The Giants are planning to name Zack Minasian their new general manager on Friday, reports Bob Nightengale of USA Today. He will work under new president of baseball operations Buster Posey.
Minasian, the brother of Angels GM Perry Minasian, has been the Giants’ vice president of professional scouting since 2022 and a member of the front office since 2019.
Prior to coming to the Giants, Minasian spent 14 years working with the Brewers. He held various titles in that time, mostly in the scouting realm, before getting plucked out of Milwaukee and landing in San Francisco.
The Giants are undergoing a significant front office overhaul. Posey was tapped to replace Farhan Zaidi last month. Amid reporting on that change, it was also noted that general manager Pete Putila would be given a new role and replaced with a new GM.
Various names were floated as candidates, including Athletics assistant GM Billy Owens, Giants assistant GM Jeremy Shelley, Astros special advisor De Jon Watson and others, but the Giants will promote from within by giving Minasian the gig.
Presumably, Posey and Minasian already have some familiarity with each other. Posey was on the field for the Giants as recently as 2021 and later moved into a new role, buying a minority ownership stake and getting a seat on the club’s board of directors.
Regardless of whatever pre-existing relationship they had, their future partnership figures to be important for the franchise. Most baseball decision makers come from a background in scouting or analytics and are already familiar with the day-to-day role of running a baseball club. But Posey’s path is fairly unusual so he might be leaning on his second-in-command a bit more than other front office leaders, at least until he learns the ropes.
5TUNT1N
Yay someone to make some decisions.
Halo11Fan
Oh goody. Another team that can fleece Perry Minasian.
bkbk
“Welcome to hell” – angels fan
Rollie's Mustache
Another Minasian at the helm. Just what baseball needs.
Ranger Danger19
Very meh
thequail
A Farhan hire…hopes he didn’t rub off on Zack!
Kapler's Coconut Oil
An internal hire was definitely the least exciting choice, especially considering how long it took.
bag o ballz
I think it took a while because there is an unwritten policy that nothing gets announced until after the WS
User 3222006999
Nothing says success quite like the name Minasian. Think Buster got run over one too many times.
Pete'sView
I think it’s more than an “unwritten” rule. It’s a RULE.
steven st croix
I hope for Giants fans he is better than his brother. Woof!
Pete'sView
Keep in mind that Arte Moreno lurks over Minasian’s moves. Not so in San Francisco.
stymeedone
First question asked in the interview: please critique the job your brother has done with the Angels, and what would you have done differently?
Inside Out
Giants really shaking it up.
8791Slegna
Now Perry has another team to trade with besides the Braves.
Omarj
And Phillies
braves25
I was thinking that AA and the Braves have another team to trade with besides the A’s and Angel’s
Psychguy
After than Canning trade today, no telling what a Minisian can do.
This one belongs to the Reds
If only I had a brother, I could get a GM job too.
User 2770661946
Probably the worst person for the job. Who knows what’s going on in San Francisco but it’s sad to see a once proud club be run to the ground.
Pete'sView
TerryTurnbuckle — And you know this how?
aragon
Did he clean the clubhousejust as his father and brother have done?
Rsox
Trout to the Angels for Wilmer Flores and a player to be named later with Perry picking up 75% of Trout’s salary
5TUNT1N
Trout to the Angels? Is he switching lockers!
bag o ballz
wow that is an awful trade, the angels get flores and trout and the giants have to pay 25% of trout’s salary
dubtastic
ROTFL
Rsox
Yep meant to say Trout to the Giants. Bombed that one pretty good
Datashark
I think Angels will agree to this deal especially with a PTBNL yet to come
Informed Sportsball Discussion
Trout to the Padres for Xander Bogaerts, straight up.
Probably won’t happen, but that would be funny.
HiredGun23
I give this while thing a season and a half…
SFBay314
Whoa. Hopefully he is the “smart” brother
LLGiants64
Nepotism continues, Next is a Bochy as Veep….
bag o ballz
how is promoting internally nepotism?
TheBull
Let me get this straight, A 4th place loser team fires their POB then hires an Ex ballplayer with Zero front office experience to be the new president of baseball operations and today rather than go outside the organization and bring in someone with new ideas and knows what the heck they’re doing, they promote a guy internally that hired by the previous regime they just fired?
This type of bonehead decision making by ownership is why the San Francisco Giants will continue be an irrelevant huge pile of asss for the next decade
agnes gooch
TheBully, and your phillies are not asss? Your team was home for the World Series too so don’t throw rocks. There’s a reason the Nats won a WS the year after Harper left
Steinbrenner2728
“asss” is used by his alt called “27champyankees” and he always, always, always for some odd reason makes these outrageous comments against the Giants. I’m legitimately surprised MLBTR hasn’t put a crackdown on his accounts yet.
agnes gooch
Thanks Steinbrenner2728, this is why I basically stopped commenting here, because nobody monitors the comments and it can get really vile and even sexist sometimes. It is too bad because you can also learn a lot and have great meaningful conversations but when people come on and blow things up with false or inflammatory comments meant to hurt and demean, and have multiple accounts, then it ruins it for everyone.
Have a good day,
claude raymond
I’ve pretty much stopped as well Agnes. “experts” ruin things.
agnes gooch
Hi claude, happy no baseball season. Hope you are surviving. Spring around the corner, ha ha
Giant Willy
@agnes gooch When you’re one of the people who have behaved like that yourself you really shouldn’t complain about such behavior.
gravel
Exciting, isn’t it?
