Old-school manager thrives in a new age

the job ever since. Gibbons led Toronto to the playoffs in 2015 and 2016, and before last season, he signed a two-year contract extension.

In effect, then, Gibbons has been hired, fired, rehired and then retained by three Blue Jays front offices. It was the current leadership team, led by Ross Atkins, the general manager, and Mark Shapiro, the team president, that rewarded him with a new contract last April after consecutive trips to the American League Championship Series.

“If it had been different, I’d probably be gone,” Gibbons said. “Any time a new front office comes in, they have the right to hire their own people. If I was doing it, I’d want my guy in there. It wouldn’t have surprised me one bit, and I would have totally agreed.”

Gibbons’ future could depend on the results of this year’s team, which is off to a 12-5 start. The Blue Jays lost their first two games of the year while Gibbons wore new glasses in the dugout for the first time. So he ditched them, regardless of what his father and grandfather, both optometrists, would have said. “I guess I didn’t like what I was seeing through them,” he joked.

But, as Russell Martin noted, Gibbons doesn’t panic. The catcher also said that Gibbons would not inundate his players with an avalanche of data or overstrategize. More often, he will take a player aside and offer a useful nugget of information. “There’s no added stress from the manager,” Martin said, “and that helps a lot.”

But Gibbons also demands accountability and respect for the game, and a few of his players have felt the sting of his temper. In his first stint with the Blue Jays, Gibbons challenged Shea Hillenbrand, who reportedly wrote negative things about the team on a clubhouse message board, to a fight, and he got into a shoving match with pitcher Ted Lilly after Lilly argued with Gibbons on the mound when he was removed from a game.

Two seasons ago, Gibbons even chewed out Josh Donaldson, one of Toronto’s best players, after Donaldson threw his bat dangerously at the bat rack in a moment of frustration. The two had to be separated by players and coaches in the dugout.

In baseball, the demarcation line between the old and new breed of managers is often measured by their adherence to analytical data. Gibbons said that he has long embraced certain numerical streams, but that he also relies heavily on his experience and a deep knowledge of his players.

“I don’t use it as much as the majority probably do, but I take what gives me value and I use that,” he said. “I have freedom to make my lineups and run the game accordingly. We talk all the time, me and Ross, about different players and things like that. But he understands I’ve got the final say on the field, and I’ve got to answer for it. If I’m going to answer for something, I’m going to do it my way.”

The list of managers who can say things like that, and really mean it, gets shorter every year.