Nats general manager Mike Rizzo has been a busy, busy man this fall. Yes, he had to find a field manager – and settled on interim Jim Riggleman, who was hired full time last week. But Rizzo has also remade a front office that too often the last few years seemed like a patchwork of differing philosophies. We had the holdovers from when the team was in Montreal – led by scouting director Dana Brown. We had Jim Bowden, the former GM, who had his own group of trusted advisors from his days in Cincinnati and Pittsburgh. And we had men like Rizzo, scout Kris Kline and others who were hired in the years since the Lerner Family took over the franchise in 2006. I have no evidence the front office was dysfunctional on the inside – other than the back-to-back 100-loss seasons, of course. But it did seem an odd mix. No one person was responsible for putting that entire crew together from scratch and that – from the outside – seems like a bad way to build an organization.
But you can’t say that anymore. Rizzo was hired full time in August to replace Bowden. He had three years with the Nats to see what front-office personnel he wanted to stay (VP of player development Bob Boone) and whom he didn’t (fired director of player development Bobby Williams). There’s never been any indication Rizzo and Brown didn’t get along. But Brown also decided to leave at the end of the season and take a position with the Toronto Blue Jays. Director of Baseball Operations Brian Parker went with him along with scouts Marteese Robinson and Bob Hamelin.
Recommended Stories
Monday, the Nats announced the two latest additions. These men – Bryan Minniti and Jay Sartori – will handle the procedural duties that keep a front office running smoothly. Minniti worked for nine years with the Pittsburgh Pirates. He has a double major in mathematics and statistics from the University of Pittsburgh and can handle contract negotiations, budgets, MLB rules procedures and compliance. Those skills were distinctly lacking among Rizzo’s earlier hires. Nats PR man John Dever tells me Minniti’s title is assistant GM – period. Nothing extra there like “vice president of…” But his duties will be similar to those with the Pirates.
Sartori worked for the Commisioner’s Office as a salary and contract administration manager in MLB’s labor relations department. He is intimately familiar with the Basic Agreement – that lengthy contract that governs the sport’s salary structure and is hammered out every few years between the Players Association and the owners. Sartori also knows about the arbitration process and the finances that go with the amateur draft. He has Finance and MIS degrees from Boston College and will be the director of baseball operations, replacing the departed Parker.
