Amidst some serious heat and multiple questionable decisions, the Arizona Diamondbacks fired both their GM Dave Stewart, and manager Chip Hale about two weeks ago. And although the comments surrounding the D-backs front office were rather shocking, the move to dismiss Stewart was not.
Despite some obvious, deeply-rooted issues within the Diamondbacks organization, the search for his replacement began immediately.
Of course, a vacancy at the top of even a troubled front office situation is a high-profile, desirable job. As such, it attracts high-profile, desirable candidates … like Mike Hazen, the D-backs’ new Executive Vice President and General Manager:
The #Dbacks have named Mike Hazen their Executive Vice President & General Manager. pic.twitter.com/ZVMLb0kdOK
— Arizona Diamondbacks (@Dbacks) October 16, 2016
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Hazen – the one-year General Manager of the Boston Red Sox – is a well-thought of Princeton grad and former Minor League outfielder, who served as the assistant GM under Ben Cherington before taking the reigns last September under President Dave Dombrowski. Now, he’ll move out to Arizona and look to build something big from scratch.
And as for the opening managerial gig in Arizona, Bob Nightengale has his suspicions:
Now that Mike Hazen has left for #Dbacks, #Redsox bench coach Torey Luvullo is strong candidate to leave Boston and join him as manager
— Bob Nightengale (@BNightengale) October 16, 2016
But there’s one more important development shadowing this story. Although none of the Cubs’ executives were ever tied to the D-backs gig (Ken Rosenthal notes that the D-Backs spoke with, but did not interview, Jason McLeod), the opening in Boston could be a different story. Jason McLeod, for example, could plausibly be attached to the role, despite his recent contract extension, given his former ties to the team (and, of course, overall desirability).
There have been no such rumors just yet, given how recently this all went down, but I wouldn’t bet against them popping up shortly. Like always, you have to be happy for any Cubs exec to get a shot, but it’s okay to hope that they decline for now, too.
We’ll stay up on this story as closely as possible, and let you know when anything develops.