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2 reasons the Angels should have fired Perry Minasian, 2 reasons they were right not to

Should the Angels have fired Perry Minasian?

By Zachary Rotman |
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Los Angeles Angels v New York Yankees / Elsa/GettyImages
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The Los Angeles Angels are shaking things up after an embarrassing finish to what they had hoped would be a promising year. The Angels attempted to try and win in Shohei Ohtani's final guaranteed season with the team but instead finished with the exact same record they had in the 2022 season.

In response to their failure, the Angels parted ways with Phil Nevin and are searching for a new manager. They also parted with assistant general manager Alex Tamin, Perry Minasian's right-hand man.

Interestingly enough, Arte Moreno made the decision to keep Minasian around ahead of the final year of his deal. There're reasons to believe that was a good idea, but also reasons to wonder why he was allowed to stay when others took the fall.

LA Angels should have fired Perry Minasian because of his inexplicable trade deadline

The Angels had a couple of directions they could've chosen. They could've either traded Shohei Ohtani and received a haul for him in the final year of his deal, or they could've gone all in to try and win with him one more time. To his credit, Minasian did pick a direction. The problem is that the players he acquired were overperforming at the time and crashed back to earth immediately. These players were also on expiring deals.

Minasian traded several of the Angels top prospects from an already weak system in exchange for players on expiring deals. I understand the Angels didn't have the blue chip guys to go out and get a Justin Verlander, but Minasian certainly could've done better than what he did.

Lucas Giolito, Reynaldo Lopez, C.J. Cron, Randal Grichuk, and Dominic Leone. That was the big deadline haul that was supposed to get the Angels over the top. Of that group, the only player that performed in August was Lopez. Randal Grichuk was solid down the stretch, but the Angels were already out of it.

The Angels didn't have the pieces to go and get a Cy Young candidate, but they certainly could've gotten a guy like Jordan Montgomery instead of Lucas Giolito who has been instrumental for Texas on their way to a potential ALCS appearance. They could've gotten a guy like Tommy Pham who just had four hits in a playoff game hitting third for Arizona instead of Grichuk.

Hindsight is 20/20 of course, but the players the Angels got had elevated numbers from playing in Colorado (Cron, Grichuk) or had high FIP's that indicated regression was coming (Giolito). Bottom line, the Angels went 17-38 after the trade deadline. Sure, players have to play better and injuries didn't help, but Minasian absolutely deserves some blame for the catastrophe that occurred.

LA Angels should not have fired Perry Minasian because of the young core he's been building

While Perry Minasian has failed to do much of anything at the big league level, he's done an awesome job building a young core Angels fans can be somewhat excited about.

While Brandon Marsh has broken out in Philadelphia, Minasian acquired the clear catcher of the future for this franchise in Logan O'Hoppe in exchange for him. O'Hoppe not only looks like an awesome player, but he appears to have great leadership qualities as well. At the same 2022 trade deadline, Minasian made another move sending Noah Syndergaard's expiring contract for Mickey Moniak. The former number one overall pick broke out in a huge way for the Angels this year and looks like a key piece to their future while Syndergaard wasn't a key piece for the Phillies.

Several Angels rookies debuted this season and showed flashes of high potential. Zach Neto looks like a stud at shortstop who, like O'Hoppe, has awesome intangibles. Nolan Schanuel is already an on-base machine after playing in college baseball games earlier this season. Ben Joyce, Jose Soriano, and Sam Bachman could all be key arms in the bullpen. Chase Silseth will be competing for a rotation spot in 2024.

The Angels have pieces here to build around. The right thing to do would be to rebuild and get even more young players, but Minasian's ability to draft and notice find young players ready to break out should not go unnoticed. This is more young talent the Angels have had at once in a long time.

LA Angels should have fired Perry Minasian because he has failed to build anything close to a winner around the best player of all-time

This is not all on Perry. Arte Moreno deserves blame, the players deserve blame, and the coaching staff deserves blame. However, MLB is a business, and the idea here is to win games. Perry Minasian has not done that since taking over for Billy Eppler, and that's not for a lack of trying.

The Angels have not attempted to rebuild, meaning Minasian has tried to field a winning team and failed miserably. He's been one of the worst general managers in franchise history based on winning percentage with at least 162 games managed.

During Minasian's stint as GM, he's gotten one MVP season out of Shohei Ohtani (about to be two) and one second place finish in which it could be argued that he should've finished first. Ohtani has done things we've never seen before and was having what might've been the best season ever before getting hurt.

The result of those three seasons is the Angels being 40 games under .500. He wasn't the one who strapped the Angels financially with the Anthony Rendon contract and he's not the one limiting himself financially by not being allowed to go over the tax, but nobody forced him to sign Tyler Anderson or trade for Hunter Renfroe. Minasian has made plenty of moves that simply haven't worked.

Again, it's not all his fault but wins and losses have to mean something. Perry simply hasn't won at all in Anaheim.

LA Angels should not have fired Perry Minasian because nothing will change under a new GM

Perry Minasian deserves a lot of blame for his failures as Angels GM, but the person who continues to destroy this franchise is Arte Moreno. If Perry Minasian was fired, nothing realistically would change as long as he's here.

Moreno is the reason why Phil Nevin remained the manager after he flirted with selling the team only to pull them off the market. Moreno is the reason Perry bought at the deadline when the Angels had slim odds. Moreno is the reason the Angels haven't had anything close to a competent farm system. Moreno is the main reason this organization hasn't had a winning record in each of the last eight seasons and hasn't made the playoffs since 2014.

If Minasian was fired, Moreno would simply hire a yes-man that'd do what he wants and take the fall for him if/when it fails. We just saw Arte fire Perry's assistant and be very involved in firing Phil Nevin. He's going to continue to meddle if he wants to, so who the GM is doesn't mean much of anything as long as that's happening.

It's very hard to picture the Angels fielding a stable winning team as long as Arte Moreno is owning it. A big reason for that is his constant meddling and turnover in the dugout and front office. This is MInasian's final year of his deal. If the Angels fail in 2024, I expect him to be let go and for this cycle to just keep on going until Moreno finally decides to sell.

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