The Detroit Tigers announced Tuesday promotions within the baseball operations department, giving new opportunities to Sam Menzin, Jay Sartori and Kenny Graham.
Both Menzin, 31, and Sartori, 42, were promoted to vice president/assistant general manager titles.
Graham is taking over the player development department on an interim basis. He replaces vice president of player development Dave Littlefield, who is transitioning into a new role as a special assignment scout.
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Before earning their new gigs, Menzin had served as the director of baseball operations and professional scouting for the past four seasons; Sartori had spent the past six seasons as the team’s senior director of baseball analytics and operations.
Sartori made his mark with the Tigers through his integration of data analytics and technologies, and he is a key advisor to general manager Al Avila for major and minor league operations. He previously worked four seasons (2006-09) in MLB’s Labor Relations Department, one season (2010) as the director of baseball operations for the Washington Nationals and three seasons (2011-13) as the assistant general manager for the Toronto Blue Jays.
He also spent three years (2014-16) at Apple, Inc., managing the sports and entertainment categories in the App Store.
Graham had been the director of player development since November 2019. He previously spent three seasons as the minor league hitting coordinator for the Milwaukee Brewers. For the Tigers, he has made an impact utilizing data and technology to improve hitting development and strategies.
This story will be updated.
Evan Petzold is a sports reporter at the Detroit Free Press. Contact him at epetzold@freepress.com or follow him on Twitter @EvanPetzold. Read more on the Detroit Tigers and sign up for our Tigers newsletter.