Q&A: John Schneider on future with Blue Jays, player communication

TORONTO — Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Bo Bichette and president and CEO Mark Shapiro aren’t the only key Toronto Blue Jays with contracts that expire after the 2025 season.

John Schneider’s current three-year deal ends then, too, and while he wouldn’t confirm that he’s been told he’ll be back as manager, the signs very much point to him running the dugout again when the club reconvenes in Dunedin, Fla., next spring.

“Things are normal,” Schneider said when asked about his future and whether there have been any extension talks. “This time of year those conversations happen and those conversations have started to happen. I’ll keep them private. But we are looking forward to next year, and I think that we’ve got a good head start on it. I am under contract and I'm thrilled to continue to lead this team. Those conversations, I'll keep private for now.”

The last time the Blue Jays had a manager heading into the final year of a contract, they gave Charlie Montoyo an additional guaranteed season with team options for two years beyond that, reaching agreement a week before opening day 2022. Montoyo was fired 3½ months later, with Schneider replacing him on an interim basis before getting the job that fall.

During an interview with Sportsnet this week, he spoke about the different demands in each of his 2½ seasons as manager, the internal work the Blue Jays have done since the trade deadline and his voice in the front office:

SPORTSNET: Let's start simple — how have you coped with this season? 

SCHNEIDER:  It's been different, obviously. I've coped fairly well, I think. The staff has been great and I always go back to the veteran players that are here and how they've helped keep things going in a positive direction. But it's definitely different and it's definitely difficult to not live up to the expectations that you had eight months ago. But you try to take positives out of each day, each series and kind focus on what we can be better at going forward. 

In 2022 when you took over — this is my perception of it, correct me if I'm wrong — you were sort of triaging the situation, let’s fix this before it flies off the rails. In ‘23 you were battling a number of issues over the course of the season, managed to keep it on the rails and get to the post-season. This season, it's a constant battle and now you're in a different role where you've gone from win-now to prepping to win in the future. The fluctuations in your role and your work over that time have been … 

A lot from ‘22 to now. I think you hit the nail on the head where you tried to keep everything where it should be in ‘22 and only worried about winning each night, first and foremost, and then try to make certain things a little cleaner, a little better along the way. And then last year, dealing with a lot in my first full year, win-now mode with a core group of players plus some additions. Battling through adversity, on and off the field with a lot of different stuff, I felt like, whether it’s Anthony Bass or Matt Chapman yelling at me for pitching to (Shohei) Ohtani in the first inning, things that pop up over the course of a year that you want to try to just nip in the bud. And then you get in the playoffs, back-to-back years exiting not the way you want to, especially last year.

There was a lot of work done in the off-season last year, a lot of work done this year with guys that have been here in terms of how we communicate with them, the thought process that I go through every single day and then you get to the point at the deadline and it's all right, we’re not rebuilding, we’re looking to build for next year and win next year. So it's been different. 

I do think if this year had unfolded similarly to the last two where things were OK and you win around 90 games and you get into the post-season, it's not easy, but it happens sometimes where you say, OK, let's try to get a little bit better, let's try to put a Band-Aid on this or that and it doesn't really allow you to peel back and look at where did things go wrong. Was it injury? Was it bad luck? Was it unrealistic expectations on certain players? This year has allowed us to do that and that's something that we've started to do already the last couple of weeks to go forward into the off-season. Again, that goes back to trying to take positives out of a season that did not go how we had hoped.

You mentioned in starting some conversations with veteran players, the peeling back process, essentially, putting a Band-Aid on some things, which is an interesting way to put it. What are things that you papered over that you feel really have to be fixed this time around?

The more the players can understand the ins and outs of a major league organization, I think the better. Their job is ultimately to go play and perform and mine is to try to put them in spots to do so, but also keep them in the loop of why things are done a certain way.

