CHICAGO (MCT) — Cubs President Theo Epstein continued his front office makeover Wednesday, firing player personnel vice president Oneri Fleita and information manager Chuck Wasserstrom.
Baseball operations director Scott Nelson was offered a lesser role in the organization, while stats manager Ari Kaplan will stay on as a consultant after his job was eliminated.
Epstein said he would consider internal and “at least one external” candidate for Fleita’s job. Wasserstrom, who has been in the organization for 25 years, was let go as his position was eliminated.
Despite these cuts, Epstein said the front office is growing and will continue to expand.
“We already have increased it,’ he said. “Once we’re finally set and we have the structure ... in place, player development, scouting, front office ... if you go back and do an apples to apples of where we were, say last October, I think it’ll certainly see an increase.”
Epstein thanked Fleita for his contributions over the years, but said he’s spent the last 10 months evaluating the personnel, “and I think it’s my responsibility to try and determine the structure that’s going to put the Cubs in the best position going forward and ultimately we reached the conclusion there would be a change” in the position.
Fleita, a former protege of former GM Jim Hendry, was promoted to a VP position in 2007. He received a four-year extension from Chairman Tom Ricketts last September before the new regime was installed, and the Cubs will eat the remaining three years of the contract.
Home run binge: After not homering at Wrigley Field before, David DeJesus hit two on Wednesday, going 4-for-4 and driving in three runs in the 7-2 win over Houston.
“It’s official now,” he said. “I got one here.”
DeJesus said manager Dale Sveum told him the other day he should have “at least 10 homers” if not for Wrigley’s fickle winds. How many has he lost?
“When your manager is saying that, I’ll take 10,” he said.
Extra innings: Justin Germano allowed two runs over 6 1/3 innings, improving to 2-2... Brett Jackson broke out of his mini-slump with a double and a triple, though he also had two more strikeouts, giving him 18 in 32 at-bats...