A couple weeks ago, reports swirled that the Chicago Cubs had nabbed a top executive from the Boston Red Sox, and now the Cubs have made the hiring official.
Jared Porter is the Cubs’ new pro scouting director, per the official release noted at Tribune and USA Today, among other places. Porter replaces Joe Bohringer in the job, though Bohringer, who is highly-respected, is remaining with the Cubs in a scouting role, the specifics of which will be announced at a later date.
I wrote about Porter back when the initial reports first broke:
Porter has worked in the Red Sox organization since 2004, overlapping for many years with Epstein’s, Jed Hoyer’s, and Jason McLeod’s time there. He is apparently well-liked:
The brain drain begins. Porter's very good and scouts there loved working for him. https://t.co/ST1KEifDjt
— keithlaw (@keithlaw) August 29, 2015
You can read more on Porter here in an alumni profile, and it sounds like he’s a rising star. Given the potential that the Cubs could lose a guy or two in the coming years – it’s just the way things work when you’ve build a front office full of bright minds – bringing in Porter seems like a great move.
To add a guy like Porter and not lose Bohringer – the Cubs’ front office continues to accrete some of the best and brightest around the game. It doesn’t always show up in the day to day, but this is the stuff that creates long-term organizational success.
This all occurs, mind you, against the backdrop of a significant number of high-level executive openings around the game.