And not just here, I think in every organization, there are certain things that are just assumed, that a baseball ops team recommends this, we're going to do this. Talking to veteran players or guys that have been here for a while, they deserve, I think, insight as to how things are unrolled, how things are communicated between myself, the staff, the baseball ops team, and then including them to try to figure out ways to make it better. Whether it's something as simple as positioning in the infield or outfield, or scouting reports, or how can we tweak them to make them easier to digest, how can we personalize them more to each individual guy and put not just projected stuff, but real-time stuff, real tendencies that are obviously part of everyone’s projected outcome.

But when a player is in tune with why we're doing exactly what we're doing, it just gives them a little bit more conviction to do their job. So those are those are kind of the conversations. Even the second half of this year, I'm spending more time discussing why I made a decision I did to the entire group, whether it's hitters or pitchers, and having them go through my check-down list of every decision that's made.

The club’s decision-making process was obviously the main focal point at the end of last post-season. How different is what you’re doing now from where you were at the beginning of the season to where you were in post-season last year in terms of communicating the thinking and players understanding how decisions are made? 

It's come a long way. Today's player, there's a select group I think, Justin Turner comes to mind, just an older veteran player that can not only think about performance, but think about the reasoning why and the numbers that show why things usually do happen in a certain way. And I think around the industry, there's just this stigma that managers are given information and that's what you do. We all crave information.

In terms of the communication process, even looking back to last year, we thought that any possible decision for the post-season was pretty-well communicated before the series started. And when it doesn't go your way, it obviously gets highlighted. But I think from then to the off-season to the beginning of the year, the back-and-forth between myself, the coaching staff and the players has grown exponentially (with the) reasoning behind certain things. And the players have done a good job of understanding that they ask questions to us, I ask questions to the baseball ops team and it's kind of a trickle-down effect for me to synthesize everything, if you will. Especially the second half of this year, I've gone out of my way to talk to, if it's Ernie (Clement), if it's (Tyler) Heineman, if it's (Alejandro) Kirk, if it's George (Springer), I'm picking spots during games to say, ‘Hey, I like this or I don't like this and here's why from my lens.’

Before or after you've made the move? 

Usually after. But I’ve tried to make everyone a little bit more aware of what goes into every decision. For instance, talking about the safety squeeze (Sunday at Tampa Bay) with Nate (Lukes), it was just letting everyone know, here's my thought process, it's not that I don't trust that (Lukes) can hit a sac fly or base hit against Colin Poche. My thought process is Kevin Kelly is in the bullpen. If we can get that run in to tie, with the runner in scoring position for the lead with Ernie (Clement) who makes a lot of contact with Vlad sitting on deck, he's going to get a pitch to hit. That's my thought process. And you can kind of see when you when you break it down like that, players nod, oh, OK, I get that. A lot of players, they see things right in real time and there are always going to be disagreements when you're in this job. The more that they can be aware of my and Pete (Walker) and DeMarlo (Hale) and Donnie (Mattingly’s) check-down process, it just leads to a good, healthy conversation. 

Describe what happens when you take info from baseball operations and apply it. How much of it is, this is 100 per cent what I want to do and how much is, the front-office really wants this and I need to consider this?

Anyone in my job, you have to be able to understand numbers, tendencies, possible or probable outcomes and then blend that in with the people. The biggest difference between last year and this year is it’s a year’s worth of conversations had with the staff and experiences, whether they be good or bad, that remind us of what we talk about every day. So we all get information. And I think that the cool thing about it is the baseball ops team trusts that I understand what they're saying, how they're saying it, what it means. And there are always going to be some different variables that may sway you to go against traditional numbers or go with them.

In a perfect world, yeah, you have certain spots that you really want to take advantage of, or grasp a matchup advantage. And it just comes down to how you arrive at that spot. You can play a video game and say, if this pitcher is at this many pitches and there are this many runners on base, you should get him out. To me, you have to understand the why. But you also have to see how that situation arrived. And I feel like we are in a better spot to do so this year. But still, you have to use numbers. The numbers are there because they're usually right. And it's tough sometimes. But we get just as much, if not more information than anyone else in the industry. And I think that because we've worked together for a number of years, we do a pretty good job of using the same language and understanding the human element that goes into it.

What do you feel like are the biggest misconceptions amongst players, first off, and fans, about how all that works?

