Detroit Tigers: 4 candidates we’d love for Scott Harris to hire as GM

Scott Harris has yet to hire a GM for the Detroit Tigers

Detroit Tigers president of baseball operations Scott Harris has been busy the last few days, letting go of longtime assistant GM David Chadd and several people on the training staff, as well as hiring Rob Metzler to be the team’s new assistant GM and de facto scouting director. But he has yet to hire a GM, something he said he would do at his introductory press conference on Sept. 20.

Yesterday, we got news that he still intends to hire a GM, but hasn’t yet started that process and hasn’t held any interviews.

Last week, there were two rumored names to be candidiates for the position, but that’s all we’ve gotten on that front. Obviously, the Ilitches are really good at keeping things close to the vest, but it’s a but surprising that the Tigers still haven’t hired a GM.

While we wait not so patiently for Harris to make a decision, we’re going to go over a few names we’d love to see the Detroit Tigers hire as their new GM. Let’s get started.

Carlos Rodriguez, Rays VP of baseball operations

Harris already poached from the Rays once, why not do it again? Rodriguez has been with Tampa since 2010, when he was an international scout for them. He worked his way up to director of internaitional scouting, a position he held from 2015-19, where he signed a bunch of recognizanle names.

Wander Franco, Vidal Brujan, Jose Alvarado, Diego Castillo. These are all bonafide big-leaguers that Rodriguez had a hand in signing and scouting. The Tigers would kill for that kind of international scouting.

He transitioned into his current role in 2020, where he assists president of baseball operations Erik Neander in all areas of baseball operations while overseeing the club’s player development, baseball performance science, international scouting and academy operations.

Harris has preached wanting to create a culture of development with the Tigers, and that starts with scouting. Metzler will oversee that area of the team, but having Rodriguez on board will not only provide Metzler with somebody he’s familair with, but will also add somebody with an outstanding international scouting background to the front office.

The Detroit Tigers need to improve their international scouting. Having someone like Rodriguez on board would help tremendously with that.