Pete'sView
TheBull — Keep up the optimistic posts.
Informed Sportsball Discussion
Huge pile of “asss”, three s’s, is pretty funny. I’m gonna use that.
gravel
In all seriousness, ZM was promoted to senior roles by David Stearns and Farhan Zaidi. He meets the scouting background requirements Posey was looking without needing to look outside the org.
To be clear the Giant didn’t fire a regime, they fired one man.
What a rando with a strange fixation on the Giants thinks about the hiring only moves the needle with similar minded folk.
JayRyder
I think it’s a good call. Well experienced, has been with the team enough to see what can be changed moving forward, without having been there the whole time. Some of the newer draft picks are picking up steam. And at the very least a carry over pick for the next guy if it doesn’t work out.
reflect
So what exactly is wrong with this guy? Why do we hate him? What bad thing did he do?
bag o ballz
I think you have 2 types of people grumbling – 1 are people that confuse him with the angels GM (his brother) or assume he is going to be the same and then there are those that complain that zaidi hired him so they think he is going to suck because they didn’t like zaidi
agnes gooch
Hi bag o ballz, I LOVE that Zack was Zaidi’s first hire! Vive Zaidi and his legacy!
Giant Willy
@agnes gooch F Zaidi and his ‘legacy’. His ‘legacy’ was keeping the Giants mediocre. Firing Farhan was the best move the organization could do at the time, should have a year or 2 sooner. The day they fired Farhan is one of the greatest days in franchise history. I’ve seen you comment about being literally in love with him, how ‘kind’ he is and crap like that… Ask Brandon Crawford, Thairo Estrada, Joey Bart, Madison Bumgarner, Marco Luciano, Bruce Bochy and others who ACTUALLY KNOW HIM how ‘kind’ he is lol. I’m sorry to say, but you’ve been fooling yourself. Zaidi is gone, (thankfully), it’s time to let him go.
agnes gooch
Have a snickers Snellzilla 7. And Zaidi signed Snellzilla lololol. Peace and love
Giant Willy
You’re funny Karen. In an ironic self projecting way. Peace and love agnes gooch. And I actually mean that genuinely.
Pete'sView
bag o ballz — Or because they’re just haters. And don’t have anything thoughtful to say.
claude raymond
bingo
Giant Willy
bag o ballz you’re mostly correct. Although none of those things mean that he won’t be good for the Giants. I’m optimistic and hoping for the best. They DFA’d Walton this evening, seems like a good start to me. I’m on board. In Posey/Manasian we trust!!
DanUgglasRing
It’s MLBTR everyone here is a genius and every decision made in pro baseball is the dumbest and worst thing that has ever happened.
Giant Willy
He’s Tommy Lasorda’s godson. And he was hired by Farhan. That doesn’t mean he can’t be good for the Giants, but you can understand some grumbling.
m34josh
Hard to figure out how this is an upgrade over the previous GM, powerless pete, who was invisible for the last two years. But at least he had success with the Astros before
sfgiantsguy
This is pretty underwhelming. Posey was supposed to shake things up, not keep things status quo. An internal hire signifies either that no one from the outside wanted the job or the Giants plan to keep on keeping on. Neither is a great sign.
Plus, if Minasian is known for his scouting background yet has presided under Zaidi for the entirety of Zaidi’s tenure and the farm system is still incredibly mid, then how is he a good hire?
SMH. And he’s Tommy LaSorda’s godson to boot. When can we stop hiring Dodgers lackeys?
EM41
Zack M. has one HUGE advantage over his brother. He doesn’t work for Arte Moreno.
Datashark
VP of scouting….what did he turn out because we have yet to see
Russell Branyan
People are being way too tough on Perry. We all know Arte is as meddlesome as they come, it’s not like he actually has final say in anything.
Arte also won’t spend on anything but obvious bad contracts, he insists on those. No GM is going to succeed in that environment.
DanUgglasRing
So many experienced GMs in the comment section
oldgfan
I know right ?
I wonder how many sent in a resume ?
sfjackcoke
mlb.com/giants/team/front-office/zack-minasian
The above is his MLB bio, it’s quite impressive. MLB front offices are far bigger than people realize, they’ve gone thru their own evolution in the past almost 2 decades. For those who aren’t aware there is
Amateur Scouting – these are the scouts that evaluate high school and college players
Pro Scouting – these are the scouts that evaluate MiLB and MLB players for consideration for waiver claims, MLB/MiLB free agents signings, trade targets. As are part of their in-season job they also advance scout teams upcoming on the Giants schedule.
There’s a department responsible for player development
There might be a stand alone analytics department OR depending how the Baseball Ops is organized there might be analytic staff imbedded within all the departments above or both.
There’s dedicated staff involved in contracts, arbitration, CBT and general MLB related administration. This was actually the path Bobby Evans ascended to the GM role, being with the Commissioner’s office prior to joining the Giants.
Lastly people seem to be disappointed there’s little external hires, you shouldn’t be. Despite the on-field results not meeting fans expectations, this illustrates the Baseball ops had a deep bench and the SFG were able to hire within. They are ready to go on Day 1 of a critical off-season.