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 TORONTO — Being a big league manager is a thankless job.

The decisions that go wrong are picked apart and the ones that are proven to be right are mostly ignored as the praise (rightfully so) is heaped upon the players that executed.

Each and every manager across baseball has been fired on social media at one point or another.

Toronto Blue Jays manager Charlie Montoyo has taken his fair share of criticism over the last couple of seasons for his bullpen management and in-game strategy, but the front office currently holds a different opinion and that was evident on Friday when the 56-year-old native of Puerto Rico was given a contract extension through the 2023 campaign.

Montoyo’s original deal when he was hired in the fall of 2018 — a three-year contract with a club option for 2022 — was set to expire at the end of this season.

Montoyo’s new pact also includes club options for the 2024 and 2025 seasons.

While the contract gives the fourth-year manager some security and tells his players the club is currently committed to him leading for the next two seasons, the team options do show that Montoyo is on notice.

Simply put, expectations are high, it’s time to win and it’s a year-to-year evaluation.

In some cases over the years, a different voice has been needed to get a World Series contender over the hump, but it remains to be seen if this Blue Jays club will have to go that route and it’s far too early to predict whether that will be the case.

It’s a fair question to ask moving forward, but also one that Kevin Cash and Dave Roberts — subjectively considered two of the best managers in baseball — have faced recently, as well, when moves blew up on large stages.

Any major stumbles and the managerial job, as always, will be a talking point.

But Montoyo’s true strengths come behind the scenes, away from the prying eyes of the general public and even the media at times, and the man has earned a chance to lead a contender filled to the brim with talent.

Noted for his player development background, Montoyo’s steady hand in the clubhouse, his ability to connect in both English and Spanish and his leadership through a trying time for the club during a pandemic have all sorts of value that’s extremely hard to quantify.

At this point, he has the players’ ears in the clubhouse and that’s the most important thing, especially with analytics and mapped-out pitching plans a huge part of what the Jays are doing.

Numbers, charts, computers and all sorts of other fancy technology have replaced most “gut feel” moves.

Not all decisions that go wrong are Montoyo’s fault, just the same as he shouldn’t be praised for Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Bo Bichette putting up MVP numbers.

Players win ball games and managers simply have a role in putting them in the best possible position to succeed. That includes in-game decisions, as well as how the egos and personalities are managed behind the scenes, which is an aspect of the job that can’t be graded off of a TV broadcast.

Montoyo has been far from perfect as a manager over the course of his three seasons at the helm, but he’d be the first perfect manager in baseball history if that were the case and his 190-194 career record looks a whole lot better at 123-99 when you remove the 95-loss rebuilding year in 2019.

The goal for a franchise is to always be improving and that’s exactly what Montoyo’s Jays have done, going from a .414 winning percentage in 2019 to .533 in the shortened 2020 campaign to 91 wins and a .562 winning percentage last year.

The roughest water to navigate may be ahead, but Montoyo has earned the right to steer the ship.