MLB Hires Former Player Chris Young as On-Field VP

Major League Baseball named former MLB pitcher Chris Young as Vice President of On-Field Operations, Initiatives & Strategy, under Joe Torre's direction.

Young will advise on disciplinary issues, umpire negotiations, and on-field standards such as rules compliance pertaining to baseball field dimensions, amongst other projects. He will report directly to Senior VP Peter Woodfork.

Young will also advise on pace-of-play, work with the Umpiring Operations Department to maintain on-field standards and discipline and ensure proper application of playing rules and regulations, and other issues that affect play on the field.

Klemm is MLB's highest ranked former umpire.
Photo: Enquirer/Michael Keating.

As for actual umpires in the Commissioner's Office, Justin Klemm remains the highest-positioned person with officiating experience in the Baseball Operations department, serving as Senior Director of Instant Replay. Randy Marsh and Rich Rieker follow shortly thereafter; Marsh is Director of Major League Umpires while Rieker serves as Director of Umpire Development.

MLB eliminated the position of "Vice President, Umpiring" in 2011 when the Commissioner's Office hired Joe Torre as Executive VP of Operations. As such, Mike Port, who previously served on the Board of Directors for the National Association of Sports Officials (NASO) and left MLB after Torre's hiring, was MLB's most recent VP of Umpires.

Coincidentally (or not), Angel Hernandez's lawsuit alleges that the MLB umpiring department started going downhill and engaging in racially-motivated discrimination in 2011.
Related Post: Angel Hernandez Sues MLB for Racial Discrimination (7/3/17).

An alum of Princeton University (2002, Politics), Young, whose last regular season appearance was in 2017, was ejected just once in his 271-game career as a pitcher, for fighting, on June 16, 2007, by Mike Everitt.