Perry Minasian, the Atlanta Braves Senior Vice President, Baseball Operations, and Assistant General Manager is the new General Manager of the Angels. He will be the fourth General Manager hired by Arte Moreno, the third to have not previously served as a General Manager for a Major League organization.
Perry Minasian is the Angels’ new general manager, sources tell The Athletic.
— Ken Rosenthal (@Ken_Rosenthal) November 12, 2020
Minasian is a baseball lifer. His father was a clubhouse manager for the Texas Rangers and he began his scouting career at the age of 22. He spent nine years in various scouting duties for the Toronto Blue Jays before joining the Braves front office in 2017.
Not long after he joined the Braves, the organization was rocked by a signing bonus scandal and then GM John Coppollella was fired. Former Blue Jays President Alex Anthopuolos took the reigns in Atlanta and promoted his former scout to Assistant General Manager.
Perry now gets to run his own show for the first time. His imprints are all over both Toronto and Atlanta and the Angels farm system definitely needs help. Both the Blue Jays and Braves feature young, cost controlled talent up and down the lineup. That type of talent influx along with Arte’s willingness to spend could make the Angels into a juggernaut.
Minasian himself earns rave reviews among baseball communities, as an excellent communicator and evaluator. Let’s see if he can live up to that.
. #Angels name Perry Minasian as new GM 1st reported by @Ken_Rosenthal: “Scouting report on Minasian: “Outstanding w/people. Excellent communicator. Connects w/ Players,coaches,front office,old school scouts.Natural leader.Stud evaluator.(he’s done Amateur, International & Pro)”
— Jim Bowden (@JimBowdenGM) November 12, 2020
The assignment is clear: get Mike Trout to October on a regular basis. Doing so will require an influx of talent on all levels and convincing Arte to invest in scouting and development. Unbelievably, Trout enters his 29 season this year so there is extreme urgency.
Since we are all down on Billy lets do a little comparison, Billy starts a 5 year run starting with a meddling owner and not really being the GM with Sosh still onboard for another 3 years and Pujols for 5, in year 4 he gets to pick his first manager only to have the owner replace him in year 5. He also had one off his best pitchers die in year 4. He had year 5 become year 1 again with ownership killing trades already in place and a new Sosh (Maddon) in the dugout.
Perry comes in with a meddling owner, a dugout GM for the 1st 2 years and Pujols for 1 but now has Upton for 2. He does have a slightly better farm system but still lacks pitching.
The team Perry inherits looks better than the one Billy inherited but with Artie and Maddon still there do we really see him moving the needle?
Absolutely……..If he’s any good!
Perry M is also walking into a bad situation as all the Jedi haters like to point out ( 4 very expensive hitting stars, of which two are no longer productive, and almost no tradable assets and a beleaguered farm system. ). We as fans need to stop this pathetic childish blame the previous guy before ( hello that’s what he was hired to do! fix the damm situation! ). 😠
BTW JJ ( Jeff Joiner……I respect you, but you pointed out the Astros, Dodgers and Rays as being big users of Sabermetrics.
The thing is they also have first rate scouting and player development first off. ) We do not, in fact we have had long term the worst scouting and player development in MLB for most of our existence. I think we’re worse than #25 actually.
The great misconception fed by Money all etc, I think, is that old style baseball smarts and sabermetrics are at odds with each other, whereas they are really complementary to each other. Good orgs use both productively.
Upton is going to turn it around, along with his defense. /s
And Arte has no LaRussa worm ear to help encourage Billy’s decisions.
Congrats to the 2020 AL ROY and that awful GM who drafted him. 😆
Look, I just want to know if he likes Five Guys or In-N-Out better.
Whatta???
Recently from Atlanta
Probably Varsity Burgers
Are you really Roger Lodge? 😆
All goofing aside I am not setting any expectations record/wins wise for Perry. Having lived through Reagins/Derpo I just want to be able to see what the GM is trying to do. I could understand what Eppler was trying, which was why I was all for letting him play out his contract, and why we could see that his plan wasn’t working, at least not fast enough.
