Kim Ng is shaking up the MLB front office landscape.
The Miami Marlins general manager Ng made the surprise decision on Monday to part ways with the team by declining the mutual option on her contract. Ng said in a statement that she was no longer aligned with Marlins majority owner Bruce Sherman on the plan for the franchise.
“Last week, Bruce and I discussed his plan to reshape the Baseball Operations department,” Ng told Tyler Kepner of The Athletic. “In our discussions, it became apparent that we were not completely aligned on what that should look like and I felt it best to step away.
“I wish to express my sincere gratitude and appreciation to the Marlins family and its fans for my time in South Florida,” continued Ng. “This year was a great step forward for the organization, and I will miss working with [manager] Skip [Schumaker] and his coaches as well as all of the dedicated staff in baseball operations and throughout the front office. They are a very talented group and I wish them great success in the future.”
Jeff Passan of ESPN notes that the Marlins wanted to hire a president of baseball operations over Ng. Rather than dropping down to the No. 2 in their front office, Ng decided to leave the organization instead.
But Ng might not have to wait too long to find her next job. Jon Heyman of the New York Post reports that Ng could make sense for the Boston Red Sox, who are struggling to attract outside interest for their president of baseball operations vacancy after the firing of Chaim Bloom. Heyman mentions that Ng has a history with Boston manager Alex Cora, who was a player for the Los Angeles Dodgers when Ng was their assistant general manager in the 2000s.
Ng would indeed be an excellent candidate for the Red Sox. After over a decade of assistant general manager work with both the Dodgers and the New York Yankees (including three straight Yankees championships from 1998-2000), Ng made history when she was hired as Marlins GM in 2020. She became the first female GM in MLB history (as well as the first female GM of any major men’s pro team in North American sports). Ng did a tremendous job in Miami too, building a playoff team within three seasons (with the Marlins going 84-78 this year and earning an NL Wild Card spot).
Granted, the Red Sox job is not extremely attractive with the team finishing under .500 this season and constant turnover in their front office being a point of notoriety. But given some of the candidates that Boston has already whiffed on, the newly-available Ng would be well worth taking a swing on.
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