Theo, Was it All Just Talk?
On September 30th, Theo Epstein sat in front of Chicago’s media for 1:21 and told us all that they were going to scour all of baseball. They were going to look for the best ideas, strategies, procedures. This seemingly meant that the Cubs were going to look outside their organization to repair scouting, hitting strategy, pitching strategy, and leadership.
All of that sounded great! But then the Cubs promoted Matt Dorey to Senior VP of Player Development. They promoted Craig Breslow to Director of Pitching and semi-promoted Justin Stone to Director of Hitting.
Then it appears that the team is favoring the hire of David Ross as the team’s manager.
Cubs announce Justin Stone as Director of Hitting and Craig Breslow as Director of Pitching, with Matt Dorey moved to senior VP of Player Development.
— Tony Andracki (@TonyAndracki23) October 17, 2019
I do not want to take anything away from any of those guys. I’ve talked with Matt Dorey and he immediately impressed me with his grasp of the organizational path. Breslow Is that new age, forward thinking guy. He’s a product of new training. Using ideas that just 10 years ago went against the grain of how we’ve always done it.
Stone has touched thousands of hitters through Elite Baseball Training and has done a ton in teaching the biokinematic’s of hitting with the Cubs. He’s at the forefront of mixing advanced technology into training, to create better hitting mechanics.
But while each have earned their roles, how is this changing anything within the organization? How is this not another slap in the face towards Joe Maddon? This is the organization saying the only thing wrong with what they were doing was the voice at the top step of the dugout, and everything else will move forward as status quo.
I was very encouraged to hear that the Cubs were interviewing Kyle Boddy for a high-level pitching position. His relevance in the pitching world is second to none. His ideas and methods have created more major leaguers than PED’s did in the 90’s.
Again, each of these guys are uniquely qualified for these positions. But, in each case, it completely goes against the grain from what Theo sat and told us on September 30th. I am confident Theo knows what he’s doing. I am confident he puts the absolute best people in place for the jobs. I just hope that these are the best folks, as soon ownership will need to point their finger towards the front office and not the field of play.
