Cubs Rumors: Jared Porter favored to become team’s new GM

The Diamondbacks Assistant GM Jared Porter is considered the “heavy favorite” to rejoin Jed Hoyer as the next General Manager of the Chicago Cubs .

Now that Jed Hoyer is settling in as President of Baseball Operations, the Chicago Cubs are searching for an outside face to join the organization in the GM role. While they don’t seem to be in a major hurry to make the call, they do have an old friend in mind for the position. Sahadev Sharma (subscription required) reported that Jared Porter, Assistant GM for the Diamondbacks and former Cubs Director of Pro Scouting, is the “heavy favorite” to take over as GM.

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Porter has a bit of a history with Hoyer and Theo Epstein, both with the Cubs and with the Red Sox. Porter’s career began with the Red Sox during their curse-breaking 2004 campaign and he’s earned four rings so far: three in Boston and one in Chicago. He’s held numerous positions in both organizations, though he mostly stayed on the side of player development and scouting in the past. Before the 2017 season, he left the Cubs to become Senior Vice President and Assistant GM in the Diamondbacks organization.

Porter makes sense from the perspective of familiarity for Hoyer. Given their history under two Epstein regimes, it should be easier to bring him up to speed with the Cubs’ offseason plans than a lesser known quantity.

His background in scouting, as Cubs Insider points out, also makes Porter perfect for the position given the recent promotion of Craig Breslow to Assistant GM and the indication that Dan Kantrovitz, the team’s Vice President of Scouting, could take on a greater role this season.

Before the Cubs’ overtures to Porter, he was a finalist for the Angels GM position, though he lost out to Perry Minasian. He was heavily speculated to be on the short list for teams in the search for front office personnel and Diamondbacks GM Mike Hazen knew it was likely he and fellow Assistant GM Amiel Sawdaye would eventually move on to greater roles elsewhere.

While it is also speculated that Sawdaye, along with former Marlins President Michael Hill, could also be considered for the position, it’s hard to see a world where Porter doesn’t get the call. He’s the best of both worlds in terms of bringing in someone outside of the organization but with enough knowledge of organization, as a whole, and Hoyer to slot in easily in the front office. He’s also spent four years now under Hazen’s wing in Arizona, so he’s more than ready to take a step up.