Chicago Cubs Who’s Who: Carter Hawkins

Overtime Heroics Editorial

583 days ago

Jed Hoyer was trying to balance two important baseball jobs at once. He was the Cubs President of Baseball Operations and the general manager of the team in the 2021 season. Usually, one guy does not perform both jobs, so Hoyer made an important decision: it was time to hire a new general manager. Insert: Carter Hawkins. Now, you might be thinking “who is this random name that the Cubs hired?” and that would be a fair question. But Hawkins’s track record speaks pretty much for itself.

Who Is This Guy?

To say that Carter Hawkins understands baseball would be an understatement. Hawkins played collegiate baseball at Vanderbilt University where he caught for the Commodores. In 2008 he was an scouting intern with the Cleveland Indians and was quickly moved to a full time scout in 2009. In 2010, Hawkins was moved from the scouting department to assistant director of player development and in 2015 he was promoted again to director of player development. Finally in 2016 he was promoted from player development to assistant general manager for Cleveland where he stayed until the Cubs made him their general manager a few weeks ago.

The Perfect Signing

It is not a secret that the Cubs have had trouble developing pitching. The club has not had a drafted pitcher come out of their farm system until Adbert Alzolay made his debut with the team in 2019. Cleveland, on the other hand, has been developing pitchers in a lab. Hawkins had a hand in drafting and developing guys like Shane Bieber (4th round draft pick), Aaron Civale (3rd round draft pick) , and Zach Plesac (12th round draft pick). If you are not sold on those guys, Hawkins also was also in Cleveland when guys like Carlos Carrasco, Corey Kluber, and Mike Clevinger made their debuts and helped Cleveland make 3 playoff appearances in 3 straight years with a World Series appearance in 2016.

Full Steam Ahead

Look, the Cubs are heading into somewhat of a rebuild and its impossible to say if it will pan out or if Carter Hawkins will have the same success in Chicago as he did in Cleveland. But with Jed Hoyer signing Hawkins, all signs point to the organization looking to change their approach to player development, drafting well, and putting the best team on the field. If the Hawkins signing is a sign of good things to come, this will be the beginning of new age of Chicago Cubs baseball.

Follow me on Twitter @BigSchnulls for more of my content. Don’t forget to listen to our baseball podcast, Cheap Seats Chatter! We’ll see ya there!

Come join the discussion made by the fans at the Overtime Heroics forums! A place for all sports!

Main image credit Embed from Getty Images