NEWSLETTER
The Chicago Cubs today officially introduce their first General Manager since Jed Hoyer gave up that gig to be promoted to President last year.
Yes, the Cubs were GM-less for the last 12 months. That changes today with the arrival of Carter Hawkins, formerly an Assistant GM with the Cleveland Indians. His introductory press conference is about to start, and I’ll offer up the rolling updates as it goes on so that if you can’t watch on Marquee, you can follow along below.
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The presser looks to be streaming here on MLB.com eventually:
The former Vanderbilt catcher spent the last 14 years – his entire front office career – with Cleveland, heavily on the player development side.
Hoyer kicks off the presser with some introductory comments on why he waited a year before hiring a GM. He points to wanting to empower some of the folks who were still around after Theo Epstein’s departure, and wanting to find the right partnership. He wanted time to properly search and vet. Carter Hawkins’ was the name that kept coming up again and again.
Obligatory kind words from Jed to Carter, and from Carter to the organization. And big thanks from Hawkins to his old organization and his family.
Hawkins talks about his experience at Wrigley Field for the 2016 World Series, being very aware of how intense the fans were (in a good way).
He’s eager to be a part of the organization – names a long list of the names in the front office – but there’s no secret sauce. Have great people with great processes, stay disciplined, and that’s your leading indicator on success down the road. Winning in the big leagues is a lagging indicator.
Goal for the next few weeks is to more deeply get to know the organization so he can get to work. Normal stuff. Now to the questions …
On pitching development, Hawkins says the Indians were really good at taking all the available info and synthesizing it in a way that players can get on board with, and everyone else can easily digest.
Asked about how he/Indians thought about the Cubs from the outside. He says his background with the Cubs – in terms of external evaluation – was that they were well-thought-of. Good processes. (Didn’t really bite.)
The key to being disciplined in processes is having the right people in place, who stick to that, stick to the organization’s culture. Everyone has to buy into the vision.
Hawkins’ view of the Trade Deadline was that it may have been hard, but it showed a commitment to doing what the Cubs needed to do. From the outside, he thought the trades looked like smart moves.
Also, he viewed the returns as excellent. From Hawkins: It’s rare that a trade happens and comes across your ticker in the war room of the deadline and you all say, “Whoa” at what a team was about to do, but Hawkins said that happened multiple times with the Cubs.
That’s it. Very short presser, very platitude-heavy, very light on specifics about how he’ll integrate into the organization and improve the processes (definitely the word of the presser). I would’ve liked a lot more, but I suppose that was probably expecting too much for a brand new guy with no background (beyond the interview process) with the Cubs or Hoyer. We always knew this was going to be a very long-term evaluation process. Hawkins seemed perfectly fine today. Hopefully we get more specifics as the offseason and next year go on.
