Buster Posey had a confession to make.
However when Posey started his search? His candidate pool didn’t embody the person he ended up hiring.
“I’ll be honest,” Posey stated. “I haven’t told Zack this. I didn’t go into this process thinking that Zack was honestly even a candidate. So, when I got word that he was somebody that I should look into, I was open-minded. But again, if I’m being honest, I probably didn’t see us sitting right here a month later when this process started.
“No offense, Zack.”
For the first-time normal supervisor, no offense, probably, is taken.
“Buster had called and asked me about my interest level. I told him I’m a Giant first,” Minasian stated. “I love this city. My wife and I moved here. We had a baby here. It means a lot to us. This organization has been great to me since the first day I walked in the doors.
“It was important to me to continue on with the Giants in whatever role Buster thought worked best, and obviously, I was elated when he asked me about interviewing for this. The rest is history. I feel very fortunate.”
Posey was nonetheless an energetic participant when the Giants employed Minasian in 2019, and Posey praised Minasian’s potential to be out there to gamers however not have an overbearing presence. Minasian might not have initially been on Posey’s radar, however Posey started contemplating Minasian after speaking to individuals within the trade who he trusted.
“I think number one for me in this role is finding somebody that, obviously, is very astute in their baseball knowledge, which Zack is,” Posey stated, “but having somebody that I can trust, that we can all trust and share similar visions and goals for the San Francisco Giants. Zack very much checked all those boxes.”
Minasian, who served because the group’s vice chairman {of professional} scouting earlier than the promotion, received’t have an excessive amount of time to precise gratitude for his new position.
Starting on Monday, free brokers are allowed to signal with new groups. The free-agent pool consists of left-hander Blake Snell, who exercised his participant possibility on Friday. The checklist of gamers on the open market additionally consists of Juan Soto, the 26-year-old celebrity set to obtain a contract in extra of $500 million — if not $600 million. Posey stated the group will have a look at “every possibility available to make our team as good as we can,” whether or not it’s by free company, the commerce market or minor-league free company.
“When you think about roster construction, to me, it’s similar to the way I looked at being a baseball player,” Posey stated. “As a baseball player, you want to be as complete as you possibly can on both sides of the ball. I think that’s ultimately how we want to create a roster, with strong pitching and strong defense and the ability to score some runs in different ways.”
Added Minasian: “I think it’s a huge advantage that we have this blueprint from not too long ago on what works in this ballpark. Buster talked about it: we’re going to pitch, we’re going to play good defense and we’re going to find ways to score runs.”
Minasian has not beforehand held a normal supervisor position, however the 41-year-old plans to attract on his experiences with the Milwaukee Brewers, the place he labored for 14 seasons in quite a lot of completely different roles.
In Milwaukee, Minasian labored alongside Doug Melvin, who spent greater than a decade because the group’s normal supervisor. Melvin, thought-about a mentor by Minasian, had the ultimate say on trades, however Minasian recollects being “side by side” throughout commerce conversations — conversations that helped yield such stars as CC Sabathia, Zack Greinke and Josh Hader, amongst others.
Minasian additionally has the distinctive benefit of getting a sibling who’s at the moment doing the identical job.
Perry Minasian, Zack’s brother, has served because the Angels’ normal supervisor since 2020. With Zack’s promotion in San Francisco, they develop into the primary siblings to concurrently function normal managers.
A lot of the brothers’ conversations are about their youngsters — Zack famous that Main League Baseball has strict guidelines concerning what they’ll speak to one another about — however Zack has had the chance to look at how his brother manages the stressors of the position.
“It’s a little bit of on-the-job training without having to do the job,” Minasian stated. “I’ve been fortunate to watch that from afar, but for the most part, I kind of let him do his thing professionally and he’ll let me do mine.”
So far as the dynamic between Minasian and Posey, Posey stated he anticipates a “shared responsibility” in relation to coping with the day-to-day issues of operating the ballclub — together with coping with media.
“I’m in this to try to be a part of putting a great team on the field, and that involves being present and being in rooms with people and having conversations,” Posey stated. “That’s the way I intend to operate.”
