Just an hour or two ago, it looked like the biggest American Association news of the day was going to be Logan Watkins and his staff being extended for a fourth season in Winnipeg. As it turns out, it’s not even the day’s biggest managerial story in the Red River Valley.
Shortly after, the Fargo-Moorhead RedHawks dropped an even bigger bombshell, announcing the hiring of George Tsamis as their next manager, bringing in the former St. Paul Saints and Kane County Cougars skipper to replace Chris Coste, who stepped down on October 21 after seven seasons on the job.
Why this is the smart move
The industry consensus was that the RedHawks job is a legitimately good managerial job in MLB Partner League baseball and probably the best job that has come open this winter. With that in mind, I would imagine interest was strong in the position.
A couple weeks ago, I laid out seven possible candidates for the role and indeed, Tsamis was on that list. How many of those men were interested, let alone interviewed for the job, isn’t known, but that list gives an idea that the RedHawks were absolutely an attractive enough destination to lure a sitting manager to Fargo.
And they lured about the most experience and accomplished man they could get in the form of Tsamis.
The numbers speak for themselves: 1,442 career wins, including 1,091 in the American Association, three Miles Wolff Cup championships, and six total league championships, including three Northern League titles.
He led both St. Paul and Kane County to AA championships, becoming just the third three-time champion in league history and only the second American Association skipper to lead two franchises to a title. By staying in the league, Tsamis will also be in the dugout for all 22 seasons in AA history once next spring rolls around.
Tsamis is also the league’s all-time leader in wins, games managed (2,038), playoff appearances (13), finals appearances (7), and playoff wins (48). Simply put, he’s a bastion of stability, he reaches the playoffs a lot, and he does a lot of damage once he gets there.
Why I might be concerned
To be clear, I am not at all saying this is a bad hire or saying Fargo-Moorhead should’ve held out for a better option (or that one was even out there). But it’s fair to wonder how successful Tsamis will have in Fargo.
In his last two jobs, he was in very attractive situations: major-market teams with larger operations than most drawing the largest crowds in the league. In Kane County he had the added advantage of a Chicago metro area (albeit a very crowded area with five other Partner League teams) with a larger number of local players, such as his ace the last two years, Konnor Ash.
North Dakota and Northern Minnesota produce more quality local talent than you would think for cold, sparsely-populated, hockey-dominated areas, but those are also not the type of players Tsamis typically looks for. Is that a pipeline he will try (and be able) to keep tapping?
Also, despite his advantages in Kane County, Tsamis was a modest 305-293 (.510) over six seasons and never even had so much as consecutive winning seasons, though the AA’s generous playoff format (and a usually-weaker East Division) allowed him to reach the playoffs in his final five seasons, including winning the 2025 Miles Wolff Cup despite going just 49-51 in the regular season.
Tsamis hasn’t built a truly great team since going 64-36 in 2019 with St. Paul and outside of his five full seasons at CHS Field (the finest independent baseball facility built to that point—an excellent recruiting tool), he hasn’t topped even 56 wins since 2004.
It’s possible the 59-year-old has lost a step as his Kane County squads frequently struggled on one side of the ball (usually the offense) in any given season, so even though Fargo-Moorhead has good infrastructure in place and is absolutely committed to winning, I’m skeptical that he’ll be churning out 60-win seasons or fighting for division titles.
Grading the hire: B+
I’ll knock this hire primarily because as I laid out above, I don’t know if Tsamis is going to be producing at a level any higher than the 52-55 wins that the RedHawks put together the last four years. It will remain to be seen with the playoff format being tweaked if being around .500 is enough to reach the postseason.
With that aside, Tsamis unquestionably has a very high floor compared to most candidates and his accomplishments are impressive. He’s also known for putting together quality pitching staffs, which is an area that held back the RedHawks tremendously this past season. Fix the pitching (Setup man extraordinaire Logan Nissen has already signed on in Fargo) and keep a solid amount of the excellent offense that Fargo-Moorhead rolled out this summer and all the sudden Tsamis could be rolling out his best team since his St. Paul days.
Also worth noting: Fargo-Moorhead no longer has Kansas City looming in their own division, with the Monarchs moving to the East next season. The path to a division title is now wide open and quite frankly, you could do much, much worse than Tsamis in trying to fill that power vacuum.
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