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  • A Brain Drain Could Be the Unexpected Danger of the Cubs' Offseason

    Matt Trueblood

    By Matt Trueblood

    On Wednesday, the Red Sox announced the hiring of Craig Breslow as their new chief baseball officer. Breslow is a huge loss for the Cubs, for whom he was an assistant GM and the director of pitching. He might not be the last one.

    Image courtesy of © Matt Kartozian-USA TODAY Sports

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    When a team achieves a major success, they can count on being raided by other teams for the smart people who built the roster and got the most out of them. The Cubs lost plenty of front office personnel in the wake of their 2016 World Series title, and coaches Brandon Hyde and Dave Martinez got managerial gigs elsewhere. After a few deep October runs, you can stomach that kind of attrition. Sometimes, though, that same process begins much sooner--maybe even soon enough to disrupt a dynasty before it can begin.

    Breslow's departure will put pressure on the Cubs. They've finally built a pitching development infrastructure that works, after being unable to do so during the decade-long regime of Theo Epstein and Jed Hoyer. Breslow was its chief architect. He's never been the only person involved, and the team long ago made implementation of their system the responsibility of several people, but this is a material loss. 

    The bleeding might not stop with Breslow, though. Andy Green is interviewing for the open managerial job in Cleveland. If he doesn't get it, he might interview in other places, too. Mike Napoli could also draw interest, including from the Angels. One of the dangers of a rebuild is that the other 29 teams don't stop and wait to see how your project progresses. They continue to behave opportunistically. While the Cubs try to spend this winter shoring up the weak spots on their roster, they now face the added perils and time crunch of vultures from elsewhere in the league trying to swoop in and pull away some of their most valuable off-field resources.

    That Tommy Hottovy remains as the pitching coach softens the blow of Breslow skipping town. That the team has both Hoyer and Carter Hawkins to run the front office from the top and Dan Kantrovitz directing their scouting efforts can inspire some confidence that the team will keep going in the right direction. Still, these little dents can eventually misshape an entire operation. The Cubs have to work hard, now, not only to replace the departing players, coaches and executives, but to continuously upgrade. 

    If they're lucky, Breslow will be the only major loss from the Cubs front office this offseason. Even if that's true, though, they need to make an acquisition on a similar scale. Lots of dust is left to settle, in the coming fortnight. Many jobs still need to be filled, throughout the league. That might mean that the Cubs can get ahold of some talent they didn't expect to find available. It won't win them games as directly or as obviously as adding players, which they certainly need to do, but having a well-staffed front office redounds to the team's benefit, too. 

    It will be interesting to see how this biggest move changes the Cubs' pitching philosophy. Breslow specialized in giving pitchers without elite stuff the ability to thrive despite that shortcoming, The Cubs have found creative ways to change movement characteristics and shift pitch mixes to improve pitchers' performance. Their next step is to integrate those subtle aspects of the science of pitching with an increased focus on finding and landing pitchers with good raw stuff--especially velocity. 

    Of course, that integration isn't the sole (or even primary) demesne of a pitching director. It's not Hottovy's job, and wasn't Breslow's. Much of it comes down to the jobs of Kantrovitz, Hoyer, and Hawkins--using scarce resources to acquire more talented pitchers in the first place. Whoever populates the lower levels of the front office, the team needs to populate its pitching staff with more durable and powerful arms.

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    Bertz

    This certainly isn't good news, but at the same time I'm not super worried about it?  We got three years out of Breslow, so a lot of his processes and ideas and such should have matriculated through the org.  He's a bright guy and I'm sure always learning, but I doubt at this point he has some "one weird trick" that's going out the door.

    There's also this, which IMO is a great point:

    Even if we pretend Breslow is the best pitch design guy in the league, there's probably value in bringing in someone from another smart org like Seattle or Tampa.  Like for instance, the Cubs appear to be awesome at teaching/fixing sinkers, sliders, and cutters.  But not so much curves and changeups.  Adding a high level resource with expertise there on top of our sinker/slider factory might be the trick to reaching pitching Nirvana like the Rays.

