The Los Angeles Dodgers – the Best Team in Baseball… Really in All Sports!
On October 14, 2014, Andrew Friedman was hired by the Los Angeles Dodgers as President of Baseball Operations. Before coming to the Dodgers, he had previously served as Executive Vice President of Baseball Operations of the Tampa Bay Rays, where, despite overseeing one of the…
On October 14, 2014, Andrew Friedman was hired by the Los Angeles Dodgers as President of Baseball Operations. Before coming to the Dodgers, he had previously served as Executive Vice President of Baseball Operations of the Tampa Bay Rays, where, despite overseeing one of the league’s lowest payrolls, he led the Rays to four postseason appearances, including two division titles (2008, 2010), in nine seasons from 2006-14. During Friedman’s time in Tampa Bay, the Rays posted the franchise’s first winning season and won the American League pennant in 2008, when he was named Sporting News Executive of the Year. After finishing below .500 in each of their first 10 years of existence, the Rays finished above the .500 mark in six consecutive seasons under Friedman from 2008-13. Friedman joined the Rays in 2004 and spent two years serving as director of baseball development.
I had followed Andrew, and when the Dodgers hired him, I was all in. Unfortunately, many Dodger fans who frequented LA DODGER TALK back in 2014 thought that Andrew Friedman was “fried brains” and many other moronic names that they attached to him. They criticized every little thing that he did and put a negative spin on everything that he said and did. From October 2014 until the Summer of 2017, it was hell on LA DODGER TALK. I called several posters “Morons” and I was not wrong! Over time, many left of their own volition (i.e., Morons hate it when you call them Morons).
Others were a little hard-headed, and I had to run them off last year. I now have a “Moron Detector,” and it has not gone off for months.
Life is too short to argue with morons. Many fans have diverse opinions on the site, and that is just fine. We have some great comments here, and the readership is way up. Currently, we have approximately 7,700 readers on this site.
Ken Gurnick, former Dodger beat writer for MLB.com and a friend, wrote this in 2015:
“Six decades after Al Campanis wrote “The Dodger Way to Play Baseball,” a new management team is rewriting the way the Dodgers will play baseball.
It doesn’t stop with a transformative front office or a stunningly rebuilt Major League roster. Under the radar is an equally dramatic shift in the way the game will be taught to future Dodgers by a player development department not only willing to try new approaches, but determined to create a culture embracing them.
Concurrent with last week’s Player Development Camp held at Dodger Stadium for three dozen Minor Leaguers, the club brought in Minor League managers and coordinators for an introduction to a new way of organizational thinking under Andrew Friedman, the president of baseball operations.
Advanced analytics are just part of the new Dodgers. So are advanced communication, advanced nutrition and some advances executives haven’t even thought of yet. It all falls under the talking point of “flexibility,” a theme increasingly heard from Friedman and top lieutenants Farhan Zaidi and Josh Byrnes.“
Predictably, the morons attacked right on cue. However, their reasoning (or lack thereof) was horribly flawed, and they were exposed as morons. A year ago, Ken Rosenthal said it this way:
The Dodgers have become the best-run organization in all of sports, not just baseball! And… a huge part of that is the President of Baseball Operations. He’s the guy the Morons anointed as “fried brains.” The Dodgers are the class of every team in MLB and all of sports. If you want to see an organization run the right way, look no further than the Dodgers. It’s also my time to say, “I told you so!”
X-CITES
Joe Kelly weighs in on the Dodgers:
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Discussion (51)
Disagree, not disagreeable
Andrew Friedman is the GOAT
Was that ever in doubt?
Whenever a star player like Ohtani has a clause in his contract tied to Friedman, it tells you everything you need to know about Andrew. He’s not only the top executive in MLB, but in all of sports.
The Dodgers have reinvented their brand and AF has played a huge role in that.
Go Dodgers!
Mark’s recent headline — “You Can Never Have Too Many Closers!”–has aged really well…assuming that the report about Kirby Yates are true.
(And I still wonder when the A’s are going to trade Mason Miller…)
Quite a roster crunch. And won’t the Dodgers still be searching for the next hidden gem like Anthony Banda?
Something’s gotta give, right