San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
‘So I’m a big fan’: Giants’ Zaidi has utmost respect of his peers
Twins general manager Thad Levine was asked about Farhan Zaidi’s qualifications to be president of baseball operations for the Giants.
“Well, I think he’s a very mediocre basketball player,” said Levine, who knows Zaidi well enough to chide his hoops game.
Padres GM A.J. Preller was asked to talk about Zaidi as a person, and he said, “I can talk more about him as a basketball player than a person.”
OK, then, let’s talk basketball. How’s Zaidi’s game?
“Uh, it’s very specialized,” A’s GM David Forst said. “Lot of hustle in Farhan’s basketball game. Not a lot of touch.”
As he arrives at his first winter meetings, which start Monday in Las Vegas, as the Giants’
boss, Zaidi has more going for him than experience (Dodgers’ GM, A’s assistant GM) and intelligence (degrees in economics at MIT, Cal). He’s also wellliked and respected by peers on other clubs.
With Zaidi facing a major task of turning around an organization that has been a major disappointment for 2½ seasons, it helps to have good relationships with people in the industry, especially when it comes to orchestrating trades.
In regard to trade possibilities, “everything’s got to be on the table,” in Zaidi’s words. If that goes for prized lefty Madison Bumgarner, that goes for most everyone, though Buster Posey, Brandon Crawford and Mark Melancon have no-trade clauses.
“I think Farhan’s fantastic,” said Brian Cashman, the Yankees’ GM for four World Series championships and an assistant GM for a fifth. “His baseball knowledge is extensive. He’s one of the brightest minds in the game. I love his personality. He’s very easy to talk to. So I’m a big fan.”
Other than Forst, who worked alongside Zaidi for 10 years in Oakland, no GM knows Zaidi better than Atlanta’s Alex Anthopoulos, who met him while working with the Blue Jays and later worked alongside him two years with the Dodgers.
“I tried to hire him twice. I was denied,” said Anthopoulos, referring to his time as Toronto’s GM from 2010-15. “Both times, Billy (Beane) denied permission, which I understood. Farhan was in a very good spot with Billy, who really valued him, rightfully so.
“To me, he’s one of the bestkept secrets in the game. I know that’s hard to say for someone who had a GM title with backto-back World Series appearances, but I think working with him every day, you really appreciate how good he is. As highly regarded, smart and genuine as he is, he’s even better when you get to work with him and see it day in and day out.”
Zaidi has been typecast as an analytics guru who puts advanced statistics far ahead of traditional methods of preparation, including scouts’ contributions, but his peers say he’s far more well-rounded.
“I think to say he’s a numbers guy would be a gross understatement of his abilities,” Levine said. “He’s got a business acumen, and he’s extremely well thought of and well spoken. He’s got the equity of scouts and analytic folk alike.”
Angels GM Billy Eppler added, “I can tell you this. If you look at Oakland and the Dodgers, they employ a lot of scouts and rely on a lot of qualitative information and evaluations as well as quantitative.”
Then again …
“Being an ‘analytic’ guy is not a dirty word,” Cashman said. “It’s a sign of massive intelligence that San Francisco is tapped into, and they’ll benefit from it. If people want to know why we are resuscitating so much, it’s because of obviously good scouting but also because of a guy like Mike Fishman being here, driving a lot of our processes.”
Fishman is a Yankees quantitative analysis expert. Zaidi’s first gig in pro ball was as a baseball-operations assistant in Oakland, focusing mostly on accumulating and analyzing advanced data. The moment the Giants hired him, they became more analytics-driven, though some in the organization maintain the analytics department has been much more comprehensive than the public has realized.
Forst was on record before the hire, calling his friend a “great candidate” for “one of the prime organizations in the game,” which might have raised some eyebrows considering the so-called rivalry between the Giants and A’s.
“I know East Bay fans are born to hate the Giants,” Forst said, “so it’s a little different dynamic to hear Billy and me praise them (for hiring Zaidi). But it’s going to be a lot of fun to have him” back in the Bay Area.
Zaidi quickly hired J.P. Ricciardi, who also has A’s roots, as a special assistant. Ricciardi played minor-league ball with Beane in the Mets’ organization — outhitting Beane with the 1980 Little Falls Mets .211 to .210 — and worked for the A’s until becoming the Blue Jays’ GM in November 2001, four years before the A’s hired Zaidi.
“I got to know Farhan through the Oakland fraternity,” said Ricciardi, who most recently worked in the Mets’ front office under Sandy Alderson, his old boss in Oakland. “He’s creative, truly bright, not afraid of a challenge, has a nice temperament and isn’t going to panic.
“I think he represents a lot of what’s happening in the game today, analytically, and is able to balance that with scouting and player development.”
Executives throughout the industry seem convinced Zaidi has what it takes to jump-start a faltering organization. Preller said Zaidi will benefit from the Giants’ resources, fan base and history, calling them “good starting points.”
Eppler praised Zaidi for “his ability to put baseball departments in place, organize information and personnel and communicate. In all those areas, I think they made a tremendous hire.”
Cashman, the dean of baseball GMs, owning the title since 1998, called the Zaidi choice “great … as long as they allow him to do what he thinks is right. My recommendation to anybody above Farhan is to follow Farhan’s advice. They hired him for a reason. Now let him do the job.”
These days, Zaidi doesn’t play basketball as he once did. For several years, he would play regularly during spring training in Arizona along with officials from other teams and media.
It wouldn’t be surprising to catch Preller, Levine, Forst, Zaidi and Bobby Evans — before any of them became GMs — on the floor together.
Returning to his basketball scouting report, Preller said of Zaidi, “A good reach-around move. Surprisingly long arms, which always helps on the defensive end. He’s got the reach.”
“Stacey Augmon, freakishly long arms,” added Levine, “uses them liberally.”
John Shea is The San Francisco Chronicle’s national baseball writer. Email: jshea@sfchronicle. com Twitter: @JohnSheaHey