Cubs promote Tim Wilken to Special Assistant to the President/General Manager, hire Jaron Madison as director of amateur scouting

CHICAGO – The Chicago Cubs today promoted Tim Wilken to Special Assistant to the President/General Manager and hired Jaron Madison as the club’s director of amateur scouting.

In his expanded role with the organization, Wilken will continue to scout players for the amateur draft while adding major league, international and professional scouting responsibilities.  Wilken will also now contribute player evaluations throughout the club’s entire major league and minor league system.

Wilken, who has spent more than 30 years in baseball, was named the 2006 East Coast Scout of the Year by the Scout of the Year Foundation one year after joining the Cubs organization the previous December.  In his seven years with the Cubs, Wilken has drafted and signed many current Cubs players, including Darwin Barney, James Russell, Jeff Samardzija, Brett Jackson and Josh Vitters.  Each of his first four first round selections with the Cubs – Tyler Colvin (2006), Vitters (2007), Andrew Cashner (2008) and Jackson (2009) reached the major leagues with the Cubs.

Prior to joining the Cubs, Wilken spent the previous three seasons as special assistant to the general manager in Tampa Bay.  He began his career as an area scout in 1979 for the Toronto Blue Jays, where he spent 25 years in a variety of roles including area scout, minor league manager and coach, national crosschecker, director of amateur scouting and vice president, baseball operations.  With Toronto, Wilken contributed to the club’s signing and developing of numerous players including Chris Carpenter, Roy Halladay, Vernon Wells and Michael Young.

Jaron Madison joins the Cubs organization after spending the last three years as Director of Amateur Scouting for the San Diego Padres, his third stint with the organization.  Madison began his professional baseball career as an associate area scout with the Padres in 2002.

Madison served as an area scout for the Pittsburgh Pirates from 2002-05 before returning to the Padres in 2005 as assistant to the director of player development.  He later spent two seasons with the St. Louis Cardinals (2008-09) as the assistant scouting director before returning to San Diego to lead the club’s amateur scouting efforts on December 18, 2009.

The 36-year-old Madison is a 1998 graduate of Long Beach State University, where he also coached from 2001-02.  He received his masters in sports management from the University of San Francisco in 2002.