Andrew Friedman s Ten Commandments

When Andrew Friedman was named President of Baseball Operations for the Dodgers it was a dream come true for me. Let me be clear: I do not claim to know what he knows, but in my business I always hire people smarter than me (that narrows it down to 98% of the population), and Andrew is most certainly smarter than me… probably you too!

When he was hired, Stan Kasten charged him with winning by improving the farm system while winning at the MLB level as well. He was not allowed to “tank” for even one season, let alone multiple seasons, like just about every other team. Now, I have never read anyone who has published Andrew Friedman’s Ten Commandments, nor have I talked to him about them, but by observation, I am pretty sure that I have them exactly as he would word them.

#1 – “You must remain competitive year-over-year“. This is the most important commandment. Fans need to be engaged every year and it is Andrew’s responsibility to deliver that to Dodger fans – EVERY YEAR! The Dodgers are in a major market and in order to maximize income, they need to the relevant every year and they have been since he arrived on the scene. Being relevant puts butts in seats and those fans buy stuff like food and drink and Dodger swag! They would like to have a sellout every day.

#2 – “You must have a strong preference for versatility.” Players who can play multiple positions are regarded higher than players who can play only one position. It is something that is catching on all across baseball. When players can play multiple positions competently, then the Manager has a lot more flexibility and opportunities to exploit matchups.

#3 – “You must draft the best available player, regardless of need.” Well, in reality, you can’t always do that, but it holds up most of the time. The Dodgers have not drafted too many Left-Handed Pitchers lately, primarily because they have had opportunities to draft other players that they deem “the best player available.” Recently, they have added a number of large, workhorse-type Right-Handed Starting Pitchers. The only deviation of this was a spate of catchers drafted in the last six years because they were very thin at that spot.

#4 – “You must remember that college players are closer to the show than high school players.” Logan White had a strong preference for High School players, but it is much harder to project them as they take many years to fully mature and refine their skills. The Dodgers do take some high schoolers now (Jake Vogel one of the latest examples), but they draft a lot more College players as they are more mature and this, more projectable.

#5 – “You should not sign free agents that require draft pick compensation.” This is the only commandment that does not have the word “must” at the beginning – Rather it has the word “should.” In other words, stay away from signing players to whom a team has extended the Qualifying Offer. This should generally preclude signing DJ LeMahieu and/or Trevor Bauer. Every time you give up a draft pick, you are risking losing out on a star player. Of course, not all draft picks pan out, but the more high draft picks you keep, the more success you will have. It’s the simple law of averages.

#6 – “You must remember that International free agents can be very beneficial.” This is the commandment that Friedman has not mastered, as Friedman’s record with this group is bad (I can’t sugar-coat it). He needs to improve it… by a lot! I think he has by surrounding himself with a better staff of International Scouts and talent Evaluators. The Dodgers have one of the largest (if not THE largest) front office staffs in all of baseball. I think this will emerge as another quality source of players for the Dodgers.

#7 – “You must as many players off the Bone Pile and Dollar General as makes sense“. Probability and statistics are the mathematics used to understand chance and to collect, organize, describe, and analyze numerical data. Talent evaluators need this area of mathematics to help them judge the correctness of forming an argument supported by seemingly persuasive data. Probability deals with predicting the likelihood of future events, while statistics involves the analysis of the frequency of past events.

No one is perfect at this, but Insurance Companies make their money on the Law of Large Numbers to help estimate the value and frequency of future claims they will pay to policyholders. When it works perfectly, insurance companies run a stable business, consumers pay a fair and accurate premium, and the entire financial system avoids serious disruption. However, the theoretical benefits from the law of large numbers do not always hold up in the real world. The same is true with signing players whose value is depreciated by injury or happenstance. Some will pan out some will not.

This offseason the Dodgers have signed or traded for several reclamation projects, namely Tommy Kahnle, Corey Knebel, Andrew Schwaab, Brandon Morrow, Jimmy Nelson, James Pazos, and Carlos Asuaje. They have obligations of around $10 Million for all of those players… in total! Kahnle is only being paid $750,000 (only) not to play this year as he recovers from surgery, but all of the others have a shot at being good to great. Maybe all, maybe most, will not make it, but if a couple of Dollar General players do, then Friedman might have struck gold as he did with Morrow in the past.

#8 – “You must overstock the Farm System and be loathe to trade Top Prospects.” And keep it that way! The Dodgers have a “Top 5” Farm System and Andrew wants to keep it that way. He will make an occasional trade with prospects, but generally, it’s not the top-prospects. This is a fine balancing act, because to stay relevant in the future, you can’t trade away the future.

