Kiké Hernandez joined Shohei Ohtani in Dodgers’ recruiting department in Edwin Diaz chase

It's officially becoming a trend for Los Angeles Dodgers stars to put on their recruiting hat and convince other stars to join them in LA. We know that Shohei Ohtani actively recruited Roki Sasaki, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, and Tyler Glasnow, and now we know that Kiké Hernández played a huge role in recruiting Edwin Díaz.

As revealed in a new piece from Katie Woo and Will Sammon of The Athletic, Hernández reached out to Díaz this past offseason at a time when both players were still unsigned free agents. Hernández and Díaz, fellow natives of Puerto Rico, have been good friends for years. They share the same agents and have played together in multiple World Baseball Classics for Puerto Rico. Also, Hernández's father coached Díaz before the start of his professional career, per Woo and Sammon.

Kiké Hernández was the first human to envision Edwin Díaz's Dodgers destiny

Knowing Díaz so well, Hernández got a feeling when he first spoke with Díaz over the offseason that the Dodgers may have an outside shot at signing the closer, even though LA's front office wasn't necessarily of the same opinion at the time.

After that conversation, Hernández called the Dodgers' president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman, who suggested that Hernández and his wife, Mariana, set up a call with Díaz and his wife, Nashaly, so that Kiké and Mariana could explain how well the Dodgers' organization takes care of their players' families. This turned out to be a brilliant idea from Friedman, and it appears to have been perfectly executed by Kiké and Mariana.

According to Woo and Sammon, Díaz hadn't even considered the Dodgers as a possible destination when he looked at his free agent options at the start of the offseason. But suddenly, LA came into view for Díaz after the call with Kiké.

Dodgers leaders pounced on the Edwin Díaz opportunity as soon as it became plausible

Friedman set up a Zoom call in which he, GM Brandon Gomes and manager Dave Roberts spoke with Díaz and Nashaly, a conversation in which the Dodgers' leaders told Díaz that the Dodgers would make him a Hall of Famer if he came to LA.

As soon as the call ended, Roberts reportedly told Friedman and Gomes that he suspected they'd won over Díaz. He was right. Friedman, meanwhile, had been tinkering with the offer sheet behind the scenes. While he'd been fully opposed all offseason long to giving a reliever more than a two-year deal, he made an exception for the best closer in the sport, and he made Díaz's AAV enticing enough for Díaz and his reps to feel comfortable.

Díaz's three-year, $69 million contract broke records, infuriated opposing fans, and officially put him in a Dodgers uniform. His blunt statements to the media in the aftermath of the signing suggested that he had intentionally and with prior design spurned the New York Mets to ring chase, but Woo and Sammon's story uncovers that the reality of the situation was a bit different.

Díaz never had his sights set on LA to begin with, but was coaxed into the move with a big assist from an old friend.

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