Did Andrew Friedman blow his first major decision?

It is a day that many Dodger fans have been dreading for years and it finally happened. It is being widely reported that longtime Dodgers Vice President of Amateur Scouting Logan White is leaving the Dodgers to take on an unspecified role with the San Diego Padres front office.

Many Dodger fans thought that Logan White would be the last guy the Dodgers would let get away. (Photo courtesy of Dodgers.com)

Many Dodger fans thought that Logan White would be the last guy the Dodgers would let get away.
(Photo courtesy of Dodgers.com)

Although there has been no official announcement from either team, Dodgers beat reported apparently received firsthand confirmation from White himself:

Logan White Tweet

What makes this announcement disturbing for Dodger fans is its timing. Last month Dodgers Vice President of Player Development DeJon Watson abruptly resigned his position to take on a new front office role with the Arizona Diamondbacks. While there were unconfirmed reports that Watson left the Dodgers on less than favorable terms, it was naturally assumed by many that the extremely popular Logan White would take over Watson’s position – but it never happened. When Andrew Friedman was hired as the Dodgers new President of Baseball Operations less than two weeks ago, he skirted the question as to who would fill the Dodgers top Player Development role.

“We started … kinda coming up with a list and it will be another topic of conversation in the very near future,” answered Friedman when asked this question specifically.

Although a significant blow to the Dodgers organization, Friedman kind of hinted that there were big changes on the horizon for the Dodgers front office.

“We’re going to do everything we can to put ourselves in position to be as good as we can in 2015,” Friedman said. “And we’re also going to spend a tremendous amount of time, effort and energy to create that infrastructure on the scouting and player development side to put ourselves in the best position to aggressively add talent to our system.”

Wouldn’t you think that Logan White, the guy responsible for drafting Matt Kemp, Clayton Kershaw, Zach Lee, Chris Reed. Joc Pederson, Chris Anderson, Corey Seager and the international signings of Hiroki Kuroda, Yasiel Puig, Hyun-jin Ryu, Alex Guerrero, Erisbel Arruebarrena and Julio Urias (among others), be considered an integral part of Friedman’s new …”infrastructure on the scouting and player development side?”

It’s certainly no secret that White has interviewed for several vacant general manager jobs with other teams during his 13 seasons with the Dodgers; in fact, he even interviewed for the Padres GM job just last month – a job that was eventually filled by former Texas Rangers assistant general manager A.J. Preller. White also worked for the Padres as their West Coast scouting supervisor from 1993 to 1995.

White’s sudden departure from the Dodgers now leaves Friedman with three huge front office vacancies to fill: General Manager, Vice President of Player Development and Vice President of Amateur Scouting – if he even plans on filling them at all, that is.

 

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8 Responses to “Did Andrew Friedman blow his first major decision?”

  1. Bluenose Dodger says:

    I expect we have to wait and see what position Logan assumes in San Diego to have a better understanding of the move.

    However, I can’t believe he didn’t see some writing on the wall in LA. Perhaps it was just an opportune time for him to make a move with Andrew Friedman taking over the reins of the team. Perhaps he saw his role reduced or in discussions he realized things were going to change enough that he would be out of his comfort and even his expertise zone.

    Perhaps Friedman is cleaning house with his own executives in mind. Some of this might have Joe Madden written all over it creating a holding tank pending a managerial change down the road.

    They say a new broom sweep clean. I suppose it does but not necessarily better. Not quite as excited about the advent of the Andrew Friedman era as was as I was yesterday. However, I’m hoping the move was at Logan’s initiative. Not quite as excited about the advent of the Friedman era as I was yesterday but we really don’t know the facts yet.

  2. OldBrooklynFan says:

    It’s hard to understand all these changes that are taking place for a team that won 94 games and ended the regular season in first place. If this was a 5th place team going nowhere I find it a lot easier to accept the changes.
    I never expected this would happen just because it couldn’t get passed the first round. Yes, I was disappointed, I was shocked but I still considered the Dodgers a very good team.
    I just hope this big shuffling and changing makes things better and brings us to a World Championship.

    • Ron Cervenka says:

      The goal is not to be a good team, Joe; the goal is to win the World Series. I don’t understand why that is so difficult for you to grasp. Change is (was) needed – although letting Logan White get away is a real head scratcher.

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