Just a day after starting the discussion about the future of the Chicago Cubs’ front office, it has been reported that Chicago Cubs Chairman and owner Tom Ricketts has been meeting with baseball front office legend Pat Gillick. The Hall of Famer has been attached to the Cubs in various rumors over the past few weeks, but now there is a solid report that Gillick has been having discussions with Ricketts.
I’m smiling.
Major league sources have told me that Cubs owner Tom Ricketts has spoken to Pat Gillick as recently as last week.
Gillick is renowned in baseball circles. He has been the General manager of four different teams and has won three World Series. He is also in the Hall Of Fame.
We can only confirm that conversations have been had so don’t jump to conclusions just yet. Also don’t think that Gillick’s potential hiring would automatically be the end for Jim Hendry. Gillick and Hendry have gotten along famously in the past and there is a frame work for a business relationship there. CBS Chicago.
Gillick has said in the recent past that he’s not looking for another GM gig, or even a full-time job, necessarily (he’ll soon be 74). So what exactly would Ricketts and Gillick be discussing?
There have been a handful of radio reports over the past week that suggest these meetings between Ricketts and Gillick are about Gillick serving as a kind of temporary advisor to Tom Ricketts, while he navigates the necessary changes in the front office.
A repeated concern about the transition from a Jim Hendry/Crane Kenney-led front office to something else has been Ricketts’ lack of baseball experience. Sure, he can rely on his business acumen, as well as whatever knowledge of baseball operations he’s picked up over the last year and a half, but on whom can he lean with tough questions in the interview process? I’m told the Cubs are on the verge of significant organizational and structural changes, and who better to help lay those plans than a man who has help construct and run some of the most successful organizations of the past two decades?
Without assuming too much, it’s fair to say that the mere fact that Ricketts is meeting with Gillick is a hugely positive sign that, indeed, Ricketts does know what he’s doing. Even if Gillick doesn’t end up in a stewardship/advisor role with the Cubs, clearly, Ricketts’ head is in the right place.
And that, if for no other reason, is why I’m smiling.