They just made a bunch of promotions. Somebody’s duties were being transferred. Smith, for instance, is taking over all scouting, which probably meant Vuke and Corrigan had to move from being under NH to being under Smith. It’s not surprising they’d leave.

It makes sense another way, too. NH had little experience when he took over. Long-time FO guys like Vuke and Corrigan no doubt served as steadying hands in a way that shouldn’t be needed at this stage. (Yeah, yeah, insert obligatory screaming/whining/pitchfork-waving about NH here.) I figured when the promotion announcements were made that part of the point was to enable NH to delegate more, which is how organizations should be run. It also makes sense for Smith to have a freer hand to create his own scouting structure. Now there’s Smith and Stark reporting to NH, and lower-level staff reporting to them. Makes more sense than Smith, Stark and a bunch of asst. GMs reporting to NH.

Whether it’ll all work, I dunno. I think the team’s scouting needs to improve. Not return-from-the-dead (i.e., DL) scale improvement, but it still needs to be better. We won’t have any idea whether this is better for a couple years. And for anybody inclined to start pushing conspiracy theories about NH getting rid of qualified people or Nutting being too cheap to pay them, keep in mind that, for all we know, it was Vuke and/or Corrigan who advised NH to acquire Overbay, Church, Crosby, etc. If you think the talent evaluation hasn’t been adequate—which it hasn’t—then you should be happy to see some changes.

so I didn’t have to.

rec’d.

If Charles Emerson Winchester shows up I’m out of here