D-backs earn high praise for hiring of Mike Hazen
The Arizona Diamondbacks went outside the box with their hiring of Dave Stewart as general manager two years ago, but their choice of Stewart's successor, 40-year-old Mike Hazen, falls smack dab within the mainstream of current baseball orthodoxy.
Hazen, introduced Monday as the D-backs' executive vice present and general manager after serving as Dave Dombrowski's No. 2 with the Red Sox, has worked his way up the front-office ranks -- with involvement in scouting, player development and analytics.
While the D-backs have been subject to criticism for what's been perceived as "old-school thinking" by baseball's intelligentsia, Hazen's hiring has been widely applauded as taking the organization into the modern era.
Peter Gammons quoted a Red Sox official as comparing Hazen to Theo Epstein, past architect of the two championship teams in Boston and current mastermind of the Chicago Cubs teardown and rebuild.
Similar praise came from Cubs GM Jed Hoyer and Blue Jays executives Mark Shapiro and Ben Cherington -- all of whom worked with Hazen.
"Really good hire by them," Hoyer told Jack Magruder of todaysknuckleball.com prior to Game 2 of the NLCS. "It was only a matter of time until he got a job."
Shapiro told Nick Piecoro of azcentral.com that it's hard to imagine a better-prepared candidate.
"Obviously, this is a great opportunity for him to oversee an entire baseball operation, which is something he’s extremely well-prepared to do. And beyond the level of preparation he’s got the leadership skills to be an impact GM.
"I’m not sure you can be better prepared for a job than Mike is."
While some thought the D-backs would have difficulty attracting interest from top-level candidates given the quick hook to the Tony La Russa/Dave Stewart regime, that clearly didn't seem to be the case. FOX Sports MLB Insider Ken Rosenthal reported that they interviewed five candidates in addition to Hazen.
Bottom line: Hazen is highly respected, and consensus is that #DBacks did well to hire him. La Russa likely to remain in another capacity.
— Ken Rosenthal (@Ken_Rosenthal) October 16, 2016
Sources: #DBacks also interviewed J.J. Piccolo, Kim Ng, Peter Woodfork and internal candidates Mike Bell and Bryan Minniti.
— Ken Rosenthal (@Ken_Rosenthal) October 16, 2016
