Blue Jays: Apparently John Farrell wants to manage again too

Former Blue Jay skipper John Farrell has expressed a desire to return to MLB. Whether or not there’s an interested team remains to be seen.

Yesterday was a big day in the news cycle for former Toronto Blue Jay managers (how often do you say something like that)?

First there were rumours that John Gibbons‘ name has been coming up in some of the rumour mills around the vacate managerial spots in baseball right now, at least according to Mark Feinsand, an MLB Network Insider. Not long after I finished looking into that, I saw another name I hadn’t read in a while is interested in returning to the dugout as well, John Farrell.

Farrell isn’t the most well-liked figure in Blue Jays’ history, and that’s because of the way his departure went down when he returned to Boston. In 2010 he was the pitching coach for the Red Sox, and the Blue Jays hired him away from Boston and gave him the manager’s seat in Toronto. When that job came open in Boston again two years later, eventually the Blue Jays had to concede that Farrell wanted to leave, and made the rare move of acquiring Mike Aviles in exchange for letting Farrell go to the division rival.

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As a Blue Jays fan it made it that much worse when the Red Sox won the World Series in 2013, Farrell’s first year in his new uniform. The BoSox strangely dipped below .500 for two seasons right after that, but then won 93 games again in 2016 and 2017 before Farrell was replaced by Alex Cora. To be fair, the Red Sox once again won the World Series in their first season with a new skipper, so maybe they just need to fire Cora in order to get back to contending.

Getting back to Farrell, the now 57-year-old also battled cancer earlier this decade, but also some time off and renewed health he’s looking to get back in a MLB dugout if the right opportunity presents itself, at least according to MLB of Fox’s Ken Rosenthal. He reminds us that Farrell actually interested in Philadelphia and Cincinnati last year before they each hired new managers, and will hope to get back to the interview table again this winter.

Farrell does have a World Series ring on his resume, but we’ll see if that will be enough to land him another opportunity. Baseball has really trended toward hiring younger managers these days, and often ones with no professional experience at all, oddly enough. That said, it’s worked well with guys like Cora and Aaron Boone of the Yankees, and analytic-heavy front offices have different ideas they used to.

We’ll see whether or not Farrell ultimately gets another manager’s gig, but as a Blue Jays fan who enjoys holding a petty little grudge, I hope he has to wait around a little longer.