L.A. GM to lead Giants’ front office
The Giants have their “next-gen” executive. Dodgers general manager Farhan Zaidi, who came up through the ranks with the A’s, has accepted the Giants’ offer to be their president of baseball operations, the team announced Tuesday night.
The Giants will introduce Zaidi at a 1 p.m. news conference Wednesday at AT&T Park, when fans finally might get answers to some of the overarching questions about the club’s immediate and long-term future.
“We set out to find one of the best minds in
baseball, and Farhan’s many accomplishments and expertise exceeded our expectations,” Giants President Larry Baer said in a statement. “Farhan is widely viewed as one of the top executives in our industry and we are thrilled to have him lead the next chapter of Giants baseball.”
Zaidi, also in the team’s statement, said, “I am delighted to return to the Bay Area and to join one of the most storied franchises in the game. I have watched the Giants from afar and I have great respect for the organization’s culture and many accomplishments. I am excited about this new opportunity and I’m looking forward to getting right to work.”
Zaidi, who turns 42 Sunday, has been the Dodgers’ GM under president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman for the past four seasons. They won the National League West all four years after they had taken division titles the prior two years under then-GM and onetime Giants assistant Ned Colletti.
In Oakland and Los Angeles, Zaidi developed a reputation as a brilliant numbers man who also respected scouts and their work. That combination helped him land the general manager’s job in Los Angeles when Friedman was hired from Tampa Bay to be the Dodgers’ president of baseball operations after the 2014 season.
Colleagues also have credited Zaidi with being an incisive, outside-the-box thinker. He helped create the unusual blueprint the Dodgers used to win two straight pennants, changing the balance between starting pitchers and relievers, and using platoons even if it means sitting big hitters against certain pitchers — sometimes to manager Dave Roberts’ chagrin.
The front office attracted criticism during last month’s World Series defeat that its role was too heavy-handed and hamstrung Roberts in a bid to beat the Red Sox.
On Tuesday afternoon, before Zaidi accepted the offer, A’s general manager David Forst called Zaidi a “great candidate for that job” and cited his longtime friend’s association with a team coming off two pennants and familiarity with the Bay Area and NL West.
“I don’t know what else you’d be looking for,” Forst said.
One of Zaidi’s first decisions will be hiring a general manager to help him rebuild the Giants. Given his association with the A’s, Oakland assistant GM Billy Owens is a likely candidate.
Zaidi is a native of Sudbury, Canada, and the first Muslim to become a general manager in the majors. His family is of Pakistani descent. He grew up in the Philippines, where his father, Sadiq, worked as an engineer, and he rooted for the Toronto Blue Jays.
He attended MIT and earned an economics degree in 1998, then completed a doctorate in behavioral economics from Cal in 2011.
Zaidi was a “Moneyball” acolyte who, like many young executives in baseball, was inspired by Michael Lewis’ 2003 book.
One of Zaidi’s first jobs was writing a fantasy-baseball column for the Sporting News.
As he was working on his doctorate, he talked his way into an interview with Billy Beane and Forst — then the A’s GM and assistant GM, respectively — and wowed them enough to earn the job of his dreams.
Chronicle staff writer John Shea contributed to this report.