CHICAGO -- The past few years have seen the Cubs significantly improve their farm system, both in terms of prospects and processes behind the scenes. The narrative that the North Siders struggle to develop homegrown pitching also feels like ancient history.
The strides made by the Cubs on those fronts played a role in the Red Sox prying Craig Breslow -- formerly an assistant general manager and vice president of pitching for Chicago -- away in October to be their new chief baseball officer. That necessitated some reorganization in the Cubs’ leadership structure.
“You want to make sure that you're thinking about other organizations,” Cubs GM Carter Hawkins said at the Winter Meetings in December. “And trying to learn if there's things that maybe we're missing. But at the same time, you've got to make sure that you're not taking for granted the things that are already inside your house.”
On Monday, the Cubs rewarded the work being done in-house with a slew of promotions, including Jared Banner to assistant GM, Andrew Bassett to vice president of professional scouting, Garrett Chiado to senior director of baseball operations and professional acquisitions and Ryan Otero to the title of “director, pitching.” The North Siders also brought in a new voice, hiring Jason Kanzler away from the Astros to serve as Chicago’s new vice president of player development.
The Cubs also officially announced the promotion of Meghan Jones to the role of vice president of baseball strategy, making her the first woman in franchise history to hold a VP title in the baseball operations department. Jones joined the organization in August 2016 as an executive assistant and tackled a wide range of projects in her most recent role as the team’s director of baseball operations, administration and strategy.
The full list of Monday’s promotions is available here.
Kanzler takes over for Banner, who spent the past two years in that role overseeing a Cubs farm system that has blossomed into one of baseball’s most-improved and highly-regarded pipelines. The Cubs currently boast six players in MLB Pipeline’s Top 100 prospects -- led by outfielder Pete Crow-Armstrong (No. 12) and righty Cade Horton (No. 29).
“We're really excited to have Jared in the opportunity that he's in,” Hawkins said of Banner’s move to the assistant GM role. “He’s just an unbelievable teammate, a great worker, and has experienced a lot of different things through his career.”
Kanzler comes to the Cubs after spending the past five years with the Astros, who moved him up from the Minor League coaching ranks to the MLB staff for the past two years. Kanzler most recently worked as the assistant hitting coach for legendary manager Dusty Baker, who retired at the end of this past season.
The Astros reached the American League Championship Series in each of the past seven years, capturing four AL pennants and winning two World Series. In 2022, Kanzler was credited for playing a key role in helping Astros shortstop Jeremy Peña, whose adjustments and performance paved the way for MVP honors in both the ALCS and World Series that fall.
After working as an assistant director of pitching under Breslow last year, Otero moves into the lead role for that side of the Cubs’ system. Otero joined the Cubs as a player development assistant in 2018 and has advanced up the organizational ladder through the research and development arm and into the front office.
Cubs pitching coach Tommy Hottovy said Otero had become an integral part of the team’s pitching group over the past few years.
“Ryan's been such an important piece to what we've been doing on the development side,” Hottovy said. “He’s shown the ability to work with a lot of different departments and to collaborate with guys and to stand up for the things he believes in, but also take some suggestions from other people.
“He's got the ability to do all those things, and I think he's going to be great for that role. And I think he's also going to be able to let the coordinators and the coaches that we have in our system continue to grow and thrive.”