After years of spending to acquire elite players, the Dodgers finally wised up and spent to acquire an elite GM, writes Ken Rosenthal of FOX Sports. Andrew Friedman has turned down previous interest from the Angels and Astros, but he finally took an opportunity to step onto a bigger stage. His transition to L.A. won’t be like Theo Epstein’s transition to Chicago, however, Rosenthal notes, as people will expect Friedman and the Dodgers to win immediately and to win each year. Friedman will look to hire a GM, and Rosenthal wonders about former Nationals assistant GM Bryan Minniti, who resigned from that post last week. Major League sources tell Rosenthal that Friedman interviewed Minniti for a position with the Rays five or six years ago, so there’s clearly some interest there, and Minniti also has ties to president Stan Kasten.
Here’s more on the Dodgers and from the game’s Western divisions…
- Minniti’s name also surfaces in a piece from Mark Saxon of ESPN Los Angeles, as Saxon runs down some potential GM candidates for Friedman and the Dodgers. Saxon suggests one in-house candidate — director of analytics Alex Tamin — and four external names in addition: Yankees AGM Billy Eppler, Athletics AGM David Forst, Athletics AGM Dan Feinstein and Red Sox AGM Mike Hazen. In his full article, Saxon goes into much further detail about his reasoning behind suggesting each as a candidate.
- The D’Backs are still working to round out their coaching staff, writes Nick Piecoro of the Arizona Republic, with only pitching coach Mike Harkey, first base coach Dave McKay and bullpen coach Mel Stottlemyre Jr. guaranteed to return. Interestingly, Piecoro writes that the Snakes offered Jim Tracy their bench coach job after he was a finalist in their managerial search, but the former Rockies skipper refused. “The bench coach job is not what he wants to do,” said chief baseball officer Tony La Russa.
- Cory Rasmus could be stretched into a full-time starter for the Angels in 2015 after a strong string of spot starts late in the season, writes MLB.com’s Matthew DeFranks. Rasmus says he’s yet to discuss the possibility with the team but expects it to come up over the winter and will prepare himself to be ready to throw as much as the team wishes. The Halos are short on rotation depth following Tyler Skaggs’ Tommy John surgery and a late knee injury to Garrett Richards that will likely keep him on the shelf for the early portion of the 2015 campaign.
- Former Royals manager Trey Hillman, who has been working as a special assistant to Yankees GM Brian Cashman, will be named the Astros’ new bench coach, reports the Houston Chronicle’s Evan Drellich. In addition to his work in the Kansas City dugout and the Yankees’ front office, Hillman has 12 years of minor league managerial experience and five years of experience managing in Japan.
Garrett is expected to be ready for the start of the season for the Angels.
There is a chance that Richards could be ready for the start of the season although there is an even better chance he won’t be ready. Even so, It is not smart for a guy to expect Richards to be at the top of his game even when he is back as: 1. He is a very young pitcher and you never know what to expect with them and 2. He is coming off such a huge injury and that will likely greatly impact his performance for a few years.
Even if that regression happens he would just regress into a valuable innings eater, which is what the Angels would at least want (need) any way.
I’m not saying he will regress into a bad pitcher…. I just don’t think he will pitch like a CY Young award candidate like he was doing for a while. I still think he will stay around the 3.00 ERA mark.
Concerning the Dodgers, im not really sure why you would want to go in there as a GM, when its clear Friedman would (rightly) be making all the calls, so who and what exactly are you GM’ing, what would be your job, aside from maybe the odd bit of contract negotiating on Friedmans behalf?
It would seem like somewhat of a puppet/hollow role to me.
The GM job is pretty complex. There’s more than enough work to go around.
No doubt.
My main point is the “GM” there wouldnt really be the GM in the sense of making the important decisions as Friedman would clearly do that, hence my hollow comment.
Every front office is a team, the GM is just the face of that team. A GM would still have an essential role even under Friedman.
That’s not really different from many other teams though. GMs like Billy Beane have more control over their teams than Jed Hoyer or Ben Cherington, who have Presidents of Baseball Operations who take more active roles.
Every team varies, but the GM for the Dodgers is still going to function more or less like the GM of any other team. He’s still going to be the one fielding the trade calls from other teams.
You’re right that he’ll have less of a say in the decisions than a GM of another team, but it’s still involved job that carries a lot of significance.
The are a lot of fields in American disciplines that use similar titles to do different things.
When Ned Colotti was with the Giants, he was an ‘Assistant GM’ to Brian Sabean. Yet their relationship appears to be about the same as Epstein/Hoyer.
I was confused the other day because the Dodgers made Friedman “President”. I thought Stan Kashen was that.
The closest I can figure in these new President/GM breakdowns is that the GM is he one that’s on the phone 24/7/365 and does the groundwork. The President then comes on when it appears that something might be happening in an area. Then the 2 of them sort of work it out on a case-by-case basis. And if the GM can’t get through to a player and/or his agent on any issue, then the President can step in.
It’s kind of silly.
So true. Why didnt they just list has as Gm/head of baseball ops? Dave Dombrowski is everything for the Tigers. Doc rivers is just about everything for the Clips.
It took until after the playoffs for Scioscia to figure out that he might want to stretch Rasmus out? Geeze.
He was already stretching him out.
The first sentence bugs me: “After years of spending to acquire elite players, the Dodgers finally wised up…” Years of spending? Isn’t it like only 2 years of spending, and the one really big expense was the deal with Boston, which the owners made pretty much to tell the fans that the Dodgers were going to be relevant again!
Well technically two years is plural, but you are right, describing the Dodgers as free-spenders is quickly turning into a cliche. After the celebrated trade with Boston, they’ve hardly been the most active team in the free agent market.
Some people just make it sound like the Dodgers have been doing that for many years, and don’t even pay attention to the fact that this ownership’s main emphasis is really on developing the farm, but let’s let them think whatever they want I guess…
Pretty much all you need to do is quote the record payroll and it stands to reason that the Dodgers are signing every free agent in sight, even though it isn’t happening.
I think free spending by the Dodgers applies more to the Rupert Murdoch/Kevin Malone era. And that didn’t even last that long.
Whoever the Dodgers hire to be their new GM has to keep in mind and accept that they will be a glorified and overpaid Asst GM, and should look at this position as a stepping stone to a real GM job elsewhere. The reality will be that Friedman will get all of the credit should the Dodgers succeed, and it will mean virtually nothing for the person who has their name on the door with General Manager underneath it. With that being said, it’s a choice between money and a title, and one’s ego.
Looks like Mark Grace has been named hitting coach for the Diamondbacks. Congrats Gracie!
edit: Assistant hitting coach.
That’s awesome! I hope he can stay healthy….he’s a blast!