Back to the Future - Gibbons Out; Gaston In

Friday, June 20 2008 @ 01:28 PM EDT

Contributed by: Pistol

Sportsnet reports the following:

The Toronto Blue Jays fired manager John Gibbons on Friday, along with three coaches including Ernie Whitt and hitting coach Gary Denbo and replaced him with 1992 and 1993 World Series winning manager Cito Gaston.

Along with Gibbons, coaches Marty Pevey, Ernie Whitt and Gary Denbo were fired as well. Gaston will be in uniform tonight, alongside first base coach Dwayne Murphy, third base coach Nick Leyva and hitting coach Gene Tenace.

If Gaston is managing the team presumably it's not for just this season and that would seem to indicate that Ricciardi's job is safe. That is, if there was going potentially be a new GM he'd want his own manager and Gaston wouldn't be coming in.

As the poll on the left indicates, 67% of people think that Gibbons should go and 74% think Ricciardi needs to go (and 55% say clean house entirely).  As I mentioned the other day, I think that a GM should be allowed, at most, 2 coaching hires before he's removed.  It was fine to replace Buck Martinez; he wasn't JP's guy.  So he chose Tosca and eventually that didn't work out.  So then he chose Gibbons and now that apparently hasn't worked out either.  If you go 0-2 on your managing hires why should you be allowed to make a 3rd?

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