NEWSLETTER
Buried amid the Yu Darvish circus – seriously, the news came out at the same time the winner of the Darvish post was being announced – the Cubs made another front office hire, snagging area scout Matt Dorey from the Red Sox. Dorey will serve as the Cubs’ national cross-checker, which, in short, is a higher up scouting position.
(The position is undoubtedly more nuanced than this, but the gist is that, if a regional scout thinks the organization should look at a kid, the national cross-checker will be among the next in the organization to look at the kid).
Dorey, who was originally hired in 2007 by current Cubs’ Scouting and Development Chief Jason McLeod, was a scout in the Northwest before moving to cover Louisiana and Texas in the last two years. In his time with the Red Sox, Dorey has been credited with scouting and signing a number of notable draft picks, including Anthony Ranaudo, Garin Cecchini, Kendrick Perkins and Lucas LeBlanc in the 2010 draft.
At the same time the hiring news was coming out, Gorden Edes was reporting that the Cubs and Red Sox had agreed that the Cubs would not hire anyone else away from the Red Sox for three years.
I know what you’re thinking.
Does this have anything to do with the ongoing compensation issue between the Cubs and Red Sox for the former hiring Theo Epstein away from the latter?
When that issue was the buzziest topic of the day, there were multiple reports that Epstein would be allowed to take only one Red Sox employee with him to the Cubs, and whom he took would be tied to the compensation the Cubs have to give to the Red Sox. So maybe this hiring is a sign that the compensation issue has been resolved, yes? Heck, maybe the agreement not to purloin any more staff-members is the compensation?
Eh. Maybe. But probably not.
While the timing and the previous suggestions that the compensation could be tied to Red Sox employees would suggest this news is related to the Theo compensation issue, it’s possible that Theo and the Cubs had a separate agreement with the Red Sox that, once Theo took one employee, he could no longer take another for three years. Such an agreement would be understandable, even if it were draconian.
We’ll probably soon learn whether this has anything to do with the compensation issue, or whether it is a totally separate issue. Red Sox GM Ben Cherington said just a few days ago that the issue would be resolved at some point before Spring Training, but I would be very surprised if the Red Sox settled for something like this after fighting the way they did. (It’s hard to go from asking for Matt Garza to getting no players at all, and a mere agreement not to raid the organization further. The Twins got a prospect when the Cubs hired Andy MacPhail.)
Instead, if this has any relation to the compensation dispute, my guess is that Epstein has been deciding whom he would like to hire (for a promotion, mind you) from the Red Sox, and that decision will subsequently be tied to the level of compensation the Red Sox ultimately receive from the Cubs.
