The Cardinals have hired Dan Kantrovitz as amateur scouting director to replace Jeff Luhnow, who was named Astros general manager in December.

Kantrovitz, 33, returns to the Cardinals organization after spending the past three years with the Athletics, most recently as director of international scouting. Kantrovitz was drafted by the Cardinals in the 25th round of the 2001 draft out of Brown, where he led the '01 Bruins in the triple crown categories, batting .417-5-41. But his professional career was quickly limited to three at-bats (including one hit) in the Rookie-level Appalachian League due to a shoulder injury, and he went to work for an investment banking company before getting back into baseball.

First, he worked for a company that offered baseball software tools to major league teams. One of the teams the company worked with was the Cardinals, and general manager John Mozeliak hired him for the Cardinals' front office. Before going to Oakland, Kantrovitz was director of college scouting for the Cardinals, working under Luhnow.

A St. Louis native, Kantrovitz grew up rooting for the Redbirds.

"I grew up ten minutes from [Busch Stadium.] Some of my earliest memories are of Ozzie Smith doing his flips on the way out to shortstop," he told Brown Alumni Magazine.

Like his predecessor, Kantrovitz is academically accomplished. He graduated from Brown with a degree in organizational behavior and management, studied finance and accounting at Oxford during his injury layoff as a player and completed an intensive one-year master's program in statistics at Harvard.