On Oct. 16, Major League Baseball’s Miami Marlins announced that they would be parting ways with Kim Ng, the first woman to hold the position of general manager (GM) in any of North America’s four major men’s sports. In a statement, Marlins’ chairman and principal owner Bruce Sherman announced that while the club had exercised its team option on Ng’s contract for the 2024 season, Ng had opted to decline her mutual option. It has since been reported that the organization was seeking to hire a President of Baseball Operations––an intermediary between ownership and the GM––to whom Ng would have reported directly. The tone of coverage surrounding Ng’s departure has been largely critical of the Marlins, suggesting that Ng deserved better treatment from the club. However, this sequence of events is neither outlandish nor does it undo any of the progress achieved by Ng and other women currently occupying or pursuing front office roles in professional sports.
Ng was originally hired as the Marlins’ GM in 2020, a significant development for women and people of colour in professional sports as the first person of East Asian descent to take on the role. Following former President of Baseball Operations Michael Hill’s departure from the club, Ng worked alongside former New York Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter, who officially held the position of CEO and oversaw day-to-day baseball and business operations. When Jeter left Miami before the 2022 season, his position remained vacant for the 2022 and 2023 seasons, leaving the club without a CEO or a President of Baseball Operations.
The Fish could have filled Jeter’s position by hiring an external candidate or promoting from within the organization. In the latter case, Ng, as the highest-ranking baseball operations executive outside of ownership, would have been a logical choice. However, Sherman and the Marlins opted for the former, exercising their club option that would have kept Ng as GM for 2024. While some pundits have criticized the Marlins for looking for a new President of Baseball Operations and making Ng second-in-command, the decision is unsurprising considering the club’s previous organizational structure and the current industry standard. While the Marlins decision not to promote Ng merits criticism given Sherman’s praise of her work as GM, the club is within their right to search externally for a President of Baseball Operations.
The desire to keep Ng in her role as GM should be viewed as a recognition of her success. In 2023, the Marlins reached the postseason for the first time in a 162-game campaign since their 2003 World Series triumph. Ng bolstered the club’s roster by acquiring batting champion Luis Arráez and oversaw a successful 2023 trade deadline, bringing in Josh Bell and Jake Burger, who both provided a much-needed boost to the team’s offense and played a pivotal role in the team’s quest for the postseason.
Ng’s reasoning for declining her mutual option remains unclear. In a statement, Ng said she and Sherman were unaligned in their views on the future of the team’s baseball operations, however, this ambiguity does not clarify to outsiders why the ties severed. A source close to Ng has stated the decision was related to the Marlins’ budget constraints, with the club’s payroll ranking in the bottom third of the league for the entirety of Ng’s tenure. Ng, who had previously worked in the New York Yankees’ front office, might have been dissatisfied with the Marlins’ inability to lessen the gap in payroll with high revenue clubs, making it more difficult to extend player contracts after arbitration or lure big ticket free agents.
In any case, Ng is a highly capable baseball executive with a proven track record at the sport’s highest level. Whether she finds employment with another Major League club or in the league office, her presence as a front-facing figure with the Marlins represented a refreshing change of pace in a historically white male-dominated field. The Marlins did what they believed to be in the best interest of their organization. While the end of this chapter may be disappointing for some, Ng’s time in Miami remains significant for women and people of colour pursuing careers in professional sports.
