How Zack Minasian rose from clubbie to GM

This story was excerpted from Maria Guardado's Giants Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.

It’s no overstatement to say that Zack Minasian has spent his entire life working in baseball. The Giants’ new general manager, after all, first stepped into a clubhouse when he was 5 years old.

Minasian’s father, also named Zack, worked as the clubhouse manager for the Rangers for two decades, giving his four sons -- Rudy, Perry, Calvin and Zack -- a unique upbringing in the game. The brothers grew up working alongside their dad as bat boys and clubhouse attendants in Arlington, jump-starting their baseball careers at an early age.

“The one rule was, 'If you’re in the clubhouse, you’re going to work,'” the younger Zack recalled. “Now, there were probably only so many things I could do when I was 5. But I would clean shoes, I would pick up dirty clothes and things like that.”

The laundry list of responsibilities is now much longer for the 41-year-old Minasian, who rose from those humble beginnings to become Giants president of baseball operations Buster Posey’s top lieutenant earlier this month. Minasian became the 11th GM in the San Francisco era and the second in his family after Perry, who currently occupies the same post with the Angels.

“Pretty surreal,” Minasian said. “I think for Perry to get there on his own prior to me was amazing. Obviously, a special opportunity. For me to get the opportunity as well, it doesn’t even really feel real.”

“He’s worked really hard for a lot of years,” Perry said. “To see him get this opportunity with a great organization, with being able to work with a person like Buster Posey on a daily basis, I think it’s a great fit. He’s the baby of the family. Everybody always loves the baby. Excitement is first and foremost. That old adage 'good things happen to good people' -- he’s the best.”

Being raised in a clubhouse turned out to be an ideal training ground for Perry and Zack, who both became adept at scouting through their daily interactions with players, managers and front-office executives.

“I think obviously you see different teams and how they were built,” Perry said. “You see different people. You see different bodies, different shapes and sizes. You understand a lot of different things. There’s no one way a player looks. And then you see makeup and what winning players are, what losing players are and those types of things. [Zack] was one to ask a lot of questions. He was never shy about asking questions. Coaches, managers, players. We’re both similar in that sense.”

“We were so fortunate to be around so many special people who cared about baseball and knew that we loved it,” Zack said. “They gave us an education.”

In their spare time, the brothers would play a makeshift version of fantasy baseball, coming up with trade proposals, free-agent deals and drafts to construct their ideal rosters. Those games later turned into their real-life jobs when Perry and Zack ended up pursuing careers in the front office. Zack got his start with the Brewers' organization, where he worked under former Rangers GM Doug Melvin and rose to become the youngest pro scouting director in baseball by age 27.

In 2010, Zack and Perry -- then the pro scouting director for Toronto -- collaborated on their first major trade, agreeing to send Blue Jays right-hander Shaun Marcum to Milwaukee in exchange for highly touted infield prospect Brett Lawrie.

“I remember my boss calling me -- it was actually during Thanksgiving -- and he was asking me about this potential deal that I had mentioned,” Zack said. “I remember him asking me about it. ‘Let’s look at Lawrie and Marcum again.’ I got on my computer, and I’m looking at Lawrie’s numbers. I turn around, and sure enough, Perry’s standing right behind me, staring at my computer, so I had to like shoo him away.”

These days, Zack and Perry’s conversations revolve mostly around their families, though they’re both open to doing more business if the Giants and Angels line up on a trade in the future.

“I wouldn’t necessarily say it’s any easier to get a deal done because it’s your brother,” Zack said. “We’re probably just more direct. So if we are going to get a deal done, we know pretty quickly, and if we’re not, we know pretty quickly.

“At the end of the day, he’s my competitor. I’m not looking to do any of my competitors any favors.”