Chris Marinak, a 17-year Major League Baseball executive who was considered by some in the industry to be a candidate for commissioner, is leaving the league office in the new year.
Marinak, 45, finished his time at MLB with the title of chief operations and strategy officer after joining the league office in 2008. He was a key figure in the introduction of instant replay and other on-field changes, including the behind-the-scenes processes that ultimately led to the pitch clock, which has been a major boon to the sport.
Marinak is expected to announce a new position as soon as January. He and MLB declined comment Tuesday.
Marinak was weighing other opportunities for most of this year, people briefed on Marinak’s thinking said. He reached a point where he had been involved in most everything in the sport at some point or another, and to continue to grow — or even become commissioner someday — he and others in the industry felt his best path might be to continue to gain experience outside the sport.
There’s been some dialogue between Marinak and the PGA Tour, one person briefed on Marinak’s exit who was not authorized to speak publicly said. The PGA Tour is led by an executive whose path Marinak might mirror: Brian Rolapp became the Tour’s CEO this summer after two decades at the National Football League.
In recent years, Marinak was responsible for the digital products many fans interact with across MLB.com, the MLB and MiLB Apps, MLB.TV and Statcast. He also oversaw MLB’s ticketing operations, including the MLB Ballpark App.
In addition, Marinak oversaw the creation of the league’s schedule and the sport’s major events, including the World Series and the World Baseball Classic. The most recent WBC in 2023 set records for attendance and social media engagement — a notable victory because the tournament wasn’t universally considered a thriving event coming out of the pandemic.
But there wasn’t much new for Marinak to tackle had he stayed.
MLB is about to enter a messy period ahead of a looming labor fight, and Marinak’s lived that before: He worked in MLB’s labor relations department through the negotiation of two bargaining agreements, before he moved into other areas in 2017.
Over the last few years, commissioner Rob Manfred seemed to develop a particularly close relationship with another of his lieutenants, Noah Garden, now the deputy commissioner for business and media. Garden is in charge of large revenue areas in the sport, TV and licensing.
Manfred, who has said he intends to retire in January 2029, told The Athletic at the start of this year that he believes the next commissioner has to be an insider.
“The variable that you ought to look at is inside versus outside,” he said at the time, referring to whether the next commissioner is an internal or external hire. “If you got the best executive in the world, dropped him in that office Day 1 with no indoctrination, he’d fail miserably, is my view.”