The New York Yankees announced that they have appointed Omar Minaya as Senior Advisor to Baseball Operations.
Minaya, 64, joins the Yankees with almost four decades of front office experience. The Baseball America ”2022 Trailblazer Award” winner spent the last year serving as an amateur scouting consultant for Major League Baseball. He also spent the last six seasons with the New York Mets, serving as a Special Assistant to the General Manager from 2017-20 and a Mets Ambassador from 2020-22. It marked his third stint with the club after previously working as the organization’s Senior Assistant General Manager from September 1997 to February 2002 and serving as the Mets Executive Vice President and General Manager from September 2004 to October 2010.
Minaya began his career with the Texas Rangers, working in their scouting department from 1985-97. He joined the Rangers organization as an amateur scout in 1985 while also coaching the Rookie-level Gulf Coast Rangers from 1985-87. He was named the Latin American Scouting Coordinator for Texas in 1989 and promoted to the Director of Professional and International Scouting in 1994. The Rangers’ professional scouting department was newly created that season, and it marked the first time in the history of Major League Baseball that a club had dedicated a department solely to professional scouting.
After his first stint with the Mets from 1997-2002, he became baseball's first Hispanic General Manager when he was appointed Vice President and General Manager of the Montreal Expos in February 2002. He spent three seasons with Montreal (2002-04) before returning to the Mets as their General Manager in 2004. From 2005-10, the Mets posted a 506-466 (.521) record, the third-best mark in the National League during that stretch.
From December 2011 to January 2015, Minaya served as the Vice President of Baseball Operations for the San Diego Padres. He also spent three years (2015-17) as a Senior Advisor to the Executive Director of the Major League Baseball Players Association before rejoining the Mets in 2017.
Additionally, Minaya was a member of the selection committee for the United States Olympic and Pan-American baseball teams in 2000 when both teams won gold medals.
Minaya was born in the Dominican Republic and grew up in Queens where he played baseball at Newtown High School in Elmhurst. He was selected by the Oakland Athletics in the 14th round of the 1978 First-Year Player Draft. After playing in both the Athletics and Mariners minor league organizations, he spent two years (1983-84) playing professionally in Italy.