That’s good. We aren’t left with only head scratching to do. Now Perry has 4 years. ASAP I hope we all see more scouts, more analytics etc as we expected. I hope we can see how those things work in our next draft. I hope that, if we go the “sign a 2B cheap and play Fletch at SS” road we then see that it was done to sign pitching, for example. I understand we probably won’t win 100 games next year, and if we do it won’t be because Perry hired scouts in January 2021. Epplers plan to build up young talent up the middle made sense…. but then he never managed to transfer that into players we needed. What ever plans Perry has I want to understand them and also see them work. That’s really what I am hoping for..
Hello? Hey Gitcho, hello? Okay, let me turn down my radio.
Hey Gitcho. First time caller, long time listener. LETS GO HALOS!!!
My question, yeah, what was Eppler trying? I’ll take my answer off air. Thanks, great show always.
I think Eppler was hamstrung to a degree by the team he inherited, and I do think he had the right idea in terms of drafting and developing, but I also feel that perhaps he wasn’t the best at creating a player development infrastructure that got the most out of its minor league system. Whether that was due to his own mistakes or whether he didn’t have the access to financial resources to make that happen, who knows for sure.
All that said, that is supposed to be the bread and butter of the systems Minasian has come from (Braves, and Blue Jays before that). The key to his success will be whether he can not only find talent via the draft (and international scouting and waiver wires), but more importantly, have the system in place to develop talent properly, to ensure that they can succeed at the MLB level.
It was interesting to me that some players we have previously seen struggle (Walsh, Ward, etc) started to play rather well after spending some time with Maddon and the coaching staff. Was that a sign that the system Eppler had in place before wasn’t that great at getting the most out of players, and only when Maddon came and made some adjustments that we saw our minor leaguers start transitioning better? Again, I don’t know for sure, but it is interesting to wonder about things like that.
Anyway, all that said, I’m cautiously optimistic about how Minasian will do. He can’t change this team overnight, but he has at least inherited a much better position than Eppler did, and I feel with a few key signings, and more importantly, some strong drafting and player developing, he can turn this team into a strong one, given the core we already have in place.
For someone that had such a deep scouting background, I thought Billy’s drafts were abysmal. Did he even try to reshape the front office or the scouting department? The trading of Will Wilson was the Piece de resistance.We have ZERO pitching depth and his prized draft possession had about the worst rookie debut in recent history. Brandon Woods numbers actually looked better in his first 100 at bats. Pandemic or not, I just don’t see Adell recovering while his trade value has all but been destroyed. While Scary Perry might be able to rebuild our entire system, this will not happen overnight so Mike Trout may very well join Ernie Banks and a whole host of other HOF’s without a ring.
Uh oh…….It’s Arte’s fault again?
Justin Upton was all Eppler’s as well as Zack Cozart which also cost us our 2019 first round pick too.
Make no mistake about it all, The Dark Ages ( 2016-2020 ) was at least 80% Eppler’s fault. This team’s in for a rough & tumble two more bad seasons at least ( bad scouting & player development tend to do that ). Arte was also the owner under the Tony Reagins and Jerry DiPoto administrations as well.
Except that he failed miserably
Was Matt Thaiss and Jo Adell part of that plan? ( the Maginot Line didn’t protect France from Nazi Germany in 1940 either ). He was just a facilitator and not a real old school baseball talent evaluator guy ( Grady Fuson and Logan White ) and didn’t know how to implement a real baseball talent factory. 😣
Yo Everyone I finally found ya’ll!
I’m cautiously optimistic about PM. You look at pitching and the young talent acquired and the ability to emerged talent that was otherwise untapped and those are the elements we’ve sorely been missing. I’m down to give him the benefit of the doubt until the second he proves unworthy of that right.
All hail the new guy. Seems a lot like the old guy. As long as Arte is still there, probably doesn’t matter who’s ass is in the chair.
Arte Won’t Get Fooled Again, right?
He’s the jester that borrowed a coat from James Dean
Depends on who’s doing the fooling. Many of us think that Arte (and his swell gang) is/are fooling himself/themselves without being aware of it. If they keep thinking someone else is fooling them, they are setting themselves for another disappointment. (For love of God, I hope I’m wrong, however.)
Here’s a reason why I think optimism should be kept in check:
https://www.halosheaven.com/2016/8/21/12572868/why-im-bullish-on-angels-gm-billy-eppler
If you search there are lots of early articles about Eppler’s scouting prowess, use of analytics, communication skills.