#9 – “You must keep a lot of smart people around you at all times.” There is strength in numbers and in a multitude of counselors, there is wisdom. If the Dodgers don’t have the largest Front Office, Analytics, and Scouting Personnel Departments in baseball, then I don’t know who does. Here’s a partial list:

Sr. Vice President, Baseball Operations: Josh Byrnes

Vice President & Assistant General Manager: Jeffrey Kingston

Vice President & Assistant General Manager: Brandon Gomes

Vice President, Scouting: David Finley

Vice President, International Scouting: Ismael Cruz

Vice President, Amateur Scouting: Billy Gasparino

Vice President, Player Personnel: Galen Carr

Sr. Director, Baseball Administration: Ellen Harrigan

Sr. Director, Team Travel: Scott Akasaki

Director, Baseball Operations: Alex Slater

Director, Player Development: William Rhymes

Director, Baseball Resources: Duncan Webb

Director, Baseball Systems Applications: Brian McBurney

Director, Baseball Systems Platform: John Focht

Director, Performance Science: Megan Schroeder

Director, Quantitative Analysis: Scott Powers

Director, Specialized Performance Programs: Eric Potterat

Director, Clubhouse Operations: Alex Torres

Assistant Director, Player Development: Matt McGrath

Assistant Director, Amateur Scouting: Zachary Fitzpatrick

Special Assistant to the President: Chase Utley

Special Assistant to the GM: Raul Ibanez

Special Assistant to the GM: Pat Corrales

Special Assistant, Baseball Operations: Joel Peralta

Special Instructor, Infield : Jose Vizcaino

Senior Developer II, Baseball Systems: Jonathan Funkhouser

Senior Analyst II, Performance Science: David Hill

Senior Scouting Advisor, Dominican Republic: Ralph Avila

Manager, Baseball Strategy: Michael Voltmer

Manager, Baseball Analytics: Ben Zauzmer

Manager, Baseball Operations: Ethan Levitt

Manager, Minor League Administration: Adriana Urzua

Manager, International Scouting: Javier Camps

Manager, Visiting Clubhouse: Mitch Poole

Manager, Umpires Clubhouse: Jerry Turner

Assistant Manager, Clubhouse: Jose Castillo

Coordinator, Minor League Field: Clayton McCullough

Coordinator, Strong Mind Program: AJ LaLonde

Cultural Coordinator, Strong Mind: Leo Ruiz

Coordinator, Minor League Strength & Conditioning: Brian Stoneberg

Coordinator, Minor League Medical: Kevin Orloski

Coordinator, Baseball Contracts & Finance: Albert Gilbert

Coordinator, Baseball Operations: Craig Weinhaus

Coordinator, Major League Video: Chad Chop

Coordinator, Major League Video/Replay: Jonathan Rhymes

Coordinator, Performance Operations: Will Ireton

Coordinator, Professional Scouting: Lucas Geoghegan

Coordinator, Performance Science: Tyler Duncan

Sr. Data Engineer, Baseball Systems: Drew Troxell

Sr. Developer, Baseball Systems: Ryan Casey

Sr. Quantitative Analyst: Nicholas Kapur

Sr. Quantitative Analyst: Jacob Coleman

Developer, Performance Science Applications: Timothy Reen

Sr. Analyst, Performance Science: Jason Gilberg

Quantitative Researcher: Max Weinstein

Biomechanical Quantitative Sr. Analyst: Emilee Fragapane

Quantitative Analyst: Esteban Navarro Garaiz

Quantitative Analyst: Justin Williams

Quantitative Analyst: Yuji Akimoto

Biomechanical Quantitative Analyst: Theodore Vandenberg

Analyst, Baseball Operations: Pat O’Shea

Analyst, Baseball Operations: Sam Elias

Assistant, Baseball Operations: Lizzy Pintarich

Assistant, Player Development: Mac Lozer

Assistant, Player Development: James Weilbrenner

That is an impressive list and I do not believe any other team has made that kind of financial commitment to excellence in Scouting, Analytics, and Player Development.

#10 – “You must absolutely Win World Championships.” This is the only commandment that contains the words “must absolutely.” Under Friedman, the Dodgers should have two World Championships, were it not for the cheating Asstericks. However, they do have one and are going for some more.

Watch Out for The Padres

Yesterday the Padres went on a shopping spree and ended up with three key players, or what appears to be. They signed Korean infielder Ha-Seong Kim and traded for Yu Darvish, his personal catcher Victor Caratini, and Blake Snell. The four prospects the Padres gave up were going to be ranked #15, #17, #18, and #20 by Baseball America. They also gave up a solid back-of-the-rotation righthander in Zach Davies. To get Snell, the Padres gave up three more prospects, and Francisco Mejia who has 458 MLB at-bats and while he was once a Top Prospect, is still only 25.

Kim only costs money, but I am not high on him. I think he is utilityman at best, and the Padres say that Cronenworth will say at 2B while Joel Sherman says that Kim will go to 2B and Cronenworth will go to LF. Few Korean stars have come to the US and dominated. I remain unimpressed! Darvish and Snell are an improvement but I do not think they are “Cy Young” good. Still, if Kim can hit and field, adding these three players made the Padres a much better team, at the cost of eight prospects. The Rays got 4 very good players and Keith Law wrote this in The Athletic:

The Rays get a big haul in return, as they should, with Snell three years from free agency and under contract to earn $40.8 million over those seasons. They landed the Padres’ No. 2 pitching prospect, right-hander Luis Patiño; catcher Francisco Mejía, once a top-10 overall prospect who has not hit at all in the majors; catching prospect Blake Hunt, blocked in the Padres’ system by Luis Campusano; and 2020 draft pick Cole Wilcox, a first-round talent whom the Padres took in the third round and signed with first-round money.…The Rays made a damn good baseball trade here, but baseball is worse off for it.

