So Long, Fare-ell, Auf Weidersehen Goodbye

This title and picture combo is much better than what I had before.

It's done.  Jays' managerial search is on.  Sandy Alomar Jr. is the current favorite to assume the role, and we don't need to worry about giving anything up for him.  Let's hope Farrell doesn't take too many coaches with him.

Apparently the Red Sox have given Farrell four years.

Sandy Jr. is obviously the brother of Roberto Alomar, who was quite good.  Robbie is currently working with the Jays as a consultant or something of that sort.  Sandy is currently the bench coach for the Indians, and was one of the four finalists for the Jays' managerial gig that Farrell ended up getting.  He was named interim manager for the Indians when they fired Manny Acta, but Terry Francona has been named the Indians' manager recently, so he's not getting that job.

Other candidates to take over include Brian Butterfield (if he doesn't go to Boston) and Manny Acta, who has ties to Alex Anthopoulos from when they were both in Montreal, though I think AA was still an intern at that point.

I'm hoping that the Jays are getting a young guy or some PTBNL's from Boston in this case, but it's really pretty tough to say at this point.  Either way, trading one year of a manager for anything is pretty awesome, all things considered.  Farrell was probably better than Cito as a manager, but at the end of the day, I would suggest that there's Joe Maddon and then everybody else, so the replacement level of managers has got to be quite low.  The fact that there's a manager out there who might be even better, but can't possibly be way worse sounds really awesome to me, especially considering the fact that something is coming back our way.

Update
Jon Morosi says that the player coming back is an infielder, and was in the majors this past year.  Seriously.Why? Why does he say that and only that? Like, he's either getting the name and opting to say “infielder, MLB’er this past year” and is intentionally stopping there, or whoever his source is is being a giant prick and saying “well, he's an infielder and an MLB’er from 2012, but you have to guess who teehee.” Fuck sakes. I’d rather have nothing than this horseshit.

Update 2
Mike Aviles is coming back the other way.  This is a huge win for the Jays, in my opinion, though I suppose it kind of depends if anything else is going the other way.  Either way, Aviles was worth 1.8 fWAR (2.0 rWAR) last year for Boston, putting up .250/.288/.381 and some nice defense. And considering what past manager trades have brought back, this is a pretty good haul.

The Jays currently have Yunel Escobar and Adeiny Hechavarria on the depth chart at short, so unless someone's moving to 2B, we might see another deal here somewhere.  This certainly sounds like the Jays are moving on from Kelly Johnson, and it gives them a few options at 2B/SS and leaves them with a trade option as well.