Detroit Tigers introduce Jeff Greenberg as new general manager
“Today is a very exciting day for the Tigers, because we are welcoming a talented executive who cut his teeth in baseball helping the Chicago Cubs,” said Tigers president Scott Harris, who replaced longtime executive Al Avila a year ago. “He’s going to make me better, because we share a deep belief in healthy, challenging debate, full of independent thought and disagreement.”
Harris and Greenberg worked together for the Cubs from 2012-19. While Harris continued to climb the traditional front-office ladder, becoming general manager of the San Francisco Giants in 2019, Greenberg left the Cubs in 2022 and became the associate general manager of the NHL’s Chicago Blackhawks.
“I had a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to jump from baseball into a brand new sport with the Blackhawks, and I can not thank that organization enough for giving me that chance,” he said. “Also, for being so supportive of this move to Detroit.”
Front offices have used dozens of structures for a president/general manager hybrid, but Harris and Greenberg are going back to one they’ve seen first hand – the one that got them their World Series ring.
In Chicago, Theo Epstein served as the team president and Jed Hoyer as the general manager.
“There isn’t really a blueprint for the president/general structure — many front offices do it differently — but we are going to structure it as a true partnership,” Harris said. “We’re not going to divide up departments between us.
“Jeff and I watched Theo and Jeff treat it as a true partnership in Chicago, and we share the belief that two minds are better than one.”
Greenberg arrives at the end of an era in Detroit, with Miguel Cabrera playing the last games of his career. He’s the last link to the team that won AL pennants in 2006 and 2012, along with five straight AL Central championships, but never won a World Series.
The Tigers were swept by the Baltimore Orioles in the 2014 ALDS and haven’t returned to the postseason. Avila oversaw the dismantling of the aging team, but didn’t get much for players like Justin Verlander, Max Scherzer, J.D. Martinez, David Price and Rick Porcello, all of whom won World Series titles after leaving the Tigers.
Detroit lost 310 games from 2017-19, tying the major league record for home losses in 2019. This season will be their seventh straight with a losing record.
“I’ve obviously done my homework, and there’s some positive momentum in a lot of directions at the major-league direction,” Greenberg said. “There are still gaps that exist and we’re going to work as a group on closing them.”