TORONTO -- The Blue Jays made a series of changes to their front office on Thursday afternoon, as the restructuring continued under the watch of president Mark Shapiro.
Toronto officially hired Steve Sanders as its amateur scouting director after news of that change broke earlier this week. Joe Sheehan was promoted to assistant general manager and Perry Minasian was appointed to the position of special assistant to the general manager.
Sanders takes over for Brian Parker, who was dismissed from his duties last month. Sanders joins the Blue Jays from Boston and is an ideal fit for the job because of his familiarity with VP of business operations Ben Cherington, who was his former boss with the Red Sox.
The graduate of Northwestern University previously was the assistant scouting director with the Red Sox, who are considered to have one of the top Minor League systems in baseball. Prior to his scouting director position, Sanders also served as an amateur and international scouting assistant.
Sheehan has been with the Blue Jays' organization since 2010. He previously held the title of baseball information analyst and was later promoted to manager of baseball research in development. His responsibilities have been increasing over the last several years, and that will continue now in his most high-profile job yet.
Minasian was an assistant GM during Alex Anthopoulos' previous regime. He remained in that role this season, but will now transition to a new job, which the club announced in a release would have Minasian "increase his scouting efforts and touch every acquisition level more frequently in his new role."
The moves are the latest in a series of changes since Shapiro took over as president last November. Andrew Miller replaced Stephen Brooks as vice president of business operations, Mike Murov was hired as director of baseball operations and the club introduced a high performance department to help with the training and health of its players.