Angels face an impossible Perry Minasian decision before trade deadline

If you are a fan of the Los Angeles Angels, you will struggle to find many moves that general manager Perry Minasian has made that have actually made the team appreciably better. Most of his bullpen overhaul from this past offseason proved to be a failure, Grayson Rodriguez has been hurt to the surprise of no one, and proceeded to get beat up in his 2026 debut, and the years since he was hired have been littered with half-measures, failed signings, and players that should have been traded for prospect help and weren't.

No one argues that Minasian isn't operating with some very difficult constraints. Arte Moreno is a very tough owner to work for for anyone, and if he doesn't authorize a move or the money to make changes, it just isn't going to happen, and he seldom does so at all these days. However, you would think that Minasian would have found a way to get more right than he has, even with those handicaps.

Unfortunately for Minasian, the same mercurial owner who is his biggest obstacle is also the same guy who decides whether he stays or goes. Given the way things are going, it is honestly fair to wonder if Moreno could get rid of Minasian before the trade deadline (and the draft, for that matter).

At this rate, Perry Minasian may not survive the first half as the Angels' GM

The case to move on from Minasian is fairly straightforward. Most of the Angels' draft classes under Minasian have been disappointing or worse. He has yet to truly hit on a free agent signing, he held on to tradeable assets for too long, and his track record in trades is decidedly poor. If the team were to move on from Minasian after the 2026 season, no one would blink.

However, firing Minasian during the season has more pros and cons. Not only does firing him soon send a brutal message to the Angels' current clubhouse at a time when they definitely need to keep playing their hardest, but shaking up leadership could exacerbate the Angels' existing problems and make them even worse. In that world, what candidate in their right mind would even bother interviewing for the job?

That said, there are very valid reasons to rip the band-aid off here. If you are Moreno and you have no confidence in Minasian's ability to compete under the terms you have set, why would you let that same guy handle both the upcoming MLB Draft and/or the trade deadline for your team? The trick here is that Moreno would need someone he has MORE confidence in that could jump right into the fray and replace Minasian, but it is possible that Moreno does have such a person in mind.

Whether or not Moreno actually goes through with that is a different question entirely. For all of Moreno's faults, he generally isn't a guy who fires executives or coaches in the middle of the season. Joe Maddon got fired in the middle of the 2022 season, but that might have been Minasian's call. General manager Jerry DiPoto resigned in the middle of the 2015 season after feuding with Mike Scioscia, but again...that wasn't Moreno acting per se. We'll have to wait to see what the Angels do here, but the timeline for a decision could be shorter than fans think.

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