LA Angels: Why patience is necessary with new GM Perry Minasian

The Angels need to exercise patience with new GM Perry Minasian.

The Angels no doubt have the makings of a winning ball club, starting with the best player in the game, Mike Trout. They also have All-Star third basemen Anthony Rendon, who will enter in his second year with the team as well as two-way superstar Shohei Ohtani, although we’ll wait to see how much he does both pitching and hitting this season. They also have super-utility David Fletcher who was one of their best players last season as he showed grit and determination to never give up an at-bat. However, there are question marks that will need to be further addressed during the off-season such as shortstop, catcher, and the biggest problem with the team: pitching.

Minasian is being put into a tough spot which he understands as he states in his introduction with the team.

“One of the things makes this job so intriguing is this is not a 100-loss team. This is not a five-to-seven year rebuild. This is going to be a competitive club.”

He knows that the organization needs to win due to the fact that they still have people hanging the same thing over the Angels head which is “When is Mike Trout going to be in the playoffs.” However, this is no easy task for any general manager, as they still have a middle of the pack farm system that could go right back to being barren and a team that needs to be competitive. So, the main question that Angels fans need to be asking themselves is: “How long are we going to give Minasian to make the team competitive?”

We know that drastic change is coming to the team in terms of the way they are thinking with the statement being made from president John Carpino when the team was searching for a new GM and with the hiring of Perry Minasian. The one thing that fans shouldn’t do is put this enormous pressure on Minasian and expect immediate success from the team. Now, as said before, there’s no doubt this team will get competitive and fans will see Trout in the postseason again. But, people need to understand that this isn’t a night and day fix with the team, Minasain will have his successes and his failures and Angels fans should be willing to ride out the bad times when they eventually come.

His baseball experience and scouting background makes him a perfect fit for the team as there will be development change from top to bottom. He understands that pitching is the main concern with this team and he will hopefully provide an answer to that not just with key free agent signings, but with the way the organization handles it’s pitchers. The Angels won’t get to the postseason by just signing one or two starting pitchers, they are going to need to get quality innings from the back end of their rotation and relievers. This is why Minasian is the perfect hire, because he can completely change the way the team is running so long as Angels owner Arte Moreno lets him, and this long evaluation process from the team on his hiring should show they understand that.

If the Angels can once again get within arms reach of a postseason spot or even just a one round appearance, then fans should see the change within the team. It’s hard to put a definitive number on how long Minasian will be the general manager, but fans should be willing to sit on their hands for when things don’t go the way they want. It’s going to be tough to ask fans to do it again as they’ve been waiting for a long time already, but putting enormous amounts of pressure on Minasian won’t do the team any good, they have to just trust that there is a process to all of this.