‘We didn’t win’: Ausmus won’t return

DETROIT — The rebuilding Tigers will start fresh next season with a new manager.

General manager Al Avila announced Friday that the Tigers would not extend Brad Ausmus’s contract, meaning the manager’s four-year tenure will end when this season is over.

“We didn’t win,” Avila said. “The organization, the club got to a point where we needed change on the field. We needed to change the roster, and we started trading players, so the conclusion is: OK, you know what? Let’s just take a whole brand new road and open up to new things.”

Ausmus was 312-325 heading into Friday’s game against the Twins. His tenure included an AL Central title in his first season, but the Tigers have not made the postseason since. They have shed payroll this year, trading stars Justin Verlander, Justin Upton and J.D. Martinez, and are assured of no better than a fourthplace finish in the AL Central.

“Al and I have become very good friends over the four years I was here, so it was a little emotional when he told me he wasn’t going to bring me back,” Ausmus said.

“I told him I fully understood, and I told him if he had walked in and offered me a contract, I probably wouldn’t have come back because I think this team, this organization is starting over. They need a new voice.”

Ausmus took over for Jim Leyland before the 2014 season, inheriting a star-laden roster but one that was starting to show the effects of age. Now the Tigers face a rebuilding period.

The Tigers went 86-75 last year and nearly made the playoffs, then kept the team largely intact, hoping they could contend again in 2017. But they weren’t even able to mount a serious challenge for a wild card.