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"The Rays have formally announced the departure of longtime Assistant General Manager Carlos Rodriguez. When Chaim Bloom (current StL GM) departed the Rays to run the Red Sox in 2019, the team did not elevate a General Manager due to the equity found in talent between Peter Bendix, James Click, and Carlos Rodriguez. Since that time, James Click was recruited to be the General Manager of the Houston Astros in 2020 (winning the World Series in 2022), and Peter Bendix was named General Manager ahead of the 2022 season before being recruited to become President of Baseball Operations of the Miami Marlins after the 2023 season..." https://www.draysbay.com/rays/85871/rays-announce-departure-of-agm-carlos-rodriguez This article neatly summarizes the rationale for Rodriguez's departure. Basically as part of a four headed Asst GM situation and under both Eric Neander and advisor Jon Daniels (ex Rangers)...there was nowhere left to go organizationally.

"As for Rodriguez, it’s not surprising to see the Cubs explore poaching a Rays’ executive. The Rays have proven adept at building a farm system that should keep Tampa competitive for years to come. Former Rays’ executives hold top positions in Los Angeles, Boston, and Houston, and they’ve proven successful both in and outside of Tampa Bay. Rodriguez is their vice president of player development and international scouting. For the Cubs, they are desperate to build a development team that can do a better job of sustaining success than their previous efforts." https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2021/10/cubs-narrow-search-for-new-general-manager.html Out of those Cubs' interviews, James Harris went on to interview for the Houston Astros' GM position and is still one of three Asst GMs with Cleveland under Chris Antonetti and Mike Chernoff. https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2022/01/guardians-announce-several-organizational-promotions.html

What's the latest out of this new role?

What happened to Dan Fabian/ND that ran things for at least 10-15 years?

Do we know who is leading the analytics department at the moment? They fired Matt Koenig last year and it’s hard to tell on the website who replaced him. I know they have made changes to better engrain analytics throughout the org. I’m assuming the new “Acquisitions” department led by Matt Grabowski reflects an analytics driven counterpart to Gene Watson’s old school pro scouting function. Regardless, I think both of your ideas make a ton of sense for us.

TLR lol...Rodriguez is more than experienced enough to be the actual GM.

I enjoy how annoyed he is here. They had 7 guys drafted on the rule 5 that year? Covid or not that is crazy depth. https://www.mlb.com/rays/video/carlos-rodriguez-on-rule-5-draft

What would you guys say are the Sox biggest system wide needs? I would say that they need power, and that they need outfielders.

I love this hire for the Sox. Some great minds from around the game and outside the org have bought into what Getz is building. I'm curious to know what his role is with the Sox, he has a background in scouting, player development, and the international side of things, departments that are headed by others currently. There's two front office moves that I would like to see the Sox make. I would love for them to hire away someone to be their head of analytics, and I would like to see Getz bring in an experienced GM as an advisor, something I'm still shocked that he hasn't done.

The main point he never even pitched once for CLE in the majors...

Promoting the most diverse group of coaches and front office execs over the years of any team in baseball over the last 45 years, arguably. Loyalty Loyalty Loyalty ... double-edges sword. Add to the list as you wish...this just off top of my head in reaction to Carlos Rodriguez front office announcement. Kim Ng J.Barfield Carlos Rodriguez Kenny Williams...more diversity than other 29 teams' front offices combined arguably Jin Wong formerly KC contracts guy, Bobby Witt, Jr. extension Venable/Jose Leger (DR Academy) Terry Francona R.Renteria TLR Grifol C.Montoyo (even if Robert didn't know him) Ozzie Guillen and family (almost hired Cito Gaston) Man Soo Lee ... first Korean coach in the majors, 2005 WS team Willie Harris Jason Bourgeois Marcus Thames D.Boston/Dave Wilder (not so great) Loyalty to most of those guys, except Razor Shines, Raines, S.Santos and Vizquel (beyond obvious reasons there) All the various Sox ambassadors like Baines, Minnie Minoso, Jose Contreras Entire long history of the Cuban Connection... L.Aparicio/C.Carrasquel Don Wakamatsu Takatsu/Iguchi Joey Cora coaching tree/Camp Cora Pre-JR (Can thank Veeck here...who was an absolute pioneer starting with Satchel Paige) Larry Doby later served as the second black manager in the majors with the Chicago White Sox, and in 1995 was appointed to a position in the AL's executive office...played with Sox twice and retired from MLB with them before going to Japan to finish career. Two biggest negatives to me were treatment of Frank Thomas (KW 50% to blame) as well as HoFer Dick Allen.

Tobias Myers could still be pretty good but yeah, that is a pretty impressive assessment of offensive talent. Hopefully, Rodriguez was the dude who identified Caminero as a target.

If the Ishbias commit to privately financing a baseball stadium there, I sure hope so.

They don't have to agree to anything. The Bears will whine, make empty threats, then they'll build their stadium and pay their tax bill. They're not leaving Chicago for Hammand or Gary. If they leave it's just a matter of time some billionaire with enough ambition and ego builds a competing suburban stadium development (see Ishiba) and completely guts the a NWI stadium monopoly on holding premium events in Chicago. It also opens up the Bears to potentially encouraging Chicago (or even a different suburban development) from making a play for a different NFL franchise. If you build on the Chicago River developers will line up, if you build in AH developers will line up. Building in NWI is like building in Waukegan, you can, but you shouldn't and you won't. If your gonna make a threat like this you threaten to move a across the country, there's no way Kevin Warren could with a straight face on camera make a legitimate claim they're considering Gary Indiana.

You don't think they'd find a buyer for 300 acres of prime, undeveloped real estate close to 2 major expressways and a Metra stop? Did they overpay for the land? Serious question, I'm not being facetious. What does that kind of parcel right in the heart of a thriving area go for?

https://www.draysbay.com/2021/11/21/22793071/the-rays-newest-prospect-junior-caminero On the other hand, the quietest great trade in MLB history... Tobias Myers (later started for Milwaukee in 2024-25 after CLE minors and Charlotte AAA flops) for budding young 3B Junior Caminero. Myers was a 40 man roster crunch victim in Tampa.

Here’s a thought — perhaps Getz would be better served in an EVP role like Kenny toward his end, with Rodriguez actually being the GM. Getz has shown that he is better at the operations side of a baseball front office moreso than the scouting and choosing of talent himself. I’d be down with that…

nevermind. wander has nothing to do with anything here is the point.

I really like this hire, nice job Getz.

Eh, so he was supposed to know that Wander Franco was a pedo? That’s a stretch, unless he was able to do forensics on Wander’s PC/laptop/phone while he was scouting him.

?

Here's the HUGE elephant in the room that was excised from his official bios. Both a plus on the scouting board, but a huge minus on the character/maturity/background side of things, quite obviously. It turned the fate of the entire Rays' organization around, and led dealing most of their core veterans away the last 2-3 seasons. "Wander Franco, who hails from Bani, Dominican Republic, was scouted and signed by the Rays' director of international scouting Carlos Rodriguez and Dominican Republic scouting supervisor Danny Santana."

Dudes be updating their resumes. No sure thing with the Sox anymore!

Seems like with the Bears situation easy PR move to try and stay and develop in the city.

Royals personnel seeing this news wrt to their career prospects: