, John summarized our interactions very well. We had the opportunity to have that (exchange) without much downside.
In thinking about the rigors of trying to win on a daily basis, the stress that that creates, the emotion that's involved, we spent very, very little time (during the season), if time at all, thinking about days after the season. All of our energy was deployed toward winning each night. And so to be able to pull back and to think about things from a bigger lens perspective was very helpful for us, and felt productive for John as well.
Waited until after the season to talk about it all, then talked about it all. Got it.
• Can you give specific examples of thinking about things from a broader lens?
I'd love for today to be about John Schneider and how excited we are about him, and I would love to drill down on that with you in maybe a different setting. I'm just so excited about getting here today for John Schneider and what it means for the organization moving forward. But one example is, I think in the way that I described it: all of our interactions (initially) were about, 'How are we going to win tonight?' And I think John summarized it exceptionally well by saying (that afterwards it was), 'How are we going to win for years to come, where this is sustainable, and what's the difference in thinking about that?'
First of all, this is Shi doing the lord’s work here trying to get something resembling an answer from Ross. Second of all, I don’t think he got one.
• What do you like about the style of baseball Schneider manages? What ideas do you align on?
We've talked about this a lot, and I think one of the many attractive things about John is how prepared he is. That allows him to be agile in a game. So, there's so much work done prior, to think about all the different hypotheticals — you can't possibly think about every one of them — we certainly try to, when we have the opportunity, we're always drilling down and trying to take three and four steps beyond what's already been thought about.
But agility is huge, and being able to rely on experiences, and ultimately trust your process to make decisions in the moment, has to be there. And it was evident to us that he was prepared to have that confidence to be agile.
If something we haven’t meticulously mapped out for him comes up, we figure he’ll handle it alright.
Yeah, that tracks.
Quickly…
• Moving on from the presser, we learned late this week that Lourdes Gurriel Jr. has undergone what was originally reported as surgery on his wrist. We’ve since learned that it was actually his hamate bone — I’m no doctor, but I’d say that one’s in the hand, albeit the… uh… wrist-y portion of the hand. We’ve also learned that the Jays apparently don’t think that the issue was related to Gurriel’s power outage this season. That’s entirely plausible given the way he changed his approach to trade power for contact and slap hits, but odd given that the sense — or at least my entirely non-medical sense — has been that hamate injuries can cause power production to dip.
Anyway, he’ll be ready for spring training. There was an update on George Springer as well.
• Lastly, don’t forget that Nick and I will be back doing a live episode of Blue Jays Happy Hour on Saturday at 1 PM ET! Be sure to get the Callin app and follow us on there so you can tune in!
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