Report: the Angels are set to hire the right-hand man of Alex Anthopoulos away from the Atlanta Braves.
It’s the “silly season” of baseball: the time when the music plays and a number of managers, executives, and players start nervously marching around circles of chairs, hoping to find a new seat when the music stops. The Atlanta Braves are about to find one of their chairs emptied.
The #Angels hope to formally name Perry Minasian as their new general manager later today. @MLB @MLBNetwork
— Jon Morosi (@jonmorosi) November 12, 2020
Perry Minasian is the current top Assistant GM to Alex Anthopoulos and as of Thanksgiving week, it would have been three years since being elevated to that role as part of the boss’s shake-up of the Braves front office at that time.
Minasian was actually hired by the ousted and disgraced prior Braves GM John Coppolella, and as such, was certainly a candidate to be shuffled when the Anthopoulos staff was being assembled.
Instead, he was promoted to AGM in what might have been viewed as a ‘continuity’ move to ensure that Anthopoulos was aware of any important organizational nuances critical to baseball operations (though he was with the Blue Jays while Anthopoulos was in Toronto, so there was clearly a familiarity between the two).
Now — 3 years later — it’s fairly evident that Minasian had earned the full respect of his boss in this role. Indeed, his current title of ‘Senior Vice President for Baseball Operations’ and Assistant General Manager would seem to underscore the point.
That fact may have played into the decision to interview him this month for the Angels’ top baseball operations job… and it appears that he’s won out among several candidates.
This will leave a void in the Braves front office, and we’ll have to watch to see how Anthopoulos deigns to fill that hole. Among the internal options:
- AGM for Research & Development: Jason Paré (the Analytics head)
- AGM for Major League Operations: Alex Tamin
- AGM for Player Development: Ben Sestanovich
- Director, Baseball Administration: Dixie Keller
Of course, in this organization, you probably can never rule out somebody like the current Assistant Director of Pro Scouting: Jonathan Schuerholz… but that would still seem highly unlikely.
Still: Minasian is part of the staff who — led by Anthopoulos — have righted the ship in the wake of the Coppolella/Hart scandal. Since then, the Atlanta Braves have won three straight division titles and were on the cusp of a World Series appearance this year.
He will be missed… but perhaps he can help steer those Angels into the playoffs before Mike Trout begins drawing a pension.