The biggest misconception is over the past call it eight years, numbers have really taken a big part of this game and it takes time for players to understand the why. It takes time for players that have been playing for a while to understand why teams use an opener and you have to give them the data as to why. And then when you get buy-in from the players, it's easier to be a little bit more open-minded or be a little bit more outside the box when it comes to your thinking. The misconception is players think a lot of teams strictly go by analytical numbers.

And I think fans around the game think that somebody comes into my office every morning, hands me a lineup and says, go do this. That's not how we do it here. That's kind of where I think the game is. Whether you should bunt here or whether you should not bunt here, there are so many things that go into each decision and through your experiences, you try to keep things in your mind that either worked out or did not work out and make the best decision going forward. 

Can you share a recent example where you made a call that goes against all the analytical advice that you would have received? 

A lot of it is with starting pitchers and the length in which they're going. We're in a little bit of a different spot because if you're trying to line up your rotation for the playoffs, it may be different. If you're trying to win every single game, no matter what, you may be running out a bullpen guy three days in a row. But a lot of them come down to starting pitcher length based on the unbelievable evidence that third time through an order, the possibility for damage goes up. That is in place because the more pitches you throw, the more apt you are to make a mistake.

So if a reliever is going to throw nine pitches in an inning compared to a starter who's already thrown 90 of them, the odds of a mistake are just much less. That's just fact because of the human fatigue element. It's usually around that and it comes down to how did the pitcher arrive in that situation, what conversations have you had with him, how is he doing physically, how is he doing mentally and do you trust that person to navigate that situation? 

When a season goes wrong the way this one has, it's never one thing. Where do you see the major opportunities to repair this roster and get better next year?

I think about a couple of things. I think about bullpen — actual stuff — and I think about opportunities to get players better at this level, if that makes sense. Us as coaches, I think the biggest thing that we've learned this year is you can sit and say, OK, this player is expected to do this. If that is not happening, we need to do everything in our power and use every resource in this building to make that stop. And at the same time, we need to re-examine, are we projecting the right things?

Those are conversations that we've had the last couple of weeks as we look forward into the off-season. But you can't say bad luck. You can't say injuries. It comes down to performance, what we expect. Whenever I bring in a pitcher, you're expecting just a normal version of that person to come in. And if that's not the case, then that to me, that’s on the coaches. And how can we help expedite the process of a player getting better in real time. 

When it comes to roster decisions, off-season decisions, how much of a voice do you have and do you need more of a voice, especially now that you've been in this job longer and have a better sense of what is needed? 

Definitely have a voice. I don't think I need more of a voice. I think that we are pretty well aligned as to what our needs are and how we can best get there. But definitely I'm included, Pete's included, at a pretty high level. I don't know, comparatively speaking, (how that compares) to any other organization, but when we talk about players that are here and potential players that are going to come to this roster, I'm right in those conversations, both during the season and in the off-season, trade deadline, all that kind of stuff. And it's questions like if Player X were to be here, how would he be used, do you see this working out from a playing-time standpoint, from a personality standpoint? They do a good job of incorporating my feel on not just what that player would do to our team, but what the person would do, too. 

What about requests like, please get me Player X? 

We've had those conversations and you have to have a reason why and it has to align with people that are going to be here. So that's happened. And I can't say that you get Player X all the time, but it's happened both ways for sure, even in the time that I've been here.

Lastly, how do you look at the contractual status of Guerrero and Bichette, what they mean to this team and what role, if any, do you have to play in their futures? 

I don't know if it's me so much. I know they're comfortable with me. I'm comfortable with them. And I know they've both expressed their desire to be here for a long time. They both understand how the business works and how this game is played. I know how the organization views them and it is in a very good light, obviously.

I said this before, I think that's why Bo said what he said, hey, a perfect world, I want to play with Vlad and I want to win a World Series with these guys and him. I'd like to think that I'm a part of that, too. Out of my hands. They know how I feel about it. I want what's best for them and I want it to be with this organization. A lot of that is player. A lot of that is Ross and agent and stuff like that. But I think we've done a good job of expressing our love for both of those guys.