Article: Jason Kanzler Named Cubs' Director of Player Development

[Seth Stohs]

Recently, the Cubs announced that Jason Banner, who had been the organization's VP of Player Development, had been promoted to an Assistant GM role. On Monday afternoon, we learned that Jason Kanzler is the new Director of Player Development.

Image courtesy of Erik Williams-USA TODAY Sports

Michael Schwab of The Juice Box Journal substack, a site that covers the Houston Astros, tweeted that "Jason Kanzler is joining the Chicago Cubs as their Director of Player Development."  

Kanzler has spent the past two seasons as a hitting coach with the Houston Astros. 

A native of upstate New York, Kanzler went to the University of Buffalo to play baseball. He was a three-year starter who really hit well over his final two seasons. He showed off his ability to fill a box score, with extra-base hits, stolen bases, some homers, and a powerful arm. He was a two-time collegiate Gold Glove center fielder. 

The Minnesota Twins used their 20th-round draft pick in 2013 to select Kanzler. In 2014, he split the season between Low-A Cedar Rapids and High-A Fort Myers and hit a combined .282/.344/.444, with 11 doubles, 9 triples, 12 home runs, and 27 stolen bases. He had a huge home run to help lead the Miracle to the 2014 Florida State League championship. 

After being released following the 2015 season, Kanzler became a teacher. He coached in the Cape Cod League. Then he joined the Astros organization and had coaching and coordinator positions in the minor leagues. For the past three years, he has been a hitting coach in the big leagues for the Houston Astros. 

Now, Kanzler will lead player development for the Chicago Cubs. The title is impressive, and the responsibilities are a bit daunting. Ultimately, this person is responsible for the development of every minor leaguer in the organization, from the minor-league veterans in Triple A to the new players in the rookie leagues. He will also be responsible for hiring and firing coaches and coordinators, as well as budgeting for the technology and the analytics and the videographers and everything that brings together a minor-league system. 

In addition, Ryan Otero has been named the organization's Director of Pitching, a job previously held by Craig Breslow. Otero is an internal promotion, who has steadily advanced during his six-plus years with the organization, and will be tasked with carrying forward the good work Breslow was doing for the organization.

More On Jason Kanzler
- Kernels' Jason Kanzler Keeps Proving Himself - Steve Buhr (6/17/14)
- Twins Hangouts Interview with Jason Kanzler - Seth Stohs/Jeremy Nygaard (10/14/14) 

Great discussion on his big home run in the FSL championship, playing in cold weather, and his legendary mustache! He talked about playing alongside Byron Buxton in the outfield and playing for Doug Mientkiewicz. The below interview is really interesting, to hear Kanzler talk about his minor-league career and development. 

What do you think of these hires? Let's discuss them, while we wait for the team to complement behind-the-scenes changes with on-field talent infusions.

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[craig]

That's an important role.  Interesting that Hoyer is going with some very young, relatively inexperienced guys for these two key positions. 

1. Kantzler is 33. 
2. Otero, the new pitching boss, is 30. 
3. Kantzler's transition seems an uncommon one, to jump from big-league staff, #3 hitting coach, to minor-league PD boss.  

I'm guessing both must be impressive personalities to have advanced so quickly.  Houston has seemed on cutting edge of PD and hitting ideas, so maybe Kantzler has some insights that will be helpful for some of our guys and their challenges?  

Young guys with a lot of hunger and ambition can work really hard and pursue ideas, so I trust Cubs were thoughtful in both hires.  

In Kantzler's case, I'm kinda glad to reach outside the organization.  For so much of Theo's reign, it seemed all he did was hire Boston guys, and the organization ended up being way behind the curve.  So I kinda think it's refreshing to bring in outside guys.  

Hoping both end up being really sharp guys who have favorable impact.  

[Bertz]

Jed's done a really good job of bringing in well credentialed voices from multiple different orgs and GM trees.  Like I'd love to poach some Twins/Mariners folks at some point but broadly I would be surprised if the org falls way behind in any area given how actively they are cycling in new blood from smart orgs.  The Theo era had a lot of Boston retreads.  They generally seemed to be smart folks but if every single person has that Theo throughline you're still missing something.

[Jason Ross]

Interesting hire and an interesting path to being the head of player development. Not super unlike Craig Breslow, really, when you consider he was a player who quickly was placed into the position of "Head of Player Development" despite youth/lack of experience. If there's one thing that Breslow had over Kanzler is that "smartest man in baseball" moniker following Ivy League educated Breslow, but I think that's a bit overblown. Going with a coach with hitting background over pitching background is also an interesting wrinkle. Assume Otero continues down a similar path as Breslow in terms of pitching dev, but Kanzler gives them  bit of a hitting focus too.