DUNEDIN, Fla. -- Blue Jays manager John Gibbons was asked before Wednesday's Grapefruit League game against the Tigers if it was time to congratulate him on his reported new contract. Gibbons demurred, noting that no official announcement had been made.
"But you can congratulate me all you want," he added with a grin.
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Yes, after leading the Blue Jays to three consecutive winning seasons and back-to-back appearances in the American League Championship Series, Gibbons will be rewarded with a multiyear extension.
"The organization's been great to me," he said. "They brought me back for a second go-round [after he managed Toronto from 2004-08]. That's very unusual in this game. So I'm pretty happy, and pretty excited."
The unknown going into last season was how the new front office, led by president Mark Shapiro and general manager Ross Atkins, would assess the manager they had inherited from the previous regime.
"It's never easy when you bring new people in," Gibbons said. "They have the right to have their own people. They're trying to make it work, and it turned out we had a pretty solid year last year and they liked what I did. And I enjoyed working for them, so things kind of fell into place.
"It's always nice. I wasn't obsessed with it. You really never know how long these jobs last anyway. Coming into last year, new regime, I didn't know what to expect. It turned out to be a really good working relationship, and I'm glad to still be here."
Gibbons and Atkins had a brief conversation about his future at the end of last season.
"I said, 'Ross, listen, this is not a priority right now,'" Gibbons recalled. "We had a lot of free agents and he was trying to make some moves to make us better. So we put this on hold and then we started talking about it a little more intensely when we got down here to Spring Training and it picked up a little steam.
"I was still under contract. I still had a job to do. We were coming off a good year. We'd been in that drought for 20-plus years, so the excitement was there. Things just clicked right away. They're both good guys. But the season's a totally different thing. They hadn't seen me operate up close. But it worked. So I'm happy to still be here."
Gibbons knows any manager is only as good as his players. And he loves the talent the Blue Jays have assembled.
"Great players make great coaches and managers," he said. "There's no secret. You can't win without talent and we have an abundance of it here. I've been here [since 2013] now. We've had some good, solid teams. Probably a piece or two from getting us over the top. Now, we've brought in some of the best players in baseball, so it's made a huge difference. That's the bottom line."
Toronto appears poised to make another strong run at the World Series this season, but Gibbons said he was never worried about going into the season as a lame duck.
"I don't know how much effect that has, to be honest with you," he said. "It's not like the president [of a country], where everybody stops listening to him. I'm not sure. The players are out there focusing on their job. I think a lot of times if that wasn't brought up, nobody would even notice. I may be totally wrong, but that's my opinion.
"Everybody likes to be rewarded in this game, but that's never been a driving force of mine. I make a good living. When my day is done, I can go home and live comfortably and enjoy my family. But it's always nice when they present something to you, I'll put it that way."
Paul Hagen