Dodgers get new GM in Beane's right-hand-man DePodesta

[Aphex Twin]

Overshadowed by the news of the Twin's re-uping of Doug Mientkiewicz, was the Dodger's acquiring a new GM and Harvard graduate in Paul DePodesta. (Did any media even cover this?)
Now that Evans is gone, let's tally some of the pluses and minuses of his tenure. I'm sure there are other deals worth mentioning here, but this is off the top of my head:

Pluses:

1. Rebuilt and kept the farm system (although no prospects have proven themselves yet)
2. Didn't re-sign Chan Ho Park
3. Stole Quantrill and Izturis for Luke Prokopec
4. Didn't trade Eric Gagne
5. Did trade the untradable Kevin Brown
6. Signed then nobody Dave Roberts, who has become a nice, cost-effective hole-filler in the leadoff spot
7. Signed Hideo Nomo
8. Signed Kaz Ishii
9. Got the better of the deal by a lot in the Mota and Ruan for Herges trade
10. traded for Paul Shuey


Minuses:

1. Got the short end of the deal in the Sheffield for Perez and Jordan trade (still not an awful trade though)
2. Failure to recognize the team's offensive shortcomings in the
winter of 2002
3. Failure to remedy them in 2003
4. Previous failures to adequately shore up the team's weaknesses late in the season in 2001 and 2002
5. Traded Karros and Grudz for an even worse contract
6. Letting Shawn Green take the heat for his performance due to a bad shoulder.
7. Signed Fred McGriff (although this wasn't a bad idea at the time, and it was cost effective--nobody could have guessed he'd spend as much time as he did on the DL)

[DarkElf]

This is actually bad news for the rest of the NL West. We've enjoyed seeing the Dodgers have a high payroll with nothing to justify it come October. Now with McCourt in place, and a possible drop in team payroll, they have the right man at the helm. In fact, the Dodgers hiring DePodesta might be the clearest signal the McCourt does in fact plan to significantly reduce the team salary.

But I can't wait to see the latest commentary at dodgerblues.com on this. The McCourt piece was pretty damn funny.

http://www.dodgerblues.com/images/drevil.jpg

[fumanstan]

I feel bad for Evans, but i'm interested in what DePodesta will do for the team. Defenders of Evans are quick to point out that he was hampered this off season by the sale of the team, but he really didn't do anything the year before as far as picking up a solid offensive player (although a healthy McGriff and Jordan would have helped quite a bit).

With spring training days away, i wonder what kind of moves DePodesta will be able to swing. The Dodgers pitching is still strong, but there's a good chance that it could implode this year. I'm still dreading the year when Nomo is going to return to the Nomo form that left the Dodgers years ago, if Ishii's control doesn't improve, if Perez's stand out 2002 was just a fluke, if Jackson's solid end of 2003 was the real deal, and if Dreifort continues to be dead weight and Weaver still sucks.

Please Paul, at least keep fan favs like LoDuca.

[lostatmidnight]

yeah, I struggled with the whole 'is a evans a bum, or just shackled by iffy decisions and team politics'...well, I'm glad he is gone, but he did get rid of brown. offense to surround Green and relieve of him of pressure is much needed.

[~~ PAL ~~]

Originally posted by Aphex Twin
Minuses:

5. Traded Karros and Grudz for an even worse contract.

This trade was one of the worst ever, because Evans got Todd Hundley out of the deal. :lol:

[fumanstan]

And lost a career Dodger in Karros :(

[DarkElf]

Interesting read from Rob Neyer on espn.com on DePodesta.

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/columns/story?columnist=neyer_rob&id=1737077