The Guardians announced 20 new promotions and hirings within the organization, including some prominent new titles for members of the baseball operations department. Assistant general manager Matt Forman was given the additional title of executive VP, essentially placing him under only president of baseball operations Chris Antonetti and GM Mike Chernoff on the team’s decision-making pyramid. Eric Binder and James Harris were promoted to assistant GM roles, as the duo joins Sky Andrecheck as Cleveland’s AGMs.
Today’s announcement helps fill in some gaps left behind by some notable departures from the Guardians’ front office earlier this winter. Former assistant GM Carter Hawkins left the Guardians to become the Cubs’ new general manager back in October, while former special assistant Don Poplin left for a similar position within the Royals front office and former director of amateur scouting John Mirabelli departed for a special assistant role with Nationals GM Mike Rizzo.
With these longtime employees moving onto other teams, the Guardians responded by promoting some other familiar names. Forman is entering his 10th season with the organization after starting as a baseball ops intern, and he has worked as an assistant GM for the last five years.
Binder (nine seasons in Cleveland) previously worked as the VP of baseball ops. As per the team’s press release, “Binder will expand his responsibilities across baseball operations, while continuing to lead the organization’s pitching efforts and supporting the Major League field staff with strategic planning and activities.”
Harris (five seasons in Cleveland) worked as the Guardians’ VP and director of player development, and will now “assist in all facets of baseball operations” and “provide macro-level leadership of the player development system along with the Major League and minor league performance areas.” In something of a unique point for a baseball executive, Harris’ previous job before joining the Guardians was working as a football chief of staff under Chip Kelly when Kelly coached the NFL’s Philadelphia Eagles and at the University of Oregon.
Given how often Cleveland’s front office is targeted by other teams, it wouldn’t be a surprise to see any of these names surface in future searches for general managers or other high-ranking roles around the league. Harris has already been a finalist for one high-profile job, as he and Hawkins were both among the finalists for the Cubs’ GM job.
*Cleveland Baseball Club XD
Cleveland’s front office has been picked over so many times that it’s becoming a Ship of Thessius problem. Shapiro went to the Blue Jays and brought a bunch of lieutenants. Huntington went the Pirates and was their GM. Koby Perez became the Orioles’ top international guy, getting poached from Cleveland.
Toronto screwed up when they brought Shapiro in though. Not that he’s a terrible signing but pushing Alex Anthopolous out the back door to get that done wasn’t the best idea.
I was skeptical when it went down myself but it seems to be working out, no? I know the Braves went crazy after August and although a lot credit goes to Alex you can’t hate the position the Blue Jays are in.
Worked out great for braves and decent for Jays but Hammer is correct in that it wasn’t handled well and AA definitely deserved better.
Excellent point, although most fans would like to have a guy like Shapiro running their team.
*Spiders
Guardians sounds like an expansion team.
Your mom sounds like an expansion team.
Arena football
Or a roller derby team
*Tribe
While the comments about the Guardians name change are starting to get old I can’t help but think about the Braves. I’m willing to bet the Braves will feel the pressure to make a name change before the decade is over. Then we’re going to have to do this all over again. One side will scream about how horrible the world is and something about “wokeness.” The other side will pretend to care about sensitivity, political correctness, whatever.
What fun to look forward to.
I want to know when they go after Notre Dame. Do Irish people always want to fight?
How many Assistant GMs do they need?
Every assistant gm needs an assistant gm so infinite.
MLBTR, please remove all comments about the Cleveland team name-change. I’m getting really tired of seeing it every time.
And yes, I AM advocating for censorship of racists.
I’m native american. Still, Cleveland Indians. Censor me all you want, bud.
That’s cool if you still want to call them that, I’m a few years it won’t matter and everyone will get used to guardians. But do we really want every message board flooded with the same thing? An argument in favor of retuning to “Indians” is never going to win so we can get to actually discussing baseball if we move past it. I personally don’t care what they are called but the constant bickering is getting exhaustive
Cool man. For decades tribes have been trying to get them to change their name and many other Natives didn’t like it. Their opinion is just as valid as yours. Don’t know what tribe you’re a part of, but if you don’t like the name change you should probably take it up with them.
Censorship. How progressive of you.
Something these woke sheep’s are used to. Lol
This is a private website, they can censor whoever they want. It’s what you agree to when signing up.
People need to understand that progressive views don’t just allow anyone to say anything they want. There is no such thing as absolute freedom of speech.
There’s a mute button. Do the dirty work yourself
If you don’t like what someone is saying just mute…
Misspelled “virtue signaling”
What about the people who genuinely hold these beliefs that teams should not be named after groups of marginalized American citizens? You can’t just write off everyone who disagrees with you as virtue signaling or SJWs.
The thing you don’t realize is that “virtue signalers” aren’t real. There isn’t a group of people who pretend they hold these principles to look better. Instead, people pejoratively call anyone who brings up social justice an SJW or a virtue signaler in hopes of keeping the status quo, one which keeps people marginalized.
Haha mlbtr removing comments. Did y’all get bought by twitter or Facebook?
Tf is a guardian
All those sites are free to remove whatever content they want and their right to do that is protected. You agreed that your comments could be removed at their discretion when you signed up for this site. Read the terms and conditions.
If you don’t like it, go talk baseball on Parlr.
Crap. I thought these were Cleveland Indians fan promotions.
Buy one ticket, get one free to a another game.