For the Jays Fans: John Gibbons Fired; Cito Gaston is back!

[Mo Z. Dizzle]

PITTSBURGH -- The reeling Toronto Blue Jays fired manager John Gibbons on Friday and replaced him with former manager Cito Gaston, the man who led the team to its only two World Series titles.

The move comes amid a spirit-breaking stretch of 13 losses in 17 games that has buried them in the AL East basement with a 35-39 record.

Gibbons is the third manager fired this week, after Willie Randolph (Mets) and John McLaren (Seattle).

The Jays also fired coaches Marty Pevey, Ernie Whitt and Gary Denbo.

The 64-year-old Gaston becomes the Blue Jays' first two-time manager. He previously managed the team from 1989 to 1997, leading the team to World Series championships in 1992 and 1993.

Gaston, who has been special assistant to the president and CEO, had a 681-635 record as manager during his earlier stint. Joining his staff will be first base coach Dwayne Murphy, third base coach Nick Leyva and hitting coach Gene Tenace.

Gibbons entered the season on perilous ground, with his US$650,000, one-year contract due to expire at the end of the year. He found himself in hot water after an 11-17 April but the Blue Jays got back on track, and then some, during a 20-10 May.

Then three hard-to-swallow losses at the beginning of June -- a 4-3 loss June 1 at Anaheim on a blown B.J. Ryan save; a 9-8 defeat June 5 at Yankee Stadium on Jason Giambi's walkoff homer off an 0-2 Ryan pitch; and a 6-5 loss June 6 at home to Baltimore when the bullpen blew a 4-0 lead in the eighth -- killed their mojo and it's been a struggle for them ever since.

The main problem is that the team's offensive woes from 2007 have extended into this year and the burden of again carrying the team is beginning to cause fissures in the pitching staff.

The question now is whether the change can ignite the team, and if not, whether further changes are in the offing.

General manager J.P. Ricciardi has repeatedly said Gibbons should not be a scapegoat for the team's troubles but ultimately had to make him one with his team unable to emerge from its slide.

The decision was not an easy one for Ricciardi, who roomed with Gibbons when both were prospects in the New York Mets system during the early 1980s and have been friends since.

Gibbons certainly bears no fault for his lineup's inability to produce at the plate. He pushed the cause of some players to employ a more aggressive style of ball, giving more runners the green light to steal bases, sacrificing more runners over and using the hit and run more often.

But at the end of the day, a lineup featuring too many spare parts isn't delivering timely, big hits and the losses piled up because of it.

Gibbons, a laid-back, back-slapping Texan who could lay down the law when necessary, was a players' manager who mostly tried to stay out of his team's way.

He was routinely criticized by fans, who vented their frustration at an easy target. But he's an astute baseball man savvy enough to keep his clubhouse content and the executive staff above him placated.

Since taking over from the fired Carlos Tosca on an interim basis Aug. 8, 2004, Gibbons compiled a 270-266 (plus this season) record. Only his replacement Gaston (683-636) and Bobby Cox (355-292) have had longer tenures than him in franchise history.

Fans will most likely remember Gibbons for a pair of incidents with Shea Hillenbrand and Ted Lilly during the 2006 season.

Gibbons challenged Hillenbrand to a fight in the clubhouse after the disgruntled infielder left mutinous scribbles on a clubhouse whiteboard last July. In August, Gibbons and Lilly had a physical altercation in the dugout tunnel following an argument on the mound.

Neither incident seemed to harm him much in the eyes of his players, with both ace Roy Halladay and centre-fielder Vernon Wells offering crucial endorsements of him at the time.

The Blue Jays' best season under Gibbons was 2006, when they finished second in the AL East at 87-75.

They stumbled backwards last season, falling back to third at 83-79, amid a slew of injuries to Ryan, Wells, Troy Glaus, Halladay, A.J. Burnett, Reed Johnson and Gregg Zaun.

Gibbons never received deserved credit from keeping that team on the rails and above .500 despite the injuries, while incorporating youngsters Dustin McGowan, Shaun Marcum, Jeremy Accardo, Casey Janssen and Jesse Litsch to the team.

On May 29 he won his 300th career game as a manager, a 12-0 thumping of Oakland, and appeared headed to better things.

Now he's out of work.

Gaston becomes the fourth Blue Jays manager in seven years under Ricciardi. Tosca replaced the fired Buck Martinez, whom Ricciardi inherited from former GM Gord Ash, midway through the 2002 season.


http://www.sportsnet.ca/baseball/2008/06/20/gibbons_fired_gaston_hired/

[Twentytwofifty]

 

[Lunatic]

LOL saw this earlier today, lol at bringing Gaston back; not calling it a bad move, just funny.

[Twentytwofifty]

Now just get rid of J.P. Ricciardi and we might be in business.

