Hollywood Blvd. News – Los Angeles Dodgers Edition
- Updated: November 6, 2014
We like to start our day searching the web and reading articles about our beloved LA sports teams. It’s easy to get lost in the depth of the inter web, but luckily for you we have compiled a list of the most interesting and pertinent news stories for your morning reading pleasure. For this edition, let’s dive into the news surrounding the Los Angeles Dodgers.
According to ESPN.com, the Los Angeles Dodgers will hire Farhan Zaldi, from the Oakland A’s, as their next GM.
New Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman has taken his time assembling his front office since he was hired on Oct. 15, but it appears to be coming together in time for the GM meetings next week in Phoenix, the unofficial kickoff to the hot stove season
According to sources, former San Diego Padres general manager Josh Byrnes will also be part of the mix, likely as a scouting director.
The Dodgers have also been linked to San Diego executive Billy Gasparino and, according to sources, they have had talks with one of San Diego’s most prominent scouts, Jeff Pickler, a close associate of Byrnes’, for a front office position.
The Dodgers’ acquisition of Zaidi was earlier reported by MLB.com.
According to a profile in the San Francisco Chronicle, Zaidi grew up in the Philippines, attended MIT as an undergraduate and, after getting his doctorate at UC Berkeley, decided to try to break into baseball after reading the Michael Lewis bestseller, “Moneyball.”
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“Andrew Friedman, the Dodgers’ new president of baseball operations, is often described as a former investment banker who applied the analytic principles he learned on Wall Street to transform the small-market Tampa Bay Rays into a contender.
That’s all accurate. But also misleading.
“I’m not just a numbers guy,” Friedman said.
Long before he worked on Wall Street, Friedman was an undersized college center fielder in a dirt-stained uniform who counted the hard-nosed Lenny Dykstra among the players he most admired. And before that, as a boy, he spent hours collecting autographs in the hotels occupied by teams visiting his hometown Houston Astros.
That enthusiasm for the game hasn’t waned, and it has gone a long way toward earning Friedman credibility among the sport’s traditionalists, which, in turn, has helped him avoid the kinds of front-office conflicts that brought the downfalls of other data-driven executives.
As he watched some of the Dodgers’ top prospects perform during a recent Arizona Fall League game, Friedman acknowledged he faces increased expectations with his new, deep-pocketed team. He will be paid $35 million over five years, according to one report, and he was already talking about delivering World Series championships — plural.”
To read more on this story, click here.
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