Former Blue Jays manager has brought his magic to a new playoff team

The Mets hired former Blue Jays manager John Gibbons to be their bench coach ahead of this season. Blue Jays fans will recall that it was Gibby, in his second stint as Toronto’s manager, who led the Jays to back-to-back American League Championship Series in 2015 and 2016. That marked their first postseason return since winning back-to-back World Series championships in 1992 and 1993.

Gibbons has a long history with Mets franchise. He was a 1st-round Draft pick (24th overall) of the Mets in 1980, their 3rd top pick that year after fellow first-rounders Darryl Strawberry (1st overall) and Billy Beane (23rd) of ‘Moneyball’ fame. The Blue Jays drafted high school shortstop Garry Harris with the 2nd pick after Strawberry that year, but his career never panned out.

Gibby played in just 18 MLB games over parts of two seasons with New York, but spent eight years in the organization and returned to become a Minor League manager in 1995. In two stints as Blue Jays manager, he would guide the team to a 793-789 (.501) record over 11 seasons from 2004-2008 and 2013-2018. That ranks second to Cito Gaston for most wins by a Toronto manager.

As Nick Waddell wrote in his SABR BioProject biography of Gibbons, he bases his philosophy on the game on simplicity. “Baseball’s not rocket science. … It’s really pretty much a simple game.” His colleagues said this simple philosophy and his easygoing demeanor made Gibbons a successful manager. “I think one of the things he brings, other than great baseball knowledge, is a great way with people,” said former Blue Jays coach Brian Butterfield. “He’s always got his players’ backs, he always has his coaches’ backs.”

But that simplicity and steady support for his players also helped lead the Blue Jays to some of their most magical postseason moments in franchise history. Recall the José Bautista bat flip following his go-ahead, 3-run homer in the decisive Game 5 of the 2015 American League Division Series at home against the Rangers, or Edwin Encarnación’s walk-off, 3-run home run off Ubaldo Jimenez to give the Blue Jays a 5-2 win over the Baltimore Orioles in the American League Wild-Card game in 2016.

The parallels with the current Mets are striking

It’s true John Gibbons was the last manager to guide the Blue Jays to a playoff series win. Now he’s bench coach of the Mets, who advanced to the Wild Card series thanks to some magic of their own: a playoff-clinching, 9th inning Francisco Lindor two-run shot.

That huge moment was actually topped by Pete Alonso’s 9th inning, 3-run blast last Thursday to put the Mets ahead for good to win National League Wild Card series over the Milwaukee Brewers to send them to the NLDS. It came off the Brewers excellent closer Devin Williams with the Mets trailing by two runs.

As Sarah Langs of MLB wrote, “Of course, in the ninth inning of a winner-take-all game, you’re going to face the best that your opponent has to offer. For Alonso, that meant Devin Williams and his dominant Airbender changeup. Williams threw his signature pitch 176 times in the regular season and did not allow a home run on the pitch. Yet, that is precisely the pitch that Alonso took yard.”

Langs also noted that with their Game 161 clincher in last Monday’s make-up double-header in Atlanta, and then those and Game 3 heroics on Thursday, “the Mets became the first team in MLB history to clinch a postseason spot in a win and win a playoff series both via games in which they faced a deficit in the ninth inning or later, according to the Elias Sports Bureau.”

That’s certainly reminiscent of J-Bau and Encarnación in the 2015 and 2016 playoffs. And in added Blue Jays twist, the Mets won Game One of the NLDS in Philadelphia Saturday night when the Mets scored five runs in the 8th inning, with three of them coming off former Blue Jays 2014 1st-round draft pick Jeff Hoffman.

Could some of that magic come from the human connection Gibbons values with his fellow coaches and players? In an excellent and wide-ranging interview with Shi Davidi of Sportsnet last spring, Gibbons distilled some of that pixie dust when discussing then newly hired Mets manager Carlos Mendoza: “He’s a good baseball guy. You have to be really analytical nowadays, but he understands the human side of it, which is big. And that’s the same way with [Mets president of baseball operations David] Stearns.”

As Gibby concluded in his spring training interview with Shi Davidi when talking about his full circle return to the Mets, where his professional baseball career began, “Maybe it’s a good way to end it all. Go down in a blaze of glory, I guess. Or show them what they missed in the ’80s.” Blaze of glory indeed; he’s been associated with some of the most magical moments in recent baseball memory.