Giants hire Scott Harris as General Manager

As first reported by Jeff Passan, and quickly corroborated by the Giants, the team has hired Cubs Assistant GM Scott Harris as their new general manager. According to the Giants’ press release, while in the Cubs front office, Harris:

assisted in all potential player acquisitions, contract negotiations, and player evaluations while overseeing the research and development department, the salary arbitration process, all baseball operations’ financial strategy and planning, and the high performance department

Harris, who has been with the Cubs for seven years, was their Director of Baseball Operations from November 2012 through December 2017, and was promoted to AGM in January of 2018. He graduated from UCLA with an economics degree in 2009 and got his MBA from the Northwestern School of Business in 2015. Before working for the Cubs, he was in the Nationals front office in 2008, then he was with the Reds in 2010, and he was MLB’s Coordinator of Minor League Operations for two years.

Harris is well thought of in baseball — Passan said he’s “long been seen as a future GM” — and was a big part of the Cubs transforming themselves from perennial also-rans into a perennial playoff team. With the Giants, he’ll be trying to do the same thing.

Back in 2017, Harris talked to Jon Greenberg of The Athletic about those lean early years with the Cubs.

Jed talks about [2013] as the toughest year and I think I agree with him. It was pretty bleak in July and August ... I think the end of 2013 was really a source of optimism for us. We started to see these young guys really perform, really put up numbers in the minor leagues.

Harris is surely hoping to see the same kind of progress in San Francisco, as the team’s farm system, on the rise, will be key to their future playoff hopes. Will the 2020 Giants also be able to jump start their rebuild by replicating the Cubs’ 2013 trade of Scott Feldman and Steve Clevinger for Jake Arrieta and Pedro Strop? Let’s hope so.

Harris is also a native of Redwood City, though there have been suspiciously few references to his being a Giants fan growing up.

As Bryan said when going over the known GM candidates a few days ago:

Anyway, a young, business-savvy, and fiscally prudent contract wizard as the next GM suggests that the Giants could be looking for someone who can spin concepts into reality.

With Harris on board, and the team reportedly close to wrapping up its non-general managerial search, the Giants are presumably just about done with front office work, and ready to get on with the offseason.