Alex Anthopoulos told reporters that John Gibbons will be back next year.
Now, I'll point out the obvious. Every manager that has ever been fired has received the same sort of vote of confidence. And, also, this is a statement from Alex, not from Paul Beeston or anyone above him. I can imagine that Rogers might feel differently. They might say 'hey, we put a ton of money into the team, we expect someone to take the fall for the lousy season'. Most of the time when a GM or someone says 'we aren't going to fire this guy.', I figure the subject should be packing up his stuff. But, I'd like to think Alex is more honest than that.
All that aside.....
Alex almost has to speak up for the guy he went out on a limb for to hire. Alex can't really say I made a mistake hiring Gibbons, I'm correcting that mistake now. If Alex were to do that, he would opening himself up to being fired himself.
Now, should John Gibbons keep the job for next year? That's a question I go back and forth on.
The one side: he really isn't to blame for this mess. I isn't his fault that Morrow is hurt. That Josh Johnson was terrible. That R.A. Dickey hasn't been much better. That Emilio Bonifacio, Maicer Izturis, Melky Cabrera and J.P. Arencibia played like guys that have never seen the game of baseball before.
On the flip of that.: one of the reasons for picking Gibby was that he bring some discipline to a team that badly needed it. It doesn't seem like that's happened. We still have players getting put out on the bases too often, that throw to the wrong bases and the make mental errors far too often. Now the discipline stuff....well if we were winning, that would likely go away on it's own. But, I'd like to see some sign that players are being talked to when the screw up.
I, for the most part, like how he uses his bullpen. No manager is going to be perfect, and sometimes when they do things that seem wrong, but there is a reason we aren't seeing.
I liked that he put Jose Bautista into the 2-spot in the order, but, from Jose's remarks, it seems that he didn't explain the reasoning behind the move to Jose. I think a manager should be talking to his players about this stuff.
I hated that he used Maicer Izturis in the 2-spot. Hated, hated, hated.
I hate that JP is still throwing from his knees and that, apparently, Gibby hasn't told JP that this is totally unacceptable.
I didn't like Colby and Adam hitting back to back.
I like that he has Mark DeRosa pinch-hit for Lind, against lefties, sometimes. I don't like that sometimes he doesn't do it.
Anyway, let's have a poll.