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Angels’ Perry Minasian gets 2-year extension, now it’s time for him to shop smarter: Blum

The Los Angeles Angels operate like a small-market Major League Baseball team.
That was not the case when Angels owner Arte Moreno hired Perry Minasian as his team’s general manager nearly four years ago. That team had four players making at least $23 million.

They weren’t the sport’s biggest spenders, but for better or worse, they were a team defined by a desire to acquire superstar talent.

That’s the checkbook Minasian thought he’d inherit. But it’s not the one he got.
Fast forward a few years. The Angels went to desperate measures to get below the luxury tax last season, putting nearly a third of their team on waivers. Their attempts to re-sign Shohei Ohtani were minimal, at best. And they cut payroll by $40 million this season.
On Thursday, the Angels announced that Minasian, who had been in the final year of his initial four-year contract, received a two-year extension. It was a show of confidence for the top baseball operations executive who had previously been left to twist in the wind with his future uncertain.

Minasian earned this extension because he’s instilled a framework for hope. He assembled a budding young core of players like Logan O’Hoppe, Zach Neto, Ben Joyce, Nolan Schanuel and José Soriano. All 30 teams would take any of those players this second.

Minasian has done an excellent job in that area. But he has yet to show he can succeed within the margins he’s been given. He’s yet to prove that he can be a winning GM for what is ostensibly a small-market team.

“Over the last four years, Perry and his baseball operations staff have begun to lay the foundation for a bright future of Angels Baseball,” Moreno said in a statement. “We have been impressed by the steps Perry has taken to infuse our Major League team with young and exciting talent while also revamping our player development process.

“We believe this extension will allow him to continue the vision of building sustainable success throughout the Angels Organization and deliver a championship for our fans.”
Moreno might feel comfortable writing about a “championship” in pre-written statements. But in reality, the Angels are nowhere close.

They were bad when Minasian was hired. They’ve remained bad with him at the helm — going 77-85 in his first year, then 73-89 in each of the following two seasons. This year, they are at risk of posting the worst season in franchise history — now 20 games below .500 with 34 games left.

The farm system has shown only incremental improvements. Most, if not every independent minor-league ranking service says the Angels have one of the worst systems in the sport. MLB Pipeline ranked the Angels 29th out of 30 teams just last week.
He’s done some strong work. But to find the same success as many other lower-budget organizations, Minasian has to get better at decision-making on the margins.
This is where Minasian struggled, dating to when he signed infielder David Fletcher to a five-year extension in 2021. The same Fletcher who is now a Double-A knuckleball pitcher with the Braves.

Many more consequential bullpen signings have been flops — Aaron Loup, Ryan Tepera, Archie Bradley, Robert Stephenson (so far), and many more. The 2021 draft might not produce any viable big-league players. And the lack of organizational depth has led to record in-season turnover in the past three years.

Most small-market teams are better at developing a talent pipeline. They’re better at deciding where to pull the trigger in free agency. No one is perfect, but the best teams are consistently good in these areas where the Angels have unambiguously failed.

The Angels’ biggest free-agent signing in Minasian’s tenure was Raisel Iglesias, for four years and $58 million. He was traded in a salary dump just months later.

If you take away the contracts of Mike Trout and Anthony Rendon — players who have been perpetually injured — the Angels’ 2024 payroll is just about $100 million. That would put them in the same range as the Washington Nationals, Cincinnati Reds, Detroit Tigers and Miami Marlins.

Minasian has consistently stated time and again that his team has postseason aspirations. He need not look further than these facts to understand that he can’t afford to make mistakes to reach those aspirations.

The Angels should act like a big-market team. Moreno calls them the Los Angeles Angels because of their association with one of the world’s largest media markets and the star power that comes along with it.

The Angels have a loyal fan base and a rich history and they play in one of the most beautiful and populated parts of the country. The Angels should be no different than the Los Angeles Dodgers, New York Mets, New York Yankees or Chicago Cubs. They should be in the mix for impending free agents Juan Soto or SoCal native Corbin Burnes this offseason.

They should be all these things. But they aren’t. Perhaps Moreno will change this offseason. It’s more likely he won’t. Nothing might change until he sells his club.
The built-in caveats to explain Minasian’s inability to win thus far are endless. He is the only GM in baseball who doesn’t have an assistant GM. He’s been given the sport’s worst spring training facilities and a low budget to fill one of the smallest organizational infrastructures.

There is no question Minasian has one of the most frustrating bosses in the entire sport. Moreno is ineffectively micro-managing him at every turn. It is a very tough job.

But this is what Minasian signed up for when he signed this extension. The first time he took this job, he might have dreamt it would be something different. That he would be in a world where he’d be in the mix for every big name on the market.

He wants this job and every frustrating thing that comes along with it. And now, it’s on him to be a better small-market GM.