Reports: Brewers to hire 30-year-old David Stearns as new GM
Roll out the barrell, because the Milwaukee Brewers have found their new general manager. The club has
Sources:%20#Brewers%20expected%20to%20name%20David%20Stearns%20their%20new%20GM. —%20Ken%20Rosenthal%20(@Ken_Rosenthal)%20
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Stearns may be young, but he fits exactly what the Brewers said they were looking for after Melvin announced he was stepping down in August. At the time, Adam McCalvy of MLB.com said the club would “target younger candidates with knowledge of analytics.”
Stearns has put together quite the resume over the past few years, according to McCalvy.
Despite his young age, Stearns already has a long baseball resume. Since graduating from Harvard in 2007, Stearns has worked in the baseball operations departments of the Mets, Pirates, Indians and for the Arizona Fall League and Major League Baseball. His tenure with MLB spanned 2008-11, ending with a stint as manager of labor relations. In that role, Stearns assisted in the arbitration process and worked on the league’s Collective Bargaining Agreement.
From 2011-12, he was director of baseball operations for the Indians, then joined the Astros and GM Jeff Luhnow. Stearns was Houston’s assistant GM for the past three seasons.
With the hire, Stearns will become the youngest general manager in the game. It should be noted that Theo Epstein was hired by the Boston Red Sox at age-28, so Stearns is not the youngest GM ever. Still, as McCalvy points out in his piece, Stearns wasn’t alive when the Brewers went to the World Series in 1982.
Despite his youth, Stearns seems to be well-respected within the game.
Though Astros general manager Jeff Luhnow has yet to comment on losing Stearns, the news probably didn’t come as a major surprise to Luhnow. Back in August, Luhnow told Evan Drellich of the Houston Chronicle he expected Stearns to get a shot with another team now that the Astros were having success.
“There’s several people in our organization that have GM potential, and David’s one of them,” Luhnow said. “I expect over the coming years, as we have success, they’ll get opportunities at least to interview.”
Stearns should have his work cut out for him in Milwaukee. The Brewers were doomed by an early poor start, which led to Ron Roenicke’s firing. While they’ve been better under Craig Counsell, the team is currently 63-86.
The good thing is, Stearns won’t have to deal with many big contracts moving forward. Ryan Braun is signed through at least 2020, and Matt Garza is signed through 2017, but no other member of the club is owed significant money. On top of that Stearns is very familiar with all the players the Brewers acquired from the Astros in the Carlos Gomez trade. Those are all good things.
While it’s not totally clear how Stearns plans to turn things around, Brewers’ fans should get a better sense of his strategy Monday. The club is expected to announce Stearns as the new general manager at a press conference in the afternoon, according to McCalvy.
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Stearns may not have ever seen the Brewers play in the World Series, but he’ll have a chance to change that during his tenure.
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Chris Cwik is a writer for Big League Stew on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter! Follow @Chris_Cwik
