SF Giants add former Pirates evaluator as direct of pro scouting

The SF Giants will have a new face in the front office. Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic reports that they are hiring away Hadi Raad from the Pittsburgh Pirates to be their new director of pro scouting.

SF Giants add former Pirates evaluator as direct of pro scouting

Raad is taking over for Zack Minasian in that role. Of course, Minasian was promoted to general manager in November. He was originally brought in as one of Farhan Zaidi's first hires in 2019 and was elevated to vice president of pro scouting in 2022.

The hire of Raad also represents the first external hire the Giants have made this offseason. Buster Posey, Randy Winn, and Minasian all worked internally with the Giants in some capacity before assuming new roles. In the case of Winn, he served as a scout under Minasian in the late 2010's before being hired as the new vice president of player development.

The Giants also lost formal general manager Pete Putila and director of baseball analytics Michael Schwartze to the Atlanta Braves earlier in the offseason.

Raad started working in the front office as a baseball operations intern with the New York Yankees in 2012. He joined the Texas Rangers as an intern and video scout briefly before returning to the Yankees organization. Raad spent nearly six years in New York's front office, rising to become a director of minor league options.

The Miami Marlins hired Raad away to be their director of pro scouting in November of 2019. He remained in that role for three seasons before he was let go in 2022 as part of a restructuring in the Miami Marlins front office when Kim Ng served as general manager.

Since then, Raad has worked as a professional evaluation team leader for the Pirates organization. While there may be some confusion about what this role does, it generally focuses on pro scouting for the major league roster and minor league signings. A source told Around the Foghorn that the Pirates have been at the forefront of minor league free agency and knowledge of available players in recent years.

On the other hand, amateur scouting focuses primarily on high school and college players. Teams typically have a different department for international scouting. The Giants have a similar setup in place. Michael Holmes is the director of amateur scouting, whereas Joe Salermo is the senior director of international scouting. Raad will be running a different department that evaluates trades, waiver claims, and signings among other responsibilities.