    I will say, if Tommy Hottovy goes anywhere that's when I will be absolutely apoplectic.  He is a guy who has the smarts necessary for a FO role AND ALSO can communicate these ideas in an actionable way to players AND ALSO can catch crap mid game and advise on on the fly adjustments.  He's certainly the most valuable non-uniformed person in the org, and probably more valuable than most of our actual players.  Early returns on Dustin Kelly are pretty glowing as well, but it'll take another year or two to be sure if he's on Tommy's level.

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    1908_Cubs

    Kantrovitz sounds like he might end up with the Mets.  I've really enjoyed the Cubs drafting strategy, and losing both Breslow and Kantrovitz would be pretty hard to overcome in the same offseason.

    Edited by 1908_Cubs
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    Bertz

    I'm not going to be torn up about Kantrovitz?  Certainly not going to horsefeathers talk him, but IMO he's mostly just fine?

    - 2020 was a horsefeathering disaster.  COVID hitting in your first year in a new org is absolutely a fair excuse, but it's going to end up as just a garbage draft.  We're going to end up with Luke Little making an impact as a reliever approximately 4 years after the fact and nothing else. 

    - 2021 looks pretty good.  Wicks and Triantos are both borderline top 100 guys, though woth fairly limited ceiling, while Franklin and especially Gray have some potential to be guys still.  That said look at that first round again.  Colson Montgomery and Gavin Williams went immediately after Wicks, while Jackson Merrill and Carson Williams went like half a dozen picks later.  Kantrovitz did well but let's not do backflips over this draft

    - 2022 again looks pretty good?  On the one hand it's a HUGE feather in Dan's cap to pounce on Horton.  On the other hand if he'd just gone chalk and taken Brooks Lee we wouldn't really be any worse off?  What isn't up for debate is the later rounds.  McGeary, Rujano, et al looks pretty inspired

    - 2023 is way too early to say.  Matt Shaw's hot start was awesome, though a polished first round college bat should wreak havoc in A ball

    Like I'm certainly not rooting for him to take the Mets job, but if I were grading Kantrovitz I'd give him like a B+, and I'm not going to lose sleep over losing a B+ head of amateur scouting

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    Transmogrified Tiger

    I dunno, if you're gonna hedge that Wicks and Triantos aren't high ceiling it seems like you can't equivocate in the opposite direction on Horton v. Lee.  Lee's floor is a bit different than Wicks/Triantos but that's also a function of where in the 1st round he was picked.  Of the (potential) departures, I'd be most bummed about Kantrovitz, and least concerned about Green(I don't want to say he doesn't matter at all, but it's a lot closer to that than being super consequential).

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    1908_Cubs
    36 minutes ago, Bertz said:

    I'm not going to be torn up about Kantrovitz?  Certainly not going to horsefeathers talk him, but IMO he's mostly just fine?

    - 2020 was a horsefeathering disaster.  COVID hitting in your first year in a new org is absolutely a fair excuse, but it's going to end up as just a garbage draft.  We're going to end up with Luke Little making an impact as a reliever approximately 4 years after the fact and nothing else. 

    - 2021 looks pretty good.  Wicks and Triantos are both borderline top 100 guys, though woth fairly limited ceiling, while Franklin and especially Gray have some potential to be guys still.  That said look at that first round again.  Colson Montgomery and Gavin Williams went immediately after Wicks, while Jackson Merrill and Carson Williams went like half a dozen picks later.  Kantrovitz did well but let's not do backflips over this draft

    - 2022 again looks pretty good?  On the one hand it's a HUGE feather in Dan's cap to pounce on Horton.  On the other hand if he'd just gone chalk and taken Brooks Lee we wouldn't really be any worse off?  What isn't up for debate is the later rounds.  McGeary, Rujano, et al looks pretty inspired

    - 2023 is way too early to say.  Matt Shaw's hot start was awesome, though a polished first round college bat should wreak havoc in A ball

