Blue Jays mid-term report card: Grade Charlie Montoyo’s first half

We have been doing mid-term report cards for the Blue Jays players, so I figured we should do one for manager Charlie Montoyo as well.

He is doing well in our FanPulse polls, last week 83% “approved” of him (if you haven’t joined to do the FanPulse polls, you really should, you can sign up here). But if we do our own poll it doesn’t have to be binary, we can have more than 2 possible responses. I think it is fair to say I approve of the job he is doing, but I see room for improvement.

I find it tough to grade a manager, especially on a rebuilding team. We have a 35-58 record, but then if you could bring Earl Weaver back to life, he couldn’t win with this team. Winning an extra game or two or five doesn’t really matter, in the long run. Building towards the future counts more, so it is harder to judge a manager in a rebuild.

Things I like:

• He’s been using the young guys. I like to see the young guys playing every day and use the veterans to fill around them.
• He is keeping an even temperament. He’s not letting losing change the way he is. It isn’t easy and it wouldn’t do us any good if he got mad and started throwing tantrums at the players. He has to know that players are going to make mistakes and he’s smart enough not to overreact. I don’t think I could deal with things as well as he had.
• The players seem to like him. Even with the team losing so many games, there hasn’t been any grumbling from the players.
• He does seems willing to learn. I’ve seen managers who dig their heels in and hate the idea of considering there might be different ways of doing things.
• He seems like a good guy. I know being a good guy really isn’t a requirement for a manager, but I like feeling like I’m cheering for a good guy. Buck Showalter may have been a good manager, but I’d hate to have to cheer or him.

Things I’m less happy about:

• The bunting. He’s getting better, he hasn’t been bunting as much as he was earlier in the season. Maybe he’s been watching and he’s seeing that it isn’t working. Maybe it is because we have been scoring more and that he was only doing it because we weren’t scoring. I’m hoping that he continues to use the bunt sparingly.
• The bullpen stuff drives me nuts on occasion. Sometimes I think he is paid by the pitching change. Close game, early innings and he’s remove a reliever doing a good job after just an inning. Then, the next game he won’t have any fresh arms and doesn’t seems to get that it is his job to make sure he has arms ready for the next game.
• This idea that the outfielders have to play near the outfield wall is just maddening.
• The mistakes in deciding whether or not to review plays is irritating. It seems like the process has improved lately. There is no reason we should have had these problems.

We have the Fan