Andrew Friedman peels back curtain on Dodgers' winning recruiting process

At the Winter Meetings, while half the league was busy trying to figure out whether the Dodgers were about to pull off a Tarik Skubal heist or simply steal another reliever from someone's bullpen, Andrew Friedman sat down on MLB Network and casually dropped a truth bomb that explains everything about why this organization wins.

No, it’s not just the payroll. It’s not just the player development machine. It’s not even Shohei Ohtani’s gravity field. It’s the recruiting philosophy — the way the Dodgers evaluate not just talent, but people. And Friedman finally said the quiet part out loud:

“The talent is easier to identify… the type of person, the work ethic, how much they care — that’s really important to us.”

This is the part fans don’t get to see. We see the megadeals and the superstars and assume the Dodgers are just grabbing the shiniest pieces on the shelf. But Friedman made it crystal clear that the Dodgers don’t just chase great players; they chase the right humans for their culture.

That’s why so many guys choose LA, why so many players come here and get better, why so few superstars implode under the spotlight and why the clubhouse has been, for years, one of the most tightly-wired winning ecosystems in baseball.

Andrew Friedman shares Dodgers' key to success, and it's more than just their payroll

Friedman could’ve bragged about the analytics, the scouting, the player development factory in Arizona. Instead, he singled out something shockingly simple, yet ridiculously hard to build: the daily routine, the constant preparation and the obsession with winning.

Friedman said he watches the team’s big dogs — Mookie Betts, Freddie Freeman, Shohei Ohtani — go through their routines and thinks to himself, “This stands out.”

And then he compares it to players on the other side of the field, the guys the Dodgers are evaluating. That’s the part that should make Dodgers fans grin, because what Friedman is really hinting at is this: every long-term Dodgers commitment is a culture test first, talent test second.

It’s why they extend the right guys early. It’s why they don’t panic buy in free agency. It’s why they don’t chase the “wrong” type of star even when the talent looks irresistible. It’s why reclamation projects thrive here — only the ones with the right mentality get the green light. And it’s why the Dodgers, year after year, look like a well-oiled machine while other teams spend decades trying to figure out how to build a winning clubhouse.

The Dodgers' secret isn’t that they can spend big — it’s that they know who to spend big on. They know who adds to the culture and who would crack it. They know which superstar thrives under the spotlight and which one would crumble. They know which young players can be molded into Dodgers … and which ones can’t.

Friedman gave fans a rare peek behind the curtain, and the message was unmistakable: Winning isn't an accident here. It's intentional. It's curated. It's recruited. And as the Dodgers continue hunting for one more piece — whether it’s Skubal, another bat, or another bullpen monster — fans now know exactly what the front office is looking for: not just the best player on the board, but the best Dodger.