The Padres still have several very good prospects, and while they did not “gut” the farm, they did diminish it’s depth. Make no mistake, the Padres are a team to be reckoned with. The Dodgers are in for a battle in 2021, and now we are about to see Andrew Friedman counter. In most years, he would not violate Commandments #5 or #8, but this is not most years and I think Andrew and the Dodger Brass like the taste of Champagne.

At this juncture, no one can predict what Friedman will do and he doesn’t have to do much, but I think he will. It won’t likely be Arenado or Lindor or Bauer, but with Friedman, you can never say never. I can’t see DJLM coming to LA and Friedman won’t give him 5 years, but he would be a fit. I still like a Suarez/Gray deal with the Reds. It would take some prospects, but maybe this is the time to give a few up.

The key thing that Andrew Friedman will not do is Panic! It’s time for countermoves but it’s not time to panic. Maybe “countermoves” is not the right term. Maybe the moves that Freidman will likely make would have been the same moves he makes anyway. I have no way of knowing. I am sure that David Price will be back and that makes the Dodgers better.

The glaring need they have is a RH power bat and a third-baseman. I would like to have Justin Turner back, but I don’t think he can be counted upon for more than 110 games… possibly not that many. A platoon of Rios and Turner at 3B could be very productive, but can Andrew count on that? A lot of teams are hurting and while the Dodgers lost a boatload of money in 2020 due to the Pandemic, the Dodgers could choose to go big in 2021 and exceed the Luxury Tax Threshold.

The fact, that Friedman has not signed any of the free agents frees up a great deal of money to make a Blockbuster deal and exceed the LTT if needed. Maybe he makes a few small moves until the start of the season because as some teams drop out of contention they are going to want some payroll relief and maybe that’s when Freidman pounces.

There are no guarantees in this business. The Padres may have “won” the offseason, but they still have to play the game. Even without Justin Turner, I believe the Dodgers have a better lineup than the Padres. They have better pitching and they have better depth, but the Padres may have closed the gap quite a bit.

Andrew will stick to his Ten Commandments and we will wait and see what (if anything) happens. Now is not the time to make a knee-jerk move. The farm system is loaded with players who are getting close to being ready for the show. Of the current Top 10 Dodger Prospects, the only players I would rule out making the club in 2021 are Diego Cartaya and Luis Rodriguez. All the other TOP 10 Prospects (Gray, Ruiz, Hoese, Busch, Miller, Beeter, White, and Amaya) could see action on the MLB level in 2021. I am not saying all of them will, just that they could. Zach McKinstry seems to be on track to be the utilityman but you never know. I would even rule out Cody Thomas and DJ Peters.

As you know, I am ambivalent about Gavin Lux, but I hope he becomes a beast – if he is ready, he has to play! The same is true with Kody Hoese, Michael Busch, and even Keibert Ruiz. Don’t be surprised if Edwin Uceta, Gerardo Carrillo, or Ryan Pepiot emerge as MLB-Ready pitchers. But, to get a talent like Suarez or Gray, it is going to hurt, just like it hurt to give up Alex Verdugo.

The Dodgers Plan

Of course, I really don’t know what Andrew Friedman will do. He rarely consults me… OK, HE NEVER CONSULTS ME, but I do like this idea (the same one I floated above):

The Dodgers trade a package of players built around Gavin Lux for Eugenio Suarez and Sonny Gray. Suarez is signed for the next 5 years at $10-15 Million per year when he will be 33. That’s what I call a “perfect trade.” He gives them a slugger who is seven years younger than Turner. I am not against re-signing JT, but only at the right price. He can DH (when the opportunity occurs), pinch-hit, spell Suarez and Muncy and be the Chase Utley of the Dodgers. If he signs with Toronto, both he and Toronto will regret it. A two-year $16 to $18 million deal is about right. He can work for the Dodgers for the next 25 years if he wants.

Sonny Gray is signed for the next three years at $10 to 12 Million Per year. I want him as a #4 or #5 starter. My Top Four starters are Kershaw, Buehler, Price, and one of Urias, May, or Gonsolin. The other two go to the bullpen for a year or two. Many MLB players believe David Price will be the Comeback Player of the Year after a mediocre season in 2019 and missing the 2020 season entirely.

Suarez fits nicely in a LH-heavy lineup:

1. Betts (R) RF
2. Seager (L) SS
3. Smith (R) C
4. Muncy (L) 1B
5. Suarez (R) 3B
6. Bellinger (L) CF
7. Pollock/Raley (L-R) LF
8. Taylor/McKinstry (L-R) 2B

Every spot in that lineup is capable of delivering 30+ Home Runs. The 8 hole is the most questionable in regards to power. CT3 is playing for a new deal. This is his first chance at big payday. I look for him to play like his hair is on fire!

That’s my dream, but what does Andrew Friedman and the Dodger Brass see? Go back and review his Ten Commandments and maybe you might have a clue, because I sure don’t!

The Walk