Dodgers News: Andrew Friedman Looking To Build ‘Dynamic’ Roster
In a matter of several hours on the third day of Winter Meetings, the Los Angeles Dodgers managed to retool their middle infield and later cleared the way for Joc Pederson to take over in center field.
The hirings of Andrew Friedman and Farhan Zaidi signaled a shift towards a more progressive-thinking front office that wouldn’t hesitate to heavily incorporate sabermetrics into their decisions. According to Bill Plashcke of the LA Times, Friedman’s goal is to assemble a dynamic roster:
Our intent coming in was to field as dynamic and complementary of a roster as we could. Obviously we still have the rest of the winter to do that.”
As for the means by which Friedman would go about upgrading the roster, he said there weren’t strict rules to abide by:
We came into this situation with no hard and fast rules, we wanted to be open-minded and nimble in terms of opportunities that presented themselves. The last couple of days, we’ve had the opportunity to add players that complement our existing group of players very well.”
Prior to completing the larger trades that sent waves throughout the Winter Meetings, Friedman was busy working on the edges of the 40-man roster and lost out on marquee free agent Jon Lester.
Now in a situation where there are resources to sign free agents as opposed to trading them before running the risk of losing them to free agency, Friedman has yet to acquire a player on the open market; though it appears his first may be right-handed pitcher Brandon McCarthy.
With the Dodgers still looking to add pitching, and Max Scherzer and James Shields available, it’s possible Friedman will set his sights on one of the coveted pitchers. Although they’ve gotten older at second base and shortstop, one directive for Friedman to follow is fielding a roster with youth on it, which team president and CEO believes is key to contending.
Anything less than 94 wins would be considered ultimate failure.
For this bunch they had better win the WS, or the fans are going to be pissed…..more than they are already..and Joc ain’t ready trust me
Whats the Dodger payroll projection for 2015
with what they are paying other teams….close to 250 mil
You guys are genious’s Keep it up I really never thought there was a cance to pick up a a leader like Kengrick and Rollins. Just here ablility to run the bases will save the team a few games a year
2016 no Kemp we save 21m probably no Greinke24m hopefully no Ethier 17million hopefully no Crawford 20m No Wilson10m no League 10m No Rollins kendrick or uribe 28m Let’s get some pitching
Crazy to trade Kemp, Hanley and Gordon. Friedman is “nimble” only in making wholly ill~advised moves. But the stupidest move of all was putting Friedman in the front office !!
Hanley cant play SS and is injury prone we can’t expect his 2013 season production. Gordon is reliant on his speed for everything but can’t draw walks & his bat is a big target for regression. Kemp showed a half season of good production in how many years? And his D is bad. Your “vast majority of loyal dodgers fans” are maybe your circle of friends but the rest of the people know why the dodgers are making their moves.
Could not disagree with you more. Make other plans for October.
Wake up guys. 94 wins. 1 playoff win. It wasn’t working. If u wait another year or two to start making moves, we will be missing the playoffs for the next 5 seasons. Remember, people thought Galileo was crazy too.
So instead we won’t have 94 wins and we won’t make the playoffs either. That’s what we’re faced with for 2015. Back to the pre 2006 days in which we couldn’t score any runs but we had great defense. Our improved defense will be offset by our lack of run support for our starters. 3rd place is looking very likely.
Did u even watch the playoffs this year or any other year? Who was in the WS? Two teams that had great pitching and great defense. Who knocked us out? STL, with their great pitching. All the high powered offenses (LAD, WASH, DET, BAL) were eliminated by teams that had great pitching and great defense. If u want 100 wins and no playoff wins, go be an Angels fan.
Did you ever read the sports news? The Dodgers got got McCarthy and Brett Anderson. I am sorry this does not make me feel confortable. Maybe you would classify this as good pitching but I don’t.
Losing 160 rbi’s and 38 HR between Hanley and Matt will be hard to make up. It all about money.
Only 94 wins !!
I’d bet any of you that this team goes farther than last year. As much as I hate to see Dee and Matt go, the only thing I’m really worried about is how not having Gordon’s speed on first will affect how the next guy gets pitched. I think you guys that think the sky is falling will be singing a different tune in 9 months.
Right on BLUE. We upgraded at every position that we needed to. Maybe we lost one full season of production from kemp and hanram combined, but what did that get us last year? Less than the year before as I recall. So we got worse and those two guys had better years than the year before. Actually hanley was about the same overall. So its time to try something else. Let’s talk in 5 years and see what we’ve accomplished. And mcarthy and Anderson aren’t bad at #4 and #5. Better than correia Hernandez and haren thats for sure.
Just build a roster that can win…all those adjectives mean nothing on the field..