He’s been with the organization since 2018.
We were wondering how Buster Posey would handle the open General Manager position and it looks like news that started with a since-deleted post from former Mets manager and ESPN analyst Bobby Valentine —
— has been confirmed by USA Today’s Bob Nightengale:
The San Francisco Giants are expected to announce Friday that Zack Minasian is their new GM. Minasian’s promotion makes the Minasian Family the first to have two brothers as GMs at the same time in MLB history with Perry as the Angels GM.
— Bob Nightengale (@BNightengale) October 31, 2024
Minasian has been the Vice President, Professional Scouting for the San Francisco Giants since 2022, but before that, he was the team’s Director, Pro Scouting after being hired by Farhan Zaidi back in 2018. I wrote at the time:
His family has a long history in the majors, though, and Minasian’s experience is somewhat like that of Dereck Rodriguez’s: he and his brothers — Rudy, Perry, and Calvin — grew up hanging around big leaguers in the clubhouse thanks to their dad, Zack Sr., who was the clubhouse manager for the Texas Rangers. His dad was Tommy Lasorda’s best friend. That’s a huge demerit for Zack Jr., but this offseason has been all about swallowing the bitter pill of Dodgerdom to make the Giants better.
His dad was such good friends with Tommy Lasorda that he wrote a memoir about him and named him Zack’s godfather. This post from 2021 by Bob Nightengale makes the point that the Giants’ Zack is not a Jr. and his father is not a Sr., since Giants Zack’s middle names is Thomas… (gulp) in honor of Tommy Lasorda.
► Zack, 36, is the second-year pro scouting director for the San Francisco Giants, much to the chagrin of his late godfather Tom Lasorda and wife Jo, who lovingly called him, “Benedict Arnold.’’
Uh… well… um… ahem… you see… well… okay, moving on.
Buster Posey wanted a GM with a scouting background and Minasian more than qualifies for that position. Him being a baseball lifer only beefs up the resume which was already impressive when you consider he became the youngest scouting director in Baseball history at 27 with the Brewers. He has a solid public persona that I think will be a positive, active energy to offer for media hits. A nice contrast with Buster Posey and somewhat dramatic departure from Farhan Zaidi and Gabe Kapler.
The elevation also provides the Giants with some stability during a transition, which I think is valuable.
Dumping the guy running the rebuild carried the risk of having to start over which all but guaranteed more setbacks, delays and frustrations. Between this elevation, the retention of J.P. Martinez as pitching coach, and Buster Posey’s own commitment to easing into the job, the team appears committed to building on what’s already in place rather than starting over. That’s smart, especially since the Giants have plenty to work with, even if the rebuild’s end hasn’t yet appeared on the horizon.