Man, you’re pretty consistently a downer, lol.
I don’t think anyone thinks this team will magically become a juggernaut like the Dodgers overnight, but I think it is okay to feel optimistic about the future as well. It’s okay that you feel pessimistic, but I think it is likewise okay for you to let others feel optimistic, instead of just constantly hammering the point that you don’t think things will pan out.
Has the ownership changed?
No, it has not. But does that guarantee our failure? Arte does spend on payroll, and perhaps he will invest further in the FO with someone like Minasian in charge, given Minasian’s experience in working for a progressive FO like the Braves.
We can only wait and see what happens. Or we can just assume we’ll always be bad, although I am not sure why someone would continue to follow a team they are so pessimistic about, as there are probably more ideal ways to live life than to be constantly down about a team.
Pittsburgh Steeler fans in the late 1960’s before Joe Greene, Terry Bradshaw and Chuck Knoll showed up.
because Arte said we’re not allowed to have nice things! 😣 😥
I think it’s hard to form an opinion on someone I didn’t even know existed a few days ago. He’ll get his shot, maybe he’ll find a way to win.
Hope for the best since change is needed. But boy would it be nice to see Arte hire or sign someone where we don’t need to say “change is needed”
Prove me wrong Arte. Would love to see one work out for Mike’s sake.
Can he get Mike Trout to the WS before he’s 45 or before Arte turns 90?
Stay tuned!
That is on the boss, and his money.
If you can’t build support with money that doesn’t count, when the money that is counted can’t support
Great writing here today, some making sense, some realistic, some funny and humorous, some just plain nonsense, but all fun to read. On the surface this is just another one of Arte’s follies of trying to look good. But let’s believe 2 things until proven wrong.
Welcome aboard, Perry! I’m excited after reading all of the positive praise coming out today. Now, it’s time to add some pitching and turn this damn thing around in 2021.
By doing a little investigating, very little, there seems to be a pattern in the recent GM hires.
Why? Why you ask? And I reply exactly. Jerry. Billy. Perry.
“Get me Jerry on the Horn, stat. I have some of that baseball to discus.”
“Ahoy-Hoy. Not ‘Eppler here’ you go by Billy. What’s the dirt you got on the business of baseball, Billy. You here how that sounds. Sounds right it does. The SOP says to answer the horn with ‘Ahoy-Hoy’ long standing tradition it is.”
Now, what will the Perry seasons bring us? I’m hoping for pieces of metal, but Arte has fooled me before.
Shrapnel.
We finally won the Napoli trade!!!!!!!!!!!!
The longest, of cons
I love you.
💖
Very happy out of the 20 candidates, Arte and Stoneman saw the light through the fools gold. He checked all the boxes but “fired ex-GM” and “Friedman lackey.”
Welcome Perry!
Can I just say how happy I am to be back on here avoiding work and arguing with all of you about the Angels!
Here’s a piece of hope to latch onto:
“According to former general manager Jim Bowden, now an analyst for MLB Network Radio, Minasian is best known in scouting circles for identifying Noah Syndergaard as his top choice when he was with the Blue Jays, although Syndergaard was ‘unknown at the time.'”
https://www.ocregister.com/2020/11/12/angels-hire-perry-minasian-for-gm-spot-hold/
And then, as if from nowhere, the floating head of Mike Scioscia appeared to Minasian and appeared to whisper “how about a catcher” and then disappeared into the black.
We need someone who can ignore spin rate and draft guys that can throw gas. Our whole staff and bullpen throw low 90s cheese. We don’t give other teams different looks.
I’m going to be optimistic and throw Eppler under the bus and hope we can get back on track as an organization.
edit: ugh, my images didn’t upload, will have to try again later
So, it’s possible I cherry picked some data, but Arte’s tenure as an owner still looks pretty good, even when you take into account the Billy Eppler era. I know the narrative is that Arte is cheap, but he seems to be spending a pretty good chunk of money for the talent on the field.
The issue is not that Arte won’t spend money anywhere. He should be commended for spending a ton on the roster itself, and he’s also seemed committed to keeping games affordable for fans. Both efforts have been misguided at times (Vernon Wells! Per caps!), but he’s done his part to LOOK like an owner who wants to give the fans a winning team.
