Charlie Montoyo
Jose Carlos Montoyo Diaz
- Bats Right, Throws Right
- Height 5' 10", Weight 170 lb.
- School De Anza College, Louisiana Tech University
- High School Juan Ponce de León High School
- Debut September 7, 1993
- Final Game September 29, 1993
- Born October 17, 1965 in Florida, P.R.
Biographical Information[edit]
Infielder Charlie Montoyo was selected by the Milwaukee Brewers in the sixth round of the 1987 amateur draft. In 1993, he was traded to the Montreal Expos, and later that year hit a game-winning double in his first big league at-bat on September 7th.
Since his playing career ended, he was a minor league manager for nearly two decades. His managerial stops included the Princeton Devil Rays, Hudson Valley Renegades, Charleston RiverDogs, Bakersfield Blaze and Orlando Rays. Beginning in 2004, he led the Montgomery Biscuits for three years. After the leading the Biscuits to a Southern League championship during the 2006 season, Montoyo was promoted and named manager of the Triple-A Durham Bulls. Montoyo's 2007 Bulls team reached the championship finals of the International League, falling to the Richmond Braves 3 games to 2. With six playoff trips and two titles in eight years at Durham, he was named to the International League Hall of Fame in 2016.
In 2015, he was named third base coach of the major league Tampa Bay Rays under new manager Kevin Cash and in 2018 became the team's bench coach. Following the season, on October 25th, he was named manager of the Toronto Blue Jays for the 2019 season, replacing John Gibbons. Ironically, one of his first stops with his new team was back to Stade Olympique, the site of his major league debut, where the Blue Jays concluded their preseason schedule with a two-game series against the Brewers. On April 9th, when the Jays traveled to Fenway Park for the first time, Montoyo was part of the first major league game to feature two Puerto Rican managers, as the Jays' opponents that day, the Boston Red Sox, were skippered by Alex Cora. While his first season with the Jays was trying, as he broke a number of young players into the starting line-up, he had a very fine season in 2020 when he guided that young team to the postseason, in spite of the fact the Jays could not access their regular home, the Rogers Centre, and had to play their home games on the road or at Sahlen Field in Buffalo, NY due to the Coronavirus pandemic. His excellent work was recognized as he was one of three finalists for the 2020 Manager of the Year Award.
On April 1, 2021, when he guided the Blue Jays to an Opening Day win over the New York Yankees, he recorded the 100th managerial victory of his career. The Blue Jays had issued him a contract extension before the season, happy with the work he had done in his first two seasons at the helm. The Blue Jays continued to improve that year, and although they (barely) missed the postseason, they won 91 games and their run differential was such that they should easily have cleared 95 wins were it not for some bad luck. He was widely praised for his guidance of young players, and for creating a prositive atmosphere in the clubhouse while the team had to work out of three different home ballparks due to the continuing pandemic and its effects on cross-border travel. There was some criticism about some of his in-game decisions, like there is for almost all managers, and he presided over an unusual number of bullpen collapses (hence the team underperforming its Pythagorean percentage, but that was largely due to a lack of reliable relievers apart from closer Jordan Romano, and not necessarily because of his decisions regarding usage. In any case, the front office was very pleased and on April 1, 2022, his contract was extended again, this time until the end of the 2023 season.
Notable Achievements[edit]
- Postseason Appearance: 1 (2020 - Wild Card)
| Preceded by John Gibbons |
Toronto Blue Jays Manager 2019- |
Succeeded by current |
Year-By-Year Managerial Record[edit]
Further Reading[edit]
- Gregor Chisholm: "Blue Jays hire Rays coach Montoyo as skipper", mlb.com, October 25, 2018. [1]
- Julia Kreuz: "Blue Jays extend manager Charlie Montoyo's contract through 2023 season", Yahoo! Sports, April 1, 2022. [2]
- Pascal Milano: "Charlie Montoyo: aux bons souvenirs de Montréal", La Presse, March 27, 2019. [3]
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