Latest On Giants Front Office Hires

With the winter meetings only a day away, attention league-wide is focused on player movement, but the music hasn’t stopped on the annual game of musical chairs played in front offices and dugouts around the league. News is trickling out of San Francisco about the top thinkers being hired to advise Giants president of baseball ops Farhan Zaidi on matters of scouting.

Zack Minasian was tabbed to lead pro scouting efforts, per the Athletic’s Andrew Baggarly (via Twitter). Minasian spent fourteen years with the Milwaukee Brewers, the last two as a special advisor to GM David Stearns. He spent six years prior as the director of pro scouting, the same role he assumes in San Francisco. As Baggarly explains in a later tweet, Minasian’s position is principally responsible for the coordination of the scouting staff for both the major and minor leagues, a tremendous undertaking given the current climate around baseball. On a fun note that Baggarly explores in his full article on the Athletic (subscription link), Minasian’s father is the longtime clubhouse attendant for the Texas Rangers. The elder Minasian gave the younger his first opportunity in baseball as his assistant when junior was 11-years-old.

Another new hire in San Francisco, Michael Holmes, will replace longtime amateur scouting director John Barr, Baggarly tweets. Holmes has worked on the other side of the bay in Oakland since 2004, most recently as assistant scouting director. Holmes will be charged with managing amateur scouting efforts, including oversight of the draft. He has big shoes to fill, as Barr’s tenure began in 2008 with the drafting of Buster Posey and Brandon Crawford. Recent drafts have proved less fruitful, however. Holmes will attempt to modernize the Giants scouting department, finding ways to utilize the plethora of advanced metrics now available to front offices.