The Cubs’ first-year front office borrowed from the Miami Marlins player development in the continuing reshape of the organization Wednesday when it filled its farm director job with Brandon Hyde.
Hyde, 38, was brought in this year as the Cubs’ minor-league field coordinator after spending last season as the Marlins’ bench coach and five seasons before that managing players such as Giancarlo Stanton and Logan Morrison in one of the more productive farm systems in baseball.
“This opportunity is exciting for me,” said Hyde, who spent much of the season evaluating players throughout the Cubs’ system. “Two of our lower-level clubs [rookie-level Mesa and low-A Boise] clubs are going to be in the playoffs, and a lot of teams showed improvement in the second half.
“We have a lot of good things coming. And [Boise’s] a really exciting group of players, and we’re excited about the new draft of guys. So there are a lot of good thigns on the horizon.”
Team officials, including manager Dale Sveum, already have started working with Hyde on a specific philosophy and checklist of expectations for developing and promoting prospects.
“When you’re starting over again, and when you’ve got new people in these high positions like that, we want to build this minor league system to where we have complete players when they get here,” Sveum said. “An organization’s got to have that kind of [methodology] etched in stone: `This is the way we want things, and you’re not moving up to the different levels until these things are done.”
Hyde replaces Oneri Fleita, who was fired two weeks ago just one year after ownership gave him a four-year extension.
Also interviewed for the job were Alex Suarez, the Cubs player development/international scouting coordinator, and former Atlanta Braves farm director Kurt Kemp, now a professional scout for the Pittsburgh Pirates.
Hyde spent four seasons as a catcher and first baseman in the White Sox system after signing as an undrafted free agent out of Long Beach State.
