Major League Baseball retained an external consulting firm to design candidate-preparation programs for front-office roles, marking the first time the league has formalized training for executives before they assume positions. The move comes as the Los Angeles Angels fired general manager Perry Minasian and hired former St. Louis Cardinals executive John Mozeliak, the San Francisco Giants added former teammates Curt Casali and Javier López to their baseball operations staff under president Buster Posey, and the Detroit Tigers continued their analytics-driven rebuild under president Scott Harris.
The firm—name undisclosed—will build curriculum covering contract negotiation, CBA compliance, roster construction modeling, and media training. MLB executives expect the first cohort to begin in June, with 15-20 candidates drawn from assistant GM roles, player-development directors, and analytics departments across all 30 clubs. The league is funding the program centrally, a departure from prior practice where individual franchises trained their own pipeline. The timing reflects pressure from ownership groups who've watched front-office tenures shrink: the average GM lasts 3.8 years now, down from 5.2 a decade ago, per independent tracking.
The Angels dismissed Minasian after four seasons and a 184-264 record, despite owner Arte Moreno's $460 million committed to Mike Trout and the signing of free agents like Tyler Anderson and Carlos Estévez. Mozeliak, 55, ran St. Louis for 17 years and delivered two World Series titles; his hire signals a shift toward veteran stability over the rebuild narrative Minasian inherited. Mozeliak's first task is hiring a GM—he'll operate as a president overseeing baseball operations—and the Angels have already contacted Cleveland's Chris Antonetti and Tampa Bay assistant Chaim Bloom, according to two agents familiar with early outreach. The Angels owe Minasian roughly $2.4 million through 2026; they'll pay it.
In San Francisco, Posey added Casali and López within 72 hours of each other, filling newly created roles as special assistants focused on catching development and Latin American scouting, respectively. Casali, 36, caught for the Giants in 2021-22 and retired last fall; López, 48, pitched 13 seasons and has lived in Puerto Rico since 2016, running youth academies. Both moves followed the Giants' decision to decline arbitration on catcher Patrick Bailey's backup, Tom Murphy, saving $3.1 million. Posey is rebuilding the player-pipeline infrastructure that eroded under previous president Farhan Zaidi, who prioritized big-league roster optimization over amateur development. The Giants ranked 23rd in Baseball America's organizational talent rankings entering 2025, down from 9th in 2019.
The Tigers, meanwhile, promoted two internal scouts to cross-checker roles—one covering the Southeast, one the Midwest—after their 86-76 finish last season, their best since 2016. Harris has added 11 front-office staffers since taking over in September 2022, most with joint responsibilities spanning pro scouting and player development. The restructuring eliminated traditional area-scout silos in favor of hybrid roles that follow players from draft day through Triple-A. Detroit's $128 million payroll remains bottom-third in MLB, but Harris has convinced owner Chris Ilitch to greenlight a $42 million training-complex expansion in Lakeland, set to break ground in April.
MLB's centralized training program also reflects unease about the pace of front-office diversity gains. Of the 30 general managers, two are Black, three are Latino, and one is a woman (Miami's Kim Ng left in 2023; no replacement). The league's new curriculum includes implicit-bias modules and partner-relationship simulations—awkward phrasing from the consulting deck obtained by two clubs. Commissioner Rob Manfred mentioned the initiative briefly during January's owners meetings in Orlando, framing it as "succession planning" without naming the firm or budget. Estimates from three team executives place the cost near $1.8 million annually, split across league revenue-sharing.
The Angels expect to name Mozeliak's GM by late March, targeting candidates with trade-negotiation experience as the club evaluates moving Taylor Ward or Luis Rengifo before their arbitration clocks expire. The Giants will expand their front office further if they sign free agent Willy Adames—Posey has $68 million in luxury-tax space remaining—because that addition would trigger a positional-development role to manage shortstop depth. Detroit's front-office expansion continues through April, with Harris interviewing for two analytics positions focused on in-game decision modeling.
The takeaway
MLB's external training program formalizes front-office preparation as three franchises simultaneously rebuild scouting operations, shortening the informal pipeline that previously relied on mentorship.
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