Blue Jays: Is John Schneider Being Groomed To Succeed Charlie Montoyo?

Toronto Blue Jays bench coach John Schneider had an opportunity to manage the big league club on Tuesday night, as Manager Charlie Montoyo served a one-game suspension after his starter Alek Manoah was handed his own five-game suspension for hitting Orioles 3B Maikel Franco with a pitch during last Thursday’s against Baltimore.

The Blue Jays won the game 2-1, giving Schneider a career 1-0 record as a major league manager. After a solid six-inning start by the rejuvenated Ross Stripling, Schneider was able to coax three scoreless innings and four strikeouts out of the much-maligned Blue Jays’ bullpen, with Tyler Chatwood handling the seventh, Tim Mayza the eighth, and closer Jordan Romano earning the save.

The hitters were 2 for 5 with runners in scoring position, Schneider won a replay challenge on a Teoscar Hernandez grounder, and catcher Reese McGuire threw out Marlins CF Starling Marte on a steal attempt of second base in the bottom of the ninth, possibly saving the game (and the first time a base runner has been thrown out in Romano’s career). Normally if a runner gets on, it’s almost an automatic steal (11 steals vs. only one caught stealing in 55.1 innings of MLB work) to put the runner in scoring position vs. Romano… and Starling Marte was 10-for-11 on stolen base attempts prior to McGuire’s heroics.

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Is major league coach John Schneider being groomed to take over as manager of the Toronto Blue Jays from Charlie Montoyo?

The 41-year-old Schneider comes with a storied career managing within Toronto’s minor league affiliates. After suffering three concussions in 2007 – and retiring as a career minor leaguer in the Jays farm system – Schneider managed the rookie league Gulf Coast League Blue Jays from 2008, and was then promoted as in 2010 to manage the short season-A ball Vancouver Canadians, becoming their youngest ever manager at 30 years old.

In 2011, he managed the Canadians to a Northwest League championship and was eventually promoted to Low-A Lansing and then High-A Dunedin, and by 2017 had won the first-ever Florida State League championship in the 33-year history of the Dunedin Blue Jays.

In early 2018, Schnieder was promoted to manage the Double-A New Hampshire Fisher Cats and led them to an Eastern League championship as a 37-year-old, again as the youngest manager in team history. He added a further accolade that September, being named the Eastern League Manager of the Year for 2018.

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The Blue Jays promoted Schneider to their major league coaching staff under new manager Charlie Montoyo ahead of the 2019 season.

So is he being groomed as the successor to Montoyo?

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He certainly has a close relationship with the young core of Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Bo Bichette, Cavan Biggio, and others after managing and working with them through the Jays minor league system. He managed current Blue Jays major leaguers including Lourdes Gurriel Jr., Ryan Borucki, Jordan Romano, Patrick Murphy, Danny Jansen, Reese McGuire, Biggio, Guerrero Jr., and Bichette when they were co-champions of the FSL at High-A Dunedin in 2017, and then managed many of them again, including Jonathan Davis and Santiago Espinal at Double-A New Hampshire when they won the EL Championship in 2018. He also pitched to Guerrero Jr. during the 2019 MLB Home Run Derby.

So he’s been with the young core effectively since 2017, given all of those players above were called up to the major league Blue Jays from 2018-2020, overlapping with Schneider either as a manager in Lansing, Dunedin, and/or New Hampshire from 2016-2018 and also with the big club from 2019 onwards. He’s won two MiLB championships with this group as well. He certainly seems to be part of the core coaching staff as Montoyo’s trusted lieutenant in the dugout, advising on when to challenge play calls on the field, and throwing batting practice to the kids pregame.

Should the front office decide its time to give the club a new managerial direction, John Schneider certainly has the bona fides to earn another promotion. At 41, he would also be close to Bobby Cox (41) and John Gibbons (42) as the youngest ever major league manager to be promoted to that role in Blue Jays history.

Given his success at all levels of the Blue Jays system, can it only be a matter of time if Charlie Montoyo is unable to guide the team deep into meaningful baseball series this fall?