TORONTO (AP) Blue Jays manager John Gibbons will not return next season.
Toronto made the announcement before Wednesday’s game against Houston. The 56-year-old has one season left in a two-year extension he received in April 2017.
Gibbons is 791-787 in 11 seasons during two stints managing Toronto, his 1,578 games second only to Cito Gaston’s 1,764. Gibbons also trails Gaston (913) in career wins with Toronto.
Gibbons replaced Carlos Tosca in August 2004, was fired in June 2008 and returned ahead of the 2013 season.
Two years later, the Blue Jays won the AL East and ended a 22-year postseason drought, buoyed by the addition of slugger Josh Donaldson. They lost the AL Championship Series in six games against Kansas City, which went on the win the World Series.
A wild-card winner in 2016, the Blue Jays lost to Cleveland in a five-game championship series.
In between his stints with the Blue Jays, Gibbons served three seasons as a bench coach with the Royals, working alongside managers Trey Hillman and Ned Yost. Gibbons also spent one season managing the Double-A San Antonio Missions, a minor league team in the San Diego Padres organization.
A first-round draft pick by the New York Mets in 1980, Gibbons hit .220 with one home run and two RBIs in 18 career games as a catcher, eight of them in New York’s World Series-winning season in 1986. He became a minor league instructor in 1991 and got his first managerial job with the Mets’ Appalachian League team in 1995.
He is the second big league manager to lose his job this month. Texas fired Jeff Banister last Friday.
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