Blue Jays: John Gibbons is becoming more popular in Toronto

Despite being in his 11th season as the manager of the Toronto Blue Jays (2004-08, 2013-present), John Gibbons might be more popular now than ever before.

When a team loses a lot in professional sports, the blame gets thrown around a lot, but generally the finger is pointed at the head coach before anyone else. That’s happened a lot to John Gibbons throughout his time as the skipper of the Toronto Blue Jays, especially on his first go around with the team.

For those who don’t remember, Gibbons was the bench boss for the Blue Jays from 2004-08, and returned to the dugout in 2013 when then-GM Alex Anthopoulos decided he was the right fit for the veteran group. Despite mixed reviews, his second tenure has been largely a successful one over the last 5+ seasons, especially in 2015 and 2016 when the team made back to back playoff appearances, snapping a 22 year old streak of missing the postseason.

Despite all of that, Gibbons still received a fair bit of criticism from writers and fans around the game. Some of that is going to happen, but I personally always felt that Gibbons took more criticism than may have been fair, especially during those winning years. Yes, the team was dreadful last season, but with the amount of injuries and underperformance on the roster, I don’t think Connie Mack could have turned the team into a real threat. However, if you search Gibby’s name on Twitter, it won’t take you long to find someone ripping on his decision making, or even his casual nature.

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By now I would assume the charming Texan is pretty much used to it, and based on the way he’s reacted to criticism in the past, I don’t think he’s too worried about it either. That said, I’ve noticed a shift lately around the opinions about him, and they are trending in a more positive direction than I can remember with him as the Blue Jays’ manager.

Part of that is the fact that the Blue Jays are three games over .500 at the moment at 19-16, a positive start to the year, especially when you consider that Josh Donaldson missed nearly half of those games while on the disabled list, Troy Tulowitzki hasn’t sniffed the field yet, and the starting rotation has drastically underperformed. Yet, instead of Gibbons being criticized for what’s gone wrong so far this year, it seems fans are even writers are starting to focus more on what he’s doing well.

This year’s team has a different feel about it, whether it’s the “Dancing Venezuelan” in Yangervis Solarte bringing smiles to the ballpark (his home runs don’t hurt either), or encouraging play from youngsters like Teoscar Hernandez and Lourdes Gurriel, there is a positive energy around the team again. That “feeling” wasn’t there last year, and granted losing has it’s way of taking it’s toll on a team and it’s fans, but the dynamic has shifted a great deal in a short time.

There was a time when many of us openly wondered if the Blue Jays would keep Gibbons in his current role, especially as Mark Shapiro and Ross Atkins took over the front office, and even more so when they hired Eric Wedge to work in the organization as well, seemingly as a coaching waiting in the wings for when they could justify Gibbons’ removal. That never happened, and when the front office is asked these days about the skipper they inherited from the last group, they fully endorse his work with the team, and his place within the organization. They even extended him through the 2019 season in April of last year, a contract that has a club option for 2020 as well.

While the 55 year old convinced the front office of his value last year, I’m not sure the same could be said for the fan base in 2017. However, as a new season has started on a much more positive note and we’ve watched Gibbons interact with the new players, it just gets easier to like him all the time, if you ask me anyway.

Maybe it really is as simple as winning fixing the problem, but I really do think it’s more than that. He genuinely cares about his players, what’s best for them, and what’s best for the team, and to me that’s obvious in the way he carries himself in the dugout. He’s proven time and time again that he’ll go to bat for the team, whether it’s confrontations with players like Ted Lilly of Shea Hillenbrand years ago to stand up for what he believes in, or getting himself thrown out of three games in one road trip, defending not only what he believes to be the right call, but his players at the very same time.

It’s not as if I took some sort of survey of the entire Blue Jays’ fanbase to come to this conclusion, but I know for myself personally, I’m becoming a bigger fan all the time, just as I said in my tweet above. In the past if I tweeted something like that, I usually received an onslaught of insults, half directed at myself, and the other half at Gibbons. When I’ve complimented his work this season, it just hasn’t happened.

Of course, that could all change in a real hurry if the Blue Jays have an extended cold snap, something that is entirely possible for a team that plays in the toughest division in baseball. However, maybe I’m being naive, but I feel like the fan base has a little more patience for the veteran coach these days. With over 1400 games under his belt and 739 wins to his credit as the Blue Jays’ manager, I feel like he’s earned it, and I think the fans are finally starting to agree.

Next: Blue Jays and the Kendrys Morales epidemic