DODGERS FRONT OFFICE SETS STAGE FOR SUCCESS
From analytics to roster assembly, players laud leaders
You walk the halls of the Los Angeles Dodgers baseball operations department at your own risk, never quite knowing what’s around the corner.
You might stumble into a vicious whiffle ball game, with Dodgers President Andrew Friedman smashing the ball off light fixtures or firing a fastball into your rib cage.
Come by after work, and you might get recruited to play in a pickle ball or spike ball game, just as Dodgers brass did until nearly 2 a.m. the day of the trade deadline, with senior vice president Josh Byrnes and assistant farm director Jeremy Zoll the last ones standing.
If you want to know the secret to the Dodgers’ success, reaching 83 wins faster than any other National League team since 1944, you need not look further than the front office.
Its brand is Analytic Geek Squad, a group boasting Wall Street résumés, Massachusetts Institute of Technology diplomas, including Ph.D.s.
Yet while they routinely pore over statistical data with their players, they’re accepted and embraced within the clubhouse culture as one of their own, averting the chasm so often seen between players, field staff and front office executives.
“The communication from Andrew, Farhan (Zaidi) and the multiple GMs around here is extremely comfortable,” veteran pitcher Rich Hill says. “It’s not like, ‘Oh, wow, I can’t talk to him because he’s the president or the GM.’ There are no barriers or walls. The level of respect is there for everybody, and you just don’t find that in every organization. Hopefully other organizations will look at this as a model for everyone.”
Make no mistake, this is an organization that thrives on data. Players are given charts before each game on everything from defensive positioning to opposing pitchers’ tendencies to secretive injuries. Catcher Yasmani Grandal has a color-coded cheat sheet on his wristband. Outfielders carry index cards in their back pockets during games, reminding them of their defensive placement. Players are given access to a proprietary statistical website.
Manager Dave Roberts is provided so much information before every game that he could launch a NASA program.
“But the perception that those guys are just kind of number guys couldn’t be further than the truth,” Roberts says. “They’re down in the clubhouse all of the time, interacting with players and coaches and bouncing ideas off one another. We talk just as much about clubhouse chemistry and the right type of player we need as much as we do the data.”
And, please, the notion that the front office is making out the lineup card, Roberts says, is a narrative that needs to go away.
“We use all of the data from lineup construction to positioning to pitcher’s usage and matchups,” Roberts says. “But as far as the lineup cards, that’s my call. Ultimately, it’s my decision who is going to play.”
It’s really no different, the Dodgers will tell you, from the internal front office collaboration, despite its “League of Rivals” makeup: six former GMs from six organizations.
Let’s see, you have Friedman from the Tampa Bay Rays, GM Zaidi from the Oakland Athletics, Byrnes from the San Diego Padres and Arizona Diamondbacks, Alex Anthopoulos from the Toronto Blue Jays, Gerry Hunsicker from the Houston Astros and Ned Colletti, who’s technically in the broadcast booth after being the Dodgers GM.
When it’s time to make those ultimate decisions that can make or break an organization, Friedman has gathered everyone together, debated the intricacies of every potential move and acted boldly, with conviction.
“I think at first when I saw all of the experienced guys they hired,” senior adviser Hunsicker says, “it was a bit of a headscratcher. That went away quickly. I think it gets down to Andrew’s ability to not only evaluate talent on the field but talent in the front office. We not only changed the culture in the dugout but changed the culture in the front office.”
They are the architects of a team that’s on the greatest tear in 105 years.
The Dodgers have gone 48-9 since June 7, even with threetime Cy Young Award winner Clayton Kershaw on the disabled list, and are on pace to win 115 games. Their .709 winning percentage would be the greatest in the franchise’s 134-year history.
This is a staff that has built an organization so deep and talented that it not only has the best 25man roster in baseball but also a top-five farm system.
In the last year, they refused to include prized prospect Cody Bellinger in trade talks for thenChicago White Sox ace Chris Sale and have watched him emerge as an MVP candidate with 34 home runs. They traded 2010 firstround pick Zach Lee last summer to the Seattle Mariners for struggling infielder Chris Taylor, only to watch Taylor hit .307 with 17 homers and a .927 on-base plus slugging percentage (OPS) this season.
They snubbed the entire free agent market last winter, wanting to reduce payroll for the second consecutive year, but made sure to bring back their own, spending $192 million to retain closer Kenley Jansen, third baseman Justin Turner and Hill.
“It’s World Series or bust!” utility man Enrique Hernandez proudly tells USA TODAY Sports. “We are the best team by far on paper, so it’s not about making the World Series. It’s about winning the World Series. I don’t think just making it to the World Series is any different than making it to the NLCS, if you don’t win it. We don’t want a ring that say ‘NL champions.’ We want that big ring that says ‘World Series champions.’ That’s all that matters.
“Our club is even nastier now. Good luck to whoever has to play us. That’s the attitude we have right now.”
The only player on the Dodg- ers who has a World Series ring is veteran second baseman Chase Utley, but please, don’t bring it up to Friedman.
You see, it was Friedman’s former team, when he was general manager of the Rays, that lost to Utley and the Philadelphia Phillies in 2008.
