The Chicago Cubs have hired Julian Green to the newly created position of Vice President of Communications and Community Affairs. This is a move that further establishes Owner Tom Ricketts desire to have baseball operations separate from business operations.
Ordinarily I would not even have a second thought about this move, but I thought about something that could happen. This could actually be Crane Kenney’s eventual replacement. You look at Julian Green’s credentials and his title and he has definitely been hired to help the Chicago Cubs obtain the 300 million dollars needed to renovate Wrigley Field. The same job that Kenney was in charge of for the last two years.
Crane Kenney has already been stripped of his duties over baseball operations with the next Cubs General Manager reporting directly to Tom Ricketts. The Ricketts family will be making this decision with very little or no input from him.
Crane Kenney is slowly being moved out. He is consistently rumored to be an impediment to any hiring of a big time GM because of his meddling in baseball operations. He is rumored to invade the players privacy, all the way to having his own Chicago Cubs authentic jersey made with his name on it.
Julian Green can easily take over his duties if Crane tries to inject himself into the hiring process of the new GM and the manager that will surely soon follow. Maybe Kenney has already impeded the process in some way and that precipitated the Green hiring.
Julian Green has worked for President Barack Obama and former Mayor Richard Daley. I am sure he has also had some dealings with current Mayor Rahm Emanuel. His dealing in the political arena will serve him well when dealing with the Chicago politicians in trying to obtain the 300 million dollars to restore Wrigley Field.
It also will probably not be long, before he is the actual President of the business operations for the Chicago Cubs and Crane Kenney is out.