Angels make transition from Stoneman to Reagins

SEATTLE – There’s a new man in charge of the Mariners’ biggest rival in the A.L. West.

At least in title. Many in baseball, however, believe that last October’s switch in general managers by the Angels from Bill Stoneman to Tony Reagins merely strengthened manager Mike Scioscia’s status as the power base of the organization.

Stoneman is the man who replaced Bill Bavasi as Angels’ GM after the 1999 season, and whose first prominent move was to hire Dodgers stalwart Scioscia to skipper the Angels. That was three A.L. West titles, one wild-card berth and one World Series championship ago.

Reagins, 40, started in the Angels’ organization as an intern in baseball operations in 1992. He was in the marketing department doing such crucial tasks as designing outfits for mascots when Bavasi, then the team’s farm director, and his assistant, Jeff Parker, invited Reagins to help work on a new computerized scouting system they were installing.

“That was really the start of it,” Reagins said.

It was Reagins first true exposure to a meaningful role in baseball operations, and he ran with it. He eventually became manager of baseball operations (where he underwent a crash course in scouting 101 under the tutelage of Bob Fontaine, the Mariners’ current scouting director) and, for the past seven years, the Angels’ director of player development.

When the 63-year-old Stoneman stepped down, citing a decline in energy and a desire to spend more time with his family, Angels owner Arte Moreno didn’t conduct a search. He also bypassed longtime assistant Ken Forsch and gave the job to Reagins, who became just the second black GM in the major leagues (the other is Ken Williams of the White Sox).

The immediate read by the baseball world was that Reagins was the figurehead, but Scioscia would be pulling the strings. Moreno acknowledged at Reagins’ introductory news conference that Scioscia would have an increased role in personnel decisions.

Reagins, in turn, has said that Angels’ decisions are a collaborative effort involving Moreno, Scioscia, Forsch, special assistant Gary Sutherland, scouting director Gary Bane, and himself – just as they’ve always been. Stoneman remains a sounding board, having stayed on as a “senior adviser.”

Scioscia on Friday said the Angels have made “a pretty seamless transition” from Stoneman to Reagins.

“I think the most important relationship in a franchise is the general manager-manager relationship,” Scioscia said. “One is in charge of really building the club and putting it together, and the other is in charge of working with it on a daily basis to make sure it works to its potential.”

Like Bavasi, Reagins has no professional playing background. In fact, his athletic prowess in high school was in football. But Fontaine, the Angels’ scouting director from 1994-99, said Reagins was a quick study when he immersed himself in the scouting world.

“The thing that impressed me about Tony, he loves baseball,” Fontaine said. “He really wanted to learn. He always liked to hang around experienced guys, asking a lot of questions, listening a lot. He worked really hard, and when he had an opportunity to go out and do things, he molded his own style, which is what you have to do.”

Reagins admits that the burden is heavier now that he is at the head of the Angels’ baseball department.

“I don’t think you can really prepare for it,” he said. “No matter what people think on the outside, unless you’re in it, it’s a lot different than what you think from the outside.”