Years in hockey helped teach Tigers GM
Greenberg learned to link scouting, development
Jeff Greenberg is the general manager of the Detroit Tigers.
Greenberg, who reports to president of baseball operations Scott Harris, was hired by the Tigers in September 2023, following stints as an executive with the Chicago Cubs (2012-22) in baseball and Chicago Blackhawks (2022-23) in hockey.
He graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 2008 and Columbia Law School in 2011. He completed internships with the Pittsburgh Pirates, Arizona Diamondbacks and Major League Baseball while in school.
Greenberg talked to the Free Press, joining a recent episode of the “Days of Roar” podcast, about his journey to becoming the general manager of the Tigers. (On the podcast, Greenberg also discussed how the roster for the 2024 Tigers was built through free agency, trades and homegrown talent, plus a couple of top prospects in the minor leagues.)
You grew up in Pittsburgh and grew up playing hockey, and you worked for an NHL team as an associate general manager before joining the Tigers. How long did you play that sport?
“I grew up in Pittsburgh. I was born (in 1985) the year after the Penguins drafted Mario Lemieux, so I was part of that wave in Pittsburgh that came up with Lemieux and those really good Penguins teams in the early 90s. I was pretty spoiled. They won two (Stanley) Cups. I fell in love with the game, and I fell in love with baseball at the same time. I was definitely a sports nut at a very young age. The Pirates were good around the same time, winning the division three years in a row. I fell in love with both sports and started playing hockey and baseball when I was 5. I wasn’t great at either, but I was probably a little better on the hockey side. I went to Penn and played on the club team there. I obviously had a really unique opportunity to jump into hockey on the professional side after 16-17 years of working in baseball. It was an incredible experience. I learned a ton and really enjoyed working with the Blackhawks.”
What do you remember about your first internship with the Pirates in 2006?
“It’s changed a lot. We were a pretty small group at that point. I think internships have changed quite a bit. The expansion of baseball operations and front offices in general, even at that internship level, there’s a little more specialization now. Back then, I got to do a little bit of everything. There were only — on a day-to-day basis — probably six to eight of us in the office. A couple other interns, as well, one of whom was actually David Sterns, who’s now the president of the (New York) Mets. I just got to jump into everything: pro scouting, amateur scouting, getting ready for the draft, player development, some advance (scouting) stuff, some video stuff. It was a great experience being able to see a little bit of everything. I worked with people who were very accommodating, very inclusive. It was a huge part of who I’ve become and what I’ve been able to do.”
From what I understand, you helped create systems and strategies for scouting and player development with the Cubs. What does that actually look like, transitioning from doing a whole bunch of things to a specialization?
“We talk about it a lot here, just the importance of connectivity between all the different functions of your organization, connecting how you’re scouting to how you’re developing your players, and how you’re connecting those things to what’s going on at the major-league level. How are you fostering the right environments to create those connections? It sounds relatively easy. I think it’s actually pretty hard to do. In some ways, it’s become more difficult as there’s more technology producing more information. We have so many bright people across the organization in different areas with different specialties taking that information, extracting analysis and insights from that information and then bringing it all back together to inform how we’re making good decisions, how we’re taking that information and really filtering it to our coaches and ultimately our players to put our players in the best position possible to get better through every step of the way. There’s a lot that goes into that from a system standpoint, from a process standpoint, from a culture standpoint, and it takes a lot of work. We spent a ton of time talking through how to continually make those things better. I don’t think you ever really reach a point where you feel like you’ve crossed the finish line and have it figured out. I think it’s a constant evolution. But I think that experience at the Cubs, that broad-based experienced, was super helpful. I think going into hockey, going into a different sport, and trying to solve similar problems in a sport you haven’t really seen before was really illuminating, really useful.”
The general manager seat was vacant for a year, but did you figure that you would be asked to become the general manager after Scott Harris was hired in September 2022 as the president of baseball operations because of the relationship?
“No, it wasn’t really something that I gave too much thought to, just because I was really, really busy at the Blackhawks, and Scott jumped into things here and was really busy. I think it was a case where both of us were really focused on what we were doing. It was really enjoying what I was doing in hockey with the Blackhawks, and I was really focused on doing everything I could to help that organization move things forward. It wasn’t necessarily something I was expecting. Obviously, Scott and I had a long history and a really good relationship from the sevenplus years we worked together at the Cubs. I think it made those conversations, once that process started, a little easier to have that history, that familiarity, and when I came on board, we were able to hit the ground running. But it wasn’t necessarily something I was expecting before the process began.”
How does what you learned with the Blackhawks in the NHL apply to what you’re doing with the Tigers in MLB?
“A lot of it goes back to what we were talking about earlier in terms of trying to build those foundational things that leads to creating a healthy organization. How can you create that connection from your scouting group to your development group? How do you funnel those things up to the major-league level or the NHL level? How do you bring all your people together to do those things most effectively to support how you’re making decisions and how you’re creating an environment for your players to succeed and get better? They’re obviously completely different sports, but I think there’s a lot of commonality in terms of how you can go about trying to create those things. Coming from baseball and going into a brand new sport like hockey, trying to tackle some of those challenges in a new sport where you have to learn a new environment, learn the culture, it was useful, and then coming back to baseball and applying some of those things. It’s not easy. We spent a ton of time constantly trying to find ways to make it better, but those were experiences that I think have served me well.”
You’ve designed systems to meet the visions of top executives, like Epstein and Hoyer with the Cubs. This is now your vision and Scott’s vision for the Tigers. What are some of those systems, and how does it feel to have that level of responsibility?
“It’s an exciting opportunity. I said this at my opening press conference, one of the things that made this opportunity so exciting was there’s a lot of good things being done here across the organization. It was really clear going through the interview process to come here, some of the things that were in place, some of that momentum that you could really feel and observe on the scouting end, on the development end, obviously some of the progress that took place at the major league level last year. A lot of what we’re trying to do is just continue to move those things forward, continue to try to create connection across the organization to foster consistently good decision-making, create that environment of relentless development, where we know regardless of where a player is on his timeline — whether we’re talking about an 18 year old in rookie ball or a major-league veteran with the big league club — we’re creating that environment where they’re in the best position possible to succeed. Those are challenging things to try to get right and push forward. You never feel like you have it all figured out. To come into that environment and have those opportunities with Scott and A.J. and our entire leadership group, it’s exciting stuff.”
epetzold@freepress.com him