Cubs name Jason McLeod senior VP of player personnel

Jason McLeod has been one of the top three executives under the Theo Epstein regime with the Cubs. Along with Theo as President of Baseball Operations and Jed Hoyer as General Manager, McLeod has been Senior Vice President of Amateur Scouting and Player Development, basically in charge of drafting and the farm system.

The Cubs announced Wednesday that McLeod would be taking on a new role with the organization as Senior Vice President of Player Personnel. The team says that in this new role, McLeod will be involved in all aspects of the Major League operation with particular focus on the roster construction and day-to-day workings of the Major League club.

“Jason has made immense contributions to the organization in his eight years supervising Amateur Scouting and Player Development,” said Theo Epstein, Cubs President of Baseball Operations in a statement. “He helped build and grow two departments that were crucial in the Cubs’ rebuild, championship and run of sustained success. As his career has evolved, Jason is prepared for new challenges at the Major League level, where his strengths in evaluation, development and culture-building will be quite impactful.”

Practically, this means the Cubs will be looking for a new person to lead amateur scouting and player development. Whether this means they aren’t happy with McLeod in that role, or simply wish to move him to another part of the operation, isn’t clear yet and might never be. What appears to be clear is that the Cubs will have a new voice in amateur scouting and in particular, leading next year’s draft. Or, it could partly be motivated by this:

It’s an interesting somewhat lateral move. As always, we await developments.