    Like I'm certainly not rooting for him to take the Mets job, but if I were grading Kantrovitz I'd give him like a B+, and I'm not going to lose sleep over losing a B+ head of amateur scouting

    I've got disagree with this.  I think the Chicago Cubs draft strategy between 2021-2023 is absolute as good as you could have. I'm not blaming a soul for 2020. A year in which scouting was slashed and dashed from the organization, a year of no HS seniors, or any real college ball, and only 5 rounds. Drafting in the MLB is hard to begin with, and 2020 was about as hard as humanly possible. The Cubs, post-2020, expertly scouting the 2020 draft class, picking up PCA and Caissie via trades, which is certainly in part of Kantrovitz being head of scouting. So while I think it's fair to say that the 2020 class the Cubs piced has generally failed, they've made up for it by grabbing two of their top-four or five prospects from that very same draft (and developing them, almost exclusively).

    I think 2021  gets an A- from me, We can debate whether they could have gone with Montgomery, but taking a SP who's already made his way to the MLB and has the looks of FIP beater, GB% machine. There's polish to go, but it's hard to knock that pick. 2nd round picks are losers most of the time, and the Cubs went and grabbed a borderline-top-100 prospect who has done nothing but hit. I'm a little skeptical of where he plays, but MiLB defense can be worked on. Then you have Drew Gray, BJ Murray (in the 12th!!), Zac Leigh (who could be a future mid-inning BP arm), and Riley Martin is interesting enough that I think he makes the MLB some day somewhere. I don't think you can realistically ask for much more.

    2022?  This is what an A+ draft looks like one year past. I was never super hot on Brooks Lee, personally . He's fine, but he's a tweener defensively and offensively there's nothing he's done that's blown me out of the water . Lots of contact, but a pretty mediocre showing in AAA so far. Cade Horton looks every bit of a TORP, and there's no way they get Ferris with Lee. Birdsell in the 5th has MLB upside, McCullough has MLB upside (I think more as a BP arm), Rujano's taken big steps forward, McGeary is MLB upside as a 15th round pick, and we still have some bunch of HS prospects in Paciolla, McGwire, Wheat and Mule who have barely seen action.

    2023: Too early so far, but I love the strategy.

    Dan Kantrovitz is a damn fine drafter.  The Cubs have crushed it in areas where people complained they failed in the mid-2010's; outside of the first round.  2021 and 2022 both have brought borderline top-100 prospects, have found winners in typical "senior-sign" territories of rounds 3-10, and found MLB upside players in rounds 11+. I think he's gotten no grade lower than a solid A from me.  I think Breslow is a big loss. I think Kantrovitz is as big of a loss, if not more.

    Edited by 1908_Cubs
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    TomtheBombadil

    Maybe most interesting about losing Kantrovitz is that Hawkins may be making his first major FO hire and in general more of his Cleveland background (lots of up the middle LHH and switch hitters, contact,  command pitchers, they draft alot of 17 YOs) will influence draft and amateur signings. Cubs have the money to pay for power Cleveland won’t in the amateur world. That‘s riveting, Cleveland has been really well run with alot of FO continuity for a long time. Kantrovitz did great, org is in great position to make some moves now and will benefit for years and years from just those few drafts, but I thought 2023 was a little mechanical even for him and not particularly hard for “anyone” to pull off. He’s got a great eye for LHP with Little, Wicks, and Ferris all looking pretty srs 

    As far as brain drain: he may not be popular but Hoyer is the brain. He‘s run two very different rebuilds over a decade+ in two different roles, hired two different FOs, coaching staffs, is building two completely rosters and orgs etc. He’s got two hires running FOs right now, Martinez has a WS ring…Ross is next and he’s built what seems like a fantastic young staff with Hottovy and Kelly no real threats to leave yet, Napoli and Green getting manager interest already…They can also just sign Ohtani since getting monster players still is key to building great baseball teams 

    Edited by TomtheBombadil
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