The NHL’s Detroit Red Wings are searching for a general manager. One of the potential candidates is already in Detroit but in a different league. Max Bultman of The Athletic reports that Tigers general manager Jeff Greenberg has some “buzz” in connection with the job opening. Earlier this month, Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet had connected Greenberg to the Red Wings in an appearance on NHL Tonight. Gabriel Foley of Pro Hockey Rumors, MLBTR’s sister site, covered the NHL angle on the news earlier today.
Executives switching sports is fairly rare but wouldn’t be shocking in this case. Greenberg has actually oscillated back and forth between the two sports throughout his life. He played hockey in both high school and college.
In his professional life, he started on the baseball path. While still an undergraduate at the University of Pennsylvania, he interned for the Pirates. While attending Columbia Law School, he interned for the Diamondbacks. After graduating from Columbia, he got an intern job with the Cubs and worked his way up to assistant general manager. Scott Harris, who is now president of baseball operations with the Tigers, was also a Cubs AGM at that time.
Greenberg pivoted to hockey in 2022, getting hired as AGM with the Blackhawks. While he was doing that, Harris got the GM job with the Giants, working under president of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi. In 2022, the Tigers moved on from general manager Al Avila and hired Harris to run the front office with the POBO title. One year later, in September of 2023, Harris brought Greenberg back to baseball by hiring him to be his GM.
In addition to that previous hockey experience, Greenberg’s hire could make some sense since he wouldn’t even really be changing employers. Both the Tigers and the Red Wings are owned by Ilitch Holdings, the company of the Ilitch family. Mike Ilitch purchased the Red Wings in 1982 and the Tigers in 1992. Mike passed away in 2017 and his son Christopher is now the CEO and President of Ilitch Holdings.
Perhaps Greenberg would be intrigued by jumping from being the #2 guy in a baseball front office to being the #1 guy in a hockey front office. He has some background in the hockey world and presumably wouldn’t even have to move in order to take this job.
If he ultimately is tapped for the position, the Tigers would presumably look for a new GM. That wouldn’t necessarily be an urgent search. Some MLB teams operate without anyone with the specific GM title, as the front office is often run by someone with a different title. For instance, the Red Sox were seemingly going to promote Paul Toboni from AGM to GM a few months ago, but then Toboni got the POBO job with the Nationals. Since then, the Red Sox have put their GM search on hold, with Craig Breslow running the front office as Chief Baseball Officer. For the Tigers, Harris is already the clear #1 guy and he could operate with no GM if he wanted. The Tigers currently have Ryan Garko and Rob Metzler in AGM roles.
Photo courtesy of Junfu Han, Imagn Images
