Scott Harris ties lure retired Cubs World Champion to Tigers front office role

Scott Harris has facilitated the occasional Tigers-Cubs crossover since he joined the Tigers as president of baseball operations at the end of the 2022 season, most notably hiring longtime Cubs colleague Jeff Greenberg to be Detroit's general manager in 2023.

Harris spent almost a decade with the Cubs from 2012 through 2019, working his way up to assistant general manager under Theo Epstein and Jed Hoyer in 2018. Greenberg took over in that role after Harris was hired as the Giants' GM after the 2019 season.

One of their first moves of the 2025-26 offseason was hiring Cubs coach Alex Smith away from Chicago and installing him as the Tigers' vice president of baseball strategy.

The latest reunion for Harris and Greenberg involves a far more familiar name. On Wednesday, Cody Stavenhagen of The Athletic reported that former pitcher Kyle Hendricks is joining the Tigers' front office as a special assistant.

He joins Kirk Gibson, Jim Leyland, Alan Trammell, and Miguel Cabrera but is the first addition to never have played for the Tigers. "Special assistant to the president" is one of those nebulous titles with no real job description, but it's a nice, shiny new pick-up for the front office.

Former Cubs pitcher Kyle Hendricks reunites with Scott Harris, Jeff Greenberg in Tigers front office

Unsurprisingly, Hendricks is expected to lend some guidance on Detroit's pitching development, which could prove especially useful given the disastrous state of the Tigers' bullpen.

Hendricks spent 11 of his 12-year career with the Cubs and overlapped with Harris and Greenberg for much of it. He was a Cy Young finalist in 2016, Chicago's World Series drought-breaking season, but was outvoted in favor of former Tiger Max Scherzer, who pitched a now-unheard of 228 1/3 innings that year with the Nationals.

He retired at the end of the 2025 season, which he spent with the Angels, and went out admirably — a 4.76 ERA in 164 2/3 innings.

Again, no one really knows what special assistants do. Cabrera shows up to spring training for a few days every year but otherwise keeps his distance. While we shouldn't expect contributions from Hendricks to make headlines, it's a feel-good reunion for Harris and Greenberg that could end up helping the Tigers on the margins in the long run.

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