But after his early success, the team has gone downhill despite that spending. Why? Reagins was a bad hire, but both Dipoto and Eppler were decent candidates. Throughout their reigns, though, we’ve seen some under-the-radar reporting about Moreno’s meddling in operations, his direct contact with big-name free agents, his pulling the plug on deals when he’s made to wait too long, and, most harmfully in my opinion, his severe scale-back of the back office. The Angels don’t have teams of guys studying analytics, they haven’t hired any consulting groups to work with pitchers or hitters on the next great innovation, they don’t have a particularly robust amateur or international scouting department (although it’s better than it was).
Arte’s tenure does look good. It’s aesthetically pleasing. He’s got a wonderful looking Ferrari with the engine of a Pinto that he fuels with flat Barq’s root beer. I don’t think Arte is trying to fool anyone except himself. He bought the Ferrari body and spends money to keep it looking nice, but he fancies himself a mechanic. He’s not. So when he hires a new GM, that GM takes a look and says, “Hey, we need to overhaul this thing,” I think Arte takes that personally. So he hands the guy a screwdriver and says, “No, I know this engine will work. Just tweak it.” And then five years later fires the GM for not being a miracle worker.
There are too many words here, and while I like the ones about how there will never be any hope until Arte sells the team to god knows who, this comment totally fails to repeatedly mention how stoopid Eppler is so it’s lame.
All seasons, except the 2018, seem to be under the Competitive Balance Tax payroll threshold. Most season very close. And when was the last time we were really competitive?
I’m not saying Arte should go over the threshold, but he should not get the payroll so high, and force the GM to stay under it. Which then forces some wiggle room to be available. Which makes it hard to not fill your roster up at Dumpsters-r-Us.
That pretty good chunk of money is when there is room, and Arte makes a move, with his money.
I think/hope that Arte may have finally realized that a good MiLB system is how the winners survive their own “Arte” moves. Just off the top of my head I can think of some pretty ugly Dodger contracts that had to get paid…. Brandon League, Matt Kemp, Adrian Gonzalez, Hanley Ramirez, Carl Crawford, Andre Either, Brandon McCarthy, Alex Guerrero, Scott Kazmir, the current Kenley Jansen deal, the current Kershaw deal…. heck, AJ Pollack is a really expensive 4th OF…. but they could gamble on big contracts because their young talent picks up a lot of slack. Ours does not. Add a total collapse of the FA pitching market right when Arte seemed to think he could buy his way into starters after Weaver/Wilson aged and POOF! You get the Eppler era.
If we are lucky, having the Dodgers in his face has made him see how the Angels need to be if he’s going to roll the dice on guys like Pujols, Hamilton, etc. The ownership of the Rays, Yankees, Cubs, Red Sox and Astros are pretty engaged too. People complain less about it because they have all won. Arte will needs to build similar insurance plans for himself, not just gamble like a soldier on leave.
Silver Bullet to the head band – “Arte” moves
The teams you mention can survive the “moves” because they have the back up of their great farm system to either have someone move up to fix things, or pieces for a trade to fix things. Arte has saved money by not investing in the Minor league and scouting departments. What I can see, and is there a return on that investment.
If Perry is allowed to develop a farm system, that can protect the big league club, that will take millions of dollars, and many, many years to come to fruition. Is Arte willing to wait that long? And why would he change now? I am sure Billy would have loved the chance at building a real professional baseball organization.
I’m pretty sure that a lot of the big named, high priced, trades that flopped, were good organizations looking out for other good organizations. Friends bailing out friends kind of thing. The other teams understand that they are not in it to burn each other into the dirt, but to help the league out as best as they can. The league is a business, the teams are inclusive, the game is the competition, and every team is needed to make a successful league. Yes, some teams suck, but those owners concede that. But when they try, and can’t afford to compete like a big boy, one of the big teams comes in to bail them out, and go over the threshold. Which Arte refuses to do. To pay other teams to beat him.
You can’t be competitive by your lonesome. Sometimes you need to pay, to play.
