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Paul DePodesta
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Paul DePodesta (born December 16, 1972) is baseball front-office assistant for the San Diego Padres.
He has also served as general manager of the Los Angeles Dodgers from February 16, 2004 to October 29, 2005. He was the ninth general manager in the club's history since moving to Los Angeles.
He is a native of Alexandria, Virginia and attended Harvard University, where he played baseball and football and graduated cum laude in 1995 with a degree in economics.
DePodesta worked for the Baltimore Stallions of the Canadian Football League and the Baltimore Bandits of the American Hockey League.
In 1996, he got his first baseball job with the Cleveland Indians, where he spent three seasons. He served as an advance scout for two years and his final month with the club he was appointed special assistant to General Manager John Hart.
In 1999, he joined the Oakland Athletics organization as an assistant to general manager Billy Beane.
DePodesta was a key figure in Michael Lewis's book Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game. It was in this book that sabermetric baseball analysis was thrust into the mainstream.
At the age of 31, he was named general manager of the Los Angeles Dodgers on February 16, 2004 making him the fourth-youngest person to be named general manager in baseball history behind Jon Daniels (28) of the Texas Rangers, Theo Epstein (28) of the Boston Red Sox and Randy Smith (29) of the San Diego Padres.
DePodesta has been somewhat controversial in that he follows sabermetric principles, which are based largely on the analysis of Bill James. A schism has developed between traditional "tools" oriented baseball philosophy and the sabermetric philosophy that influences DePodesta and some other current general managers.
One of DePodesta's most notable moves was to trade catcher Paul Lo Duca, relief pitcher Guillermo Mota and outfielder Juan Encarnación to the Florida Marlins in exchange for pitcher Brad Penny, first baseman Hee Seop Choi and minor league pitcher Bill Murphy in what was reportedly an attempt to pick up pieces to acquire pitcher Randy Johnson from the Arizona Diamondbacks. DePodesta was criticized for this trade because Lo Duca was thought to be the "heart and soul" of the team. However, Lo Duca has since become a mediocre player, while Penny, who has been somewhat injury prone, has been a valuable starting pitcher for the Dodgers and was nominated to start in the 2006 All Star Game for the National League team.
DePodesta also acquired Steve Finley at the 2004 trading deadline, who hit the game winning homerun in the Dodgers' final game of the season to win the NL West crown for the Dodgers and put them in the playoffs for the first time in 8 years.
During the 2004 off-season, DePodesta reportedly offered a six-year, 66-million dollar contract to Adrián Beltré which he declined and chose instead to sign with the Seattle Mariners for a contract that had a yearly average value of about $2 million dollars more than the Dodgers' offer. He instead platooned Jose Valetin with Norihiro Nakamura, which did not produce good results. However, DePodesta was again vindicated because Beltré has performed far below expectations for Seattle.
DePodesta's prominent post-2004 season free-agent signings included J. D. Drew, Jeff Kent, and Derek Lowe. Lowe and Kent have been very successful signings for the Dodgers. Drew played well during the first half of the 2005 season, after which he suffered a freak injury 2005 when a pitch broke his wrist and caused him to miss the rest of the season. Drew stayed relatively healthy in 2006 and performed well.
After the hugely successful season in 2004, the 2005 season resulted in the team's worst record since 1992 and second worst since moving to Los Angeles in 1958, mostly attributable to bad luck and injuries.
On October 29, 2005, Dodgers owner Frank McCourt fired DePodesta, citing his desire to see the club win and that DePodesta had not met those expectations. Reports surfaced that the real reason McCourt had fired DePodesta was his inability to find satisfactory managerial candidates to replace Jim Tracy. He was later replaced by Ned Colletti.
On June 30th, 2006, DePodesta was hired as the special assistant for baseball operations for the San Diego Padres.
DePodesta has also served as a keynote speaker at numerous business conventions and has been recognized by several publications including Baseball Prospectus and Fortune Magazine, which named him as one of the Top 10 innovators under the age of 40.
He is married and has a son and a daughter.