SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — When Zack Minasian and older brother Perry get chatting, they typically focus the talk on their children more than baseball.
That is partly because Major League Baseball rules limit what they can discuss when it comes to personnel on their respective teams — but now, they're both general managers and could be striking deals by the winter meetings in December.
Zack Minasian was promoted to general manager of the San Francisco Giants on Friday, joining Perry Minasian of the Los Angeles Angels as a big league GM.
Zack has watched his brother handle himself under the pressures of such a demanding role.
“Perry's as competitive as they come, so showing my cards to Perry probably isn't the best thing for the Giants,” Zack said Friday when introduced in a video call. “One thing that is helpful is these jobs, they're tough, they're very competitive, they can be very stressful, and I think having your brother go through it and see what he deals with on a daily basis more so from the fan base, so on and so forth, those expectations and how someone handles it. It's a little bit of on-the-job training without having to do the job.”
The 41-year-old Zack Minasian had been the Giants’ vice president of professional scouting since 2022, three years after he joined San Francisco following 14 years with the Milwaukee Brewers.
Perry became the Angels' GM in November 2020.
Elevating Zack was Buster Posey's first big move since replacing Farhan Zaidi as president of baseball operations.
During his stint in Milwaukee, Minasian was special adviser for baseball operations, director of professional scouting, manager of minor league scouting, personnel/coordinator of pro scouting and baseball operations assistant.
Posey appreciated Minasian's wealth of knowledge from working elsewhere and also his extensive scouting background, something Posey had said was a priority in finding the right GM.
Posey, a former All-Star catcher, was hired on on Sept. 30 after the Giants finished 80-82 in manager Bob Melvin’s first season, with one more victory than in 2023. San Francisco hasn’t reached the playoffs since winning the NL West in 2021.
The 37-year-old Posey retired in November 2021 and joined the club’s ownership group in September 2022.
“No. 1 for me in this role is finding somebody that obviously is very astute in their baseball knowledge, which Zack is, but having somebody that I can trust that we can all trust and share similar visions and goals for the San Francisco Giants was very important,” Posey said. “And I think Zack most definitely checked all those boxes.”
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AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/mlb
Janie Mccauley, The Associated Press