[Mo Z. Dizzle]

Now just get rid of J.P. Ricciardi and we might be in business.

I'm hoping he's next in line.

[Lunatic]

^i'm with cha on that one, boys.

[Mo Z. Dizzle]

did you guys read his comments on Adam Dunn?

[Lunatic]

did you guys read his comments on Adam Dunn?

nope?

[Twentytwofifty]

MILWAUKEE -- Over the years, Blue Jays general manager J.P. Ricciardi has shown a willingness to openly air his thoughts. The problem is that his honesty has led to some unintended trouble on more than one occasion.

Ricciardi's latest slip came on Wednesday night, during his weekly radio call-in show with Blue Jays fans on the FAN 590 AM in Toronto. A frustated Jays fan phoned in and asked if the team had considered trying to acquire slugger Adam Dunn from the Reds to boost Toronto's slumping offense.

Instead of simply saying that the Blue Jays didn't have interest in Dunn, Ricciardi publicly slammed Cincinnati's slugging left fielder.

"Let me ask you something. What do you know about Adam Dunn?" Riccardi told the caller. "He's a lifetime .230, .240 hitter that strikes out a ton and hits home runs. Do you know that the guy really doesn't like baseball all that much?

"Do you know the guy doesn't have a passion to play the game that much? How much do you know about the player? There's a reason why you're attracted to some players and there's a reason why you're not attracted to some players.

"I don't think you'd be very happy if we brought Adam Dunn here."

Needless to say, the Jays' upcoming three-game Interleague series against the Reds, beginning on Tuesday in Toronto, just got a little more interesting. In Cincinnati, Dunn caught wind of Ricciardi's remarks and was understandably irked by the GM's comments.

"I know nothing about this clown. I have no idea who he is," Dunn told reporters. "I don't really care what one guy thinks, to be honest with you. If I'm a GM, I don't know if I would go out of my way to kind of discredit a player."

"It [ticks] me off to be honest with you," Dunn continued. "He doesn't even know me. If he knew me, fine, say what you want. This guy doesn't know anything about me other than what he sees on whatever SportsCenter they have up there. That's it."

With the series in Toronto looming, Dunn added that he didn't have any hard feelings toward the Blue Jays

"The players didn't say anything," Dunn said. "It was some clown sitting in the front office pushing paper."

It's not the first time that Ricciardi has created some controversy with comments that came during his weekly call-in show, which is dubbed "Wednesdays with J.P." In early May of last season, Ricciardi admitted on air that the Jays had intentionally fabricated a story about closer B.J. Ryan's left elbow injury.

"If anything happens, I ain't going to Toronto."
-- Reds outfielder
Adam Dunn

During Spring Training 2007, Ricciardi and others on the Jays staff falsely indicated that Ryan was suffering from a back injury. By April, it was revealed that Ryan was actually fighting a severe elbow problem in his pitching arm, which required season-ending surgery in May.

"It was his elbow that was bothering him," Ricciardi said during that particular episode last season. "There's a lot of things we don't tell the media, because the media doesn't need to know it and the fans don't need to know it. They're not lies if we know the truth."

Ricciardi, who is scheduled to join the Jays in Pittsburgh this weekend, faced a lot of heat locally and nationally during that ordeal, and he has once again opened the door for more criticism.

That's not to say that Ricciardi hasn't been taking his knocks in the press already. Entering Thursday's game in Milwaukee, the Blue Jays resided in last place in the American League East. They trailed first-place Boston by 10 games, largely due to a struggling offense. That being the case, it seems understandable for a fan to wonder if the Jays would target a power hitter such as Dunn.

Entering Thursday, the Jays' 47 home runs as a team were tied for the second-fewest in the Majors. Dunn, 28, has hit 256 homers over the past eight seasons with the Reds, including at least 40 in each of the past four campaigns. This year, Dunn, who is a career .247 hitter, has hit .227 with 18 homers and 43 RBIs through 69 games for the Reds.

In light of Ricciardi's comments, Dunn said he could completely rule out a trade north of the border.

"If anything happens, I ain't going to Toronto," Dunn said. "I can eliminate one team. I'm not converting my dollars to loonies and toonies just yet."

[Lunatic]

^LOL WOW what a moron JP is

[Twentytwofifty]

Halladay just took a line drive off his face.   

I really is hard to believe that teams statistically have worse offences than the Jays.  Watching them is really painful.  At least the pain doesn't last long, Jays games have to be the quickest in the league.

[OG Hack Wilson]

i heard the BJ's general manager on the radio today saying he's good friends with Gibbons and Gibbons will get another managing job in the MLB somewhere


he also apparently said Adam Dunn was not passionate about baseball, in which Dunn called him a "clown", and the GM was totally taking back his words LOL