To this day, it haunts Friedman, who wonders what would have happened without those two days of rain that put the skids on a Rays Game 5 rally.
Friedman never bothered wearing that American League championship ring, handing it to his father. He’s waiting for the real thing.
In the meantime, with basketball Hall of Famer Magic Johnson creating a buzz when he stopped into the Dodgers offices during the trade deadline and Hollywood celebrities sitting behind the plate each night, the Dodgers have suffocated the suspense out of the regular season.
Entering Monday, they led the NL West by 18 games, the biggest lead at any time in a season in franchise history. They are bludgeoning everyone in their wake, having outscored opponents by 208 runs.
But they refuse to get giddy about their 115-victory pace or even accept praise for their accomplishments, insisting it’s too early for victory laps.
“No one even brings up the streak, how many games we’re winning or anything like that,” Taylor says. “I mean, we know we’re winning, but no one keeps track of how many wins or how many games we’re up or anything like that. We’re having too much fun together to worry about that stuff.”
This is a unified and cohesive clubhouse, last seen in these parts in the days of Kirk Gibson and Orel Hershiser, who led the team to its last World Series win in 1988.
As much as Friedman, Zaidi and their staffers have brought analytics and sabermetrics, they all believe their greatest accomplishment has been changing the clubhouse culture.
“I sat down with Andrew for about six, seven hours the first week he got here,” says Colletti, who led the Dodgers to five postseason trips in nine years as GM. “I told him, ‘If you want to win, the clubhouse culture has got to change. There’s a lot of talent in here, but the God-given talent is a waste if you don’t play it that way.’
“In my opinion, that was my greatest failing, and that was his greatest challenge.”
Now you walk around the clubhouse, and you’ll see a cap such as the one in veteran outfielder Andre Ethier’s locker, reading, “Make the Clubhouse Great Again.”
“When I first got here,” AllStar closer Jansen says, “there were a lot of islands in the clubhouse. A lot of islands. A lot of egos. A lot of me-type personalities. We had the best talent in the league, but it never clicked. We couldn’t go any farther.
“There are no egos. Everyone understands that we need everyone to win. And no one takes anything for granted. Finally, we are a real team.”
“Everything they said they were going to do, they’ve done,” Jansen adds.
It was no different at the trade deadline, when Friedman and Zaidi quietly vowed to several of the veterans that reinforcements would be coming. The players expected to acquire a left-handed reliever. The Dodgers instead grabbed two, Tony Watson of the Pittsburgh Pirates and Tony Cingrani of the Cincinnati Reds. And, oh yeah, Texas Rangers ace Yu Darvish, too.
Friedman and Zaidi, deflecting any of the credit for the team’s success, will quickly point out that Roberts and Utley are the ones most responsible, at least, for the mood swing.
Utley, told by Friedman just to be himself when he came aboard Aug. 19, 2015, became the team leader.
Roberts, hired after the 2015 season, drew everyone together with his overwhelming optimism and enthusiasm, earning the NL manager of the year award last season.
Roberts embraces input from the front office, whether it is coming down and saying hello or offering advice to players.
“I remember I was struggling so badly last year that I was on the trainer’s table when Andrew came in,” Turner says. “I just said, ‘Hey dude, uncle. I’m out of answers. What you got for me?’
“He basically said, ‘Well, looking at it from a numbers standpoint, I don’t know if this is going to help you, but if you do this, you’ll become a better player. It just seems like you’re not pulling the ball in the air like you were the last couple of years.’
“Well, things resonated after that conversation, and things have gotten a lot better for me.”
You might say. After hitting three home runs through his first
50 games of 2016, Turner hit 24 from June to the end of the season, prompting the Dodgers to re-sign him for four years and
$64 million. He has a 1.009 OPS this season and earned his first All-Star Game bid.
Such interactions are no different from conversations Friedman and Zaidi have had with each member of the pitching staff. Every 40 games or so, they’ll sit down with the pitchers and break down strengths and weaknesses, making sure they understand what’s working and what isn’t.
The execs are like a rotating band of big brothers: Wherever you turn in the clubhouse, it could be Friedman and Zaidi one day or Byrnes and Anthopoulos the next or Colletti giving advice to players such as Corey Seager and Bellinger, who were drafted and developed under his watch.
“We try to be accessible to players and a resource to them,” Zaidi says. “Ultimately, everything we do is to help us become as good a team as we can be. And being around and having a more interactive relationship with the players can help in certain ways.”
In ways the players can barely even begin to describe.
“Those guys are the backbone of our team with their information,” Grandal says. “Whenever we need some information, we just ask, and it’s there. I mean, if a guy’s right pinkie hurts, they somehow know and tell us why they’re swinging a certain way and what pitch they can’t hit.
“They encourage you to prove their system wrong, but every time I take something back to them, they show I’m wrong. I don’t even try anymore.
“I know we’re the ones people talk about because of what we’re doing on the field, but what they do for us, come on, they’re the ones making us look so good.
“Hopefully we can repay them with a World Series.”
“No one keeps track of how many wins or how many games we’re up. ... We’re having too much fun together to worry about that stuff.” Dodgers infielder Chris Taylor
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