The Yankees are moving on from two veteran baseball minds, not renewing the contracts of Omar Minaya and Brian Sabean, according to The New York Post’s Jon Heyman.
Both men had been working as advisors to general manager Brian Cashman, and with their deals ending, they’re now free to explore opportunities elsewhere in baseball. Minaya and Sabean were both brought into the organization in January 2023.
Minaya held the title of senior advisor to baseball operations. He’s been around front offices for more than four decades and will turn 68 soon.
His most notable stops came as general manager of the Expos from 2002-04 and the Mets from 2005-10. During his time in New York, he helped bring in Pedro Martinez and Carlos Beltran as free agents, traded for Johan Santana, and drafted Matt Harvey in 2010.
His run as Mets GM ended when he was fired in October 2010. After that, he worked in the Padres’ baseball operations department and later served as an advisor to Tony Clark at the Players Association.
Minaya eventually returned to the Mets in special assistant and ambassador roles, then spent a brief period as a consultant for MLB before joining the Yankees. He has not served as a GM in any capacity for eight years, though he was part of the Mets’ interim committee in 2018 when Sandy Alderson took a leave of absence.
Even so, his background should still make him a candidate for advisory work.
Sabean’s path is just as deep. He started his front office career with the Yankees in the mid-1980s and helped assemble pieces of the club’s late-90s dynasty, though he left for the Giants in 1993 before those championships were won.
He spent the next three decades with San Francisco, including a stretch as GM from 1997-2014. Under his watch, the Giants reached the World Series in 2002 and then captured three titles during their even-year run in the 2010s.
After stepping away from GM duties, Sabean remained in non-GM roles from 2015-22 before landing back with the Yankees. Like Minaya, he could draw interest from clubs looking for an experienced advisor, but probably not as a top decision-maker.
With the Astros hiring Randy Flores as GM, the Angels are the only team still searching for a baseball operations leader. Interim GM John Mozeliak is not in the running for the full-time job, though he could remain in place until a new hire is made.
New owner Stan Kroenke may want a seasoned executive to guide a rebuild, but Minaya and Sabean would be long shots for that kind of role given how much time has passed since either one was running a front office full time.
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