Arizona Diamondbacks Begin Search For New General Manager
By Chris Looy
The Arizona Diamondbacks will be looking for their fifth general manager in the last seven years.
After firing general manager Dave Stewart and manager Chip Hale following a disastrous 69-93 season, the Arizona Diamondbacks are in the process of looking for a new person to run their organization.
According to Boston Globe writer Nick Cafardo, the Diamondbacks are set to interview five different candidates:
Source: Bryan Minniti, Mike Bell, Ray Montgomery, Peter Woodfork and Kim Ng are all in the running for D'Backs GM job.
— Nick Cafardo (@nickcafardo) October 6, 2016
J.P. Hoornstra of the Southern California News Group added another name to the list on Friday:
Sources: Ned Colletti is a candidate for the Arizona Diamondbacks' GM vacancy. https://t.co/N7P0V2TQUO #Dodgers
— J.P. Hoornstra (@jphoornstra) October 7, 2016
Four of those six names mentioned already have experience within the Diamondbacks organization. Minniti joined Arizona just last season and is the assistant general manager, while Bell is the club’s current director of player personnel.
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Montgomery played briefly in the big leagues with the Houston Astros before dedicating his career to scouting, serving as the Diamondbacks’ scouting director from 2010-14. He was eventually hired on by the Milwaukee Brewers, where he currently is the vice president of amateur scouting and special assistant to the general manager.
Woodfork, the senior vice president for baseball operations for MLB who oversees umpiring and instant replay, spent five years as the assistant general manager for the Diamondbacks.
Ng is also a senior vice president for baseball operations at MLB headquarters. She has been considered several times as a general manager candidate when vacancies have arose in the past, most notably in 2005, when she interviewed with the Los Angeles Dodgers but the organization chose to go with Colletti instead. If Ng is hired, she would become the first female general manager in MLB history.
Colletti was the general manager for the Dodgers from 2005-14 before giving way to current president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman, and led the Dodgers to the playoffs in six of his nine seasons. He is still with the team as a senior advisor, but is not involved in the decision-making process any longer.
Next: Oakland A's 2016 Season Review
Whoever the next general manager of the Arizona Diamondbacks is, they will have some tough decisions to make for a team that hasn’t put together a winning season in the last five years, the longest such stretch in franchise history.