Don Mattingly Enthused About Returning To The AL East With Toronto Blue Jays

In the final week of September, Don Mattingly accepted congratulations and gratitude from various New York media members about his impending retirement from managing the Miami Marlins.

This was during a three-game series against the Mets when the Marlins actually won a game despite reliever Richard Bleier getting charged with three balks in the same appearance. As charged up as Mattingly and Bleier were about the absurdity of the balks, there seemed to be an air of finality with Mattingly in terms of his baseball career in uniform.

Turns out Mattingly was not quite to hang it up or retire into the mostly stress free life of a television analyst broadcasting 25 to 40 games per season as part of a rotation with other former players.

Which is how Mattingly wound up getting named the bench coach for the Toronto Blue Jays, prompting numerous reactions from Yankee fans on social media. After all how can they applaud him for a career that is the subject of a rabid Hall of Fame debate that may culminate based on how he does on the upcoming Hall of Fame voting for the contemporary era and also ended too soon because of back trouble, when he is helping manager John Schneider devise ways to beat the Yankees?

Either way, it’s good to see Mattingly staying in the game and returning to the AL East. especially after he actually intended to spend next summer off until getting a call from Toronto general manager Ross Atkins that intrigued him immensely.

“Just the first conversation, it felt great, honestly,” Mattingly told reporters on a video call Wednesday. “It piqued my interest right away.”

Mattingly is joining a team that finished six games back of the Yankees in the AL East and contributed to their summer swoon with three wins that generated all sorts of frustration and even a loss that annoyed the Yankees.

It was a 5-2 loss on Aug. 20 that prompted Gerrit Cole to bang the clubhouse roof twice and Aaron Boone to pound the podium in the interview room after the manager was asked about losing six consecutive series 1995. A day later the Yankees avoided a sweep with a 4-2 win that featured Aaron Judge being thrown inside at by Alek Manoah and then getting hit above the left above in the fifth, a move that had Cole racing out of the dugout and being challenged postgame by Manoah to meet him at the “Audi Sign” outside the Yankee dugout.

So, you can see why Mattingly would want to return to the game and with a team seemingly continuing to be on the upswing after his time in Miami.

Even though some of it was spent with Derek Jeter being part of the ownership group before stepping aside, Mattingly was always guiding a young team not quite ready to win even though it had some attractive pieces as inning eater and NL Cy Young Award winner Sandy Alcantara.

After going 446-263 from 2011 to 2015 after Joe Torre retired, Mattingly went 443-587 in seven seasons with the Marlins. He started in the final two seasons of Giancarlo Stanton and Christian Yelich and posted seasons of 79 and 77 wins. After those stars were traded to save money, he lost 98, 105, 95 and 93 games respectively with the one outlier being the 31-29 mark in the pandemic season highlighted by clinching a postseason berth at an empty Yankee Stadium.

During the course of Mattingly’s tenure in Miami, the Blue Jays transitioned from the veteran group that made consecutive ALCS appearances to the young core of Vladimir Guerrero Jr, Bo Bichette, Lourdes Gurriel Jr supplemented by the free agent signing of George Springer and other moves.

“You look at the combination of youth and experience and an offence that can throw up runs in a hurry … just the whole package,” Mattingly told reporters.

After three losing seasons, the Blue Jays got into the expanded playoffs in 2020, just missed a playoff spot in 2021 despite sweeping a four-game series in New York in the final month and then heated up after manager Charlie Montoyo with Schneider in July.

“Knowing the talent and seeing it, I know it’s a really good club,” Mattingly said. “You look at the combination of youth and experience, and an offense that can throw runs up. Over the last few years, I’ve seen these guys. They throw runs up in a hurry. I think all the ingredients are there to win.”

And now after a few years of trying to get young talent to produce better results, Mattingly is ready to try and help a team overtake the Yankees much to the consternation of fans in New York and the delight of fans in Toronto and front office types.

“Credibility and experience are achieved in many different ways, and Don’s is unique for our staff,” Atkins told reporters. “Experience and credibility are words that get used a lot in professional sports, and in life and in corporate worlds. It’s hard to quantify exactly how valuable that is, but I think it’s something that will create that calming impact and influence, and help not only with performance and lack thereof, but also with accountability, which will be huge.”

Of course, the Yankees will face bigger problems than a former standout first baseman trying to beat them in the opposing dugout, especially if a certain right fielder signs elsewhere.