Mets to hire John Gibbons as bench coach, source says
John Gibbons as manager of the Toronto Blue Jays in 2018. Credit: Getty Images/Ed Zurga
The Mets are planning to hire former Toronto manager John Gibbons as Carlos Mendoza’s bench coach, a baseball source confirmed on Wednesday night.
Gibbons, 61, managed the Blue Jays in two separate stints from 2004-08 and 2013-18. He will give rookie manager Mendoza an experienced former skipper at his side.
Gibbons had a 793-789 record in his two stints in Toronto and took the Blue Jays to the playoffs in 2015 and 2016. He was also the bench coach in Kansas City from 2009-11.
A catcher, Gibbons was a first-round pick of the Mets in 1980. He played the only 18 games of his big-league career with the club in 1984 and 1986, hitting a combined .220 with one home run.
Gibbons earned a World Series ring as the Mets’ bullpen catcher during the 1986 postseason, but said in a 2015 interview with the Saskatoon StarPhoenix newspaper that he “didn’t really feel like I was part of that team.”
The Mets are closing in on the rest of Mendoza’s first coaching staff. MLB.com reported that the club is planning to hire former San Francisco coach Antoan Richardson as its first-base coach.
Richardson is best known in New York as the player who scored the winning run on Derek Jeter’s walkoff single in Jeter’s final game at Yankee Stadium in 2013.
Also, SNY reported that the Mets are hiring former Cleveland coach Mike Sarbaugh as their third base coach.
Once the contracts are finalized, the new coaches will join Jeremy Hefner (pitching), Eric Chavez and Jeremy Barnes (co-hitting) and Glenn Sherlock (catching) on Mendoza’s staff.
Anthony Rieber covers baseball, as well as the NFL, NBA and NHL. He has worked at Newsday since Aug. 31, 1998, and has been in his current position since July 5, 2004.
