Andrew Friedman Announces Additional Front Office Hires

The Dodgers continue to hire more personnel for their front office, and Andrew Friedman announced several new additions to his team on Tuesday.

David Finley left Boston and is now the Vice President, Amateur & International Scouting for the Dodgers. Finley spent 13 seasons with the Red Sox organization, and he was most recently entitled Director, Player Personnel in Boston.

Galen Carr also left the Red Sox organization, and he is now the Director of Player Personnel for the Dodgers. Carr was a scout for Boston for 15 years. Carr usurps Vance Lovelace, who is now a Special Assistant to CEO Stan Kasten as is Ned Colletti.

Jeff Pickler came from San Diego, and he is now appointed the Special Assistant, Pro Scouting & Player Development for Los Angeles. His hiring was rumored at the beginning of November. Pickler played many years in the minor league systems for the Brewers, Rangers and Rockies as a second baseman mostly. Pickler used to work with Josh Byrnes, the Dodgers new Senior Vice President, Baseball Operations, as an advance scout and special assistant for the Arizona Diamondbacks. Pickler moved on to San Diego where Byrnes followed a season later. Pickler is from Garden Grove in Southern California.

Jack Cressend came from Tampa Bay where he was a scout and pitching consultant. Cressend will be the Dodgers’ Pitching Crosschecker, a new role created presumably by Andrew Friedman who worked with Cressend in Tampa Bay. Cressend is a former Major League right-handed reliever who pitched for five seasons with the Twins and Indians. Cressend also was an assistant coach for the Tulane University and the University of Houston.

The Dodgers added these four front office members, but they also lost Paul Fryer who left to work for Boston. Fryer had served as the Dodgers global cross-checker. He was involved in the signing of Yasiel Puig and Julio Urias.

With a revamped front office shaping up to be a great collection of baseball minds, the Dodgers have really bolstered their reinforcements in the scouting department and analytic team. Andrew Friedman will lead this stellar group of executives. The new front office will hopefully utilize both advanced statistics along with traditional scouting in order to construct a team which not only is built to win in 2015 but also one which is viable competitively long-term.

So far, Andrew Friedman and Farhan Zaidi have not made any big moves this offseason. It seems like there may not be any large free agent signings, but they will instead focus on building up the farm system and continuing to delve into and participate in international player development and scouting.