The speculation from last week was true. The Dodgers' interest in Andrew Friedman was real, and he is now part of the Los Angeles organization. The 37-year-old will become the team's president of baseball operations and will choose a new general manager.
Current Dodgers GM Ned Colletti will be relieved of his role and become a senior advisor to Stan Kasten, the president and CEO of the team. Colletti was reportedly on the hot seat after the Dodgers' early exit from the playoffs at the hands of the St. Louis Cardinals in the NLDS. Shortly thereafter, it was said the team was interested in Tampa Bay Rays general manager and executive vice president of baseball operations, Andrew Friedman.
Friedman was with Tampa Bay since 2005, where he turned around the losing franchise after just two seasons. The Rays came into the MLB in 1998 and Friedman delivered their first winning campaign in 2008, during which they won the AL East with a 97-65 record and reached the World Series before they lost to the Philadelphia Phillies. Since then, the Rays have made postseason appearances in 2010, 2011 and 2013, but were eliminated in the ALDS. With Friedman gone, Matt Silverman will now take over the team's baseball operations.
"Andrew Friedman is one of the youngest and brightest minds in the game today and we are very fortunate to have him join our organization," Kasten said in this Dodgers News article. "The success he has had over the past nine years in molding the Tampa Bay Rays team has been incredible."
The Dodgers are excited to see what Friedman can do with the MLB's largest payroll - Los Angeles set an MLB record with their $242,999,930 million payroll in 2014. Friedman constructed a number of winning Tampa Bay teams with one of the lowest payrolls in baseball, likely thanks to his Wall Street background. In addition to his financial expertise, Friedman reportedly has an extensive knowledge (thanks to the scouting crew he put together in Tampa Bay) of prospects throughout the MLB: "They [Tampa Bay] always asked for the right prospects. Not just the guys everybody knows, either," one source said, via this ESPN article.
Friedman's next probable move with the Dodgers is choosing a new GM, which could mean a change in the team's manager as well. It was previously reported that Don Mattingly's job was safe within the hierarchy of the Dodgers' organization at the time, but that a new GM for Los Angeles might want to appoint a manager of their choosing. However, nothing has developed on this front yet.
For now, you can read more about Andrew Friedman heading to the Dodgers in this Yahoo! Sports article.