It actually wouldn’t surprise me to see the new FO pull a bullet biter with Arte’s money since just about all the really good FA pitchers (“good” being by this year’s standards) are either Bauer or taking QAs. Just an out my ass example, say the Cardinals know the next 2 seasons will be dead in the water and they are broke from Covid. Maybe we could trade for Chris Carpenter and pay his remaining 2 years of 18+ million and also get Jack Flaherty who they probably don’t want to pay an escalating arb number to while they rebuild. Or, on a smaller scale, work out a trade for David Peralta/Caleb Smith off the D-Backs or get Patrick Corbin off of the Nationals since they appear to be behand the Braves, Phillies and Marlins now…. or Boyd/Norris/Fulmer from Detroit…. or take Roberto Perez n Carlos Carrasco’s contracts off of Cleveland.
This could be the second or even third off season in a row where Arte had money he was willing to spend on a pitcher and no takers so maybe Perry will find another way to pay for pitching.
It wouldn’t surprise me either, but adding, a, pitcher to Mike’s team will not get us any closer to that piece of metal than any other season. Mike is unable to carry the team to the championship, adding one pitcher isn’t going to help much for the cause.
Arte tries to hand out big pay days to starters. They refuse, it’s too late to sign another well known arm, Arte turns around and signs a big named bat. Could be okay, maybe not, but has a history in the game that Arte can recognize.
Arte should take that money, give it to the GM, and let that employee decide on what is the best way to invest in the team, that he or she, is in charge of building. There would be a lot more flexibility in building a staff, pen, and bench. Maybe add that needed platoon, or second string player. You would have enough money to convince the not well known but capable player to sigh for a few seasons. Maybe get a few to have career years in contract seasons, or maybe they can turn things around if he pays for development.
Yes, Arte does spend his money. Sometimes that is the problem.
Eppler ultimately failed on his own but the farm system matters when you evaluate at least the first year or two of his Angels teams’ success.
The farm not really taking off by year 5 is absolutely on him but when your payroll is clogged up by the owner’s bad moves, you need prospects to compete. He didn’t have much to work with those first years he took over.
As in everything, I’m
sureguessing there was a budget for the draft, somehow it was mixed in with development in the Minor Leagues.The Angels GM’s had to deal with restocking the team cheaply through the draft, making sure the could get the best players that would except the offers and sign. That may be why we all thought some of the picks could have been taken a few rounds later. The Angels couldn’t wait to see the best that fit their budget picked up after they gave a pass in an earlier round. Not best available, but most affordable, might have been the draft motto.
That’s because Arte did the one good thing and signed Vladdy.
Well, Perry? I haven’t seen any results yet. I’m waiting…..well?
I know, right? I mean we haven’t signed any pitching yet? He should have signed Bauer and Hendriks by now – totally out of his element. And traded Rengifo for Thor straight up.
Well, he wears Eddie Bauer and listens to Jimi Hendrix. Close enough?
We signed Kean Wong to a minor league contract. What more could you want??
Well, depending on if we bring Simba back (my preference) that might be the wrong Wong.
Also, can he pitch?
The best teams in baseball tend to make a flurry of under-the-radar moves that help improve their floor.
Kean Wong might be nothing more than a possible bench player, but considering he is a LHH 2B/OF who has shown some decent BB/K rates (certainly significantly better than Barreto), he could be in the mix for a bench role.
Not exciting, but a no-risk, minor league flyer offer.
Oh, don’t go being all reasonable in a clearly snarky thread 🙂
(I do agree that Keon Wong seems like a perfectly reasonable minor league pick-up, fwiw).
Given Eppler is gone. I can see Barreto getting non tendered soon.
We are about to find out just who were “Eppler’s guys” and who an objective eye would pick.
Eppler would’ve signed Kean Wong and Kolton Wong, and traded them for David Wright cuz as far as he was concerned, two Wongs make a Wright.
I’ll be here all week! Try the veal!
I guess it’s a good thing the Wright Brothers are dead.
What’s the cover?
That punchline would never fly with the group.
It’s the offseason, and you haven’t lost a beat. I can’t wait for your ’21 material!
I am family friends with Perry guys. I knew he was going to be hired on Tuesday. He got Pearson, Gurrerro JR, Bichette, Stroman, Syndergaard, Donaldson, Ozuna, Bautista, Teoscar Hernandez, Cavin Biggio, and Russell Martin guys.
Who do you think he will hire to be his assistant GMs?
Doofenshmirtz Evil, Inc.