The Padres have hired Logan White as senior adviser to general manager A.J. Preller and director of pro scouting, the club announced today. Jon Heyman of CBSSports.com first reported the hiring, while Dylan Hernandez of the Los Angeles Times was first to report the title of White’s new post (via Twitter).
White’s name has surfaced several times in recent months (as it had in previous years) as various teams, including the Padres, conducted GM searches. (MLBTR’s Ben Nicholson-Smith profiled White as a GM candidate back in 2011.) His internal situation in Los Angeles may have become unsettled with the hiring of Andrew Friedman and re-assignment of former GM Ned Colletti.
The 51-year-old had served the Dodgers for 13 seasons, reaching the position of VP of amateur scouting. In that role, the release says, White oversaw both the Dodgers’ amateur draft (with such notable successes as Clayton Kershaw and Chad Billingsley) and its international amateur efforts (helping to land players like Yasiel Puig, Hyun-jin Ryu, and Hiroki Kuroda). As his specialty area would suggest, White comes with a background in scouting. He ascended through the ranks for 15 years — including a stint with San Diego — before reaching the front office ranks with the Dodgers.
White’s new position seems to be rather expansive. He will have responsibility “for overseeing all of the organization’s professional scouting efforts and player acquisition at the Major and minor league level,” per the press release.
Hope this means they’ll make a run at Tomas. With Preller having a great international background and White having the same we could see the Padres make a serious offer.
The fruits of these hirings (for the most part) won’t come to fruition for a while, think 4-5 years, but the Padres have done a really solid job hiring people. Logan White, Sam Geaney, Preller, I look forward to following their progress.
Tough loss for the Dodgers. I always got worried whenever I’d see that Logan White was being interviewed by another club for an open GM position. The guy has a great eye for talent and now that eye is going to a division rival.
That said, I’m glad for him to have this new opportunity because Mr. White seems to deserve a promotion and it was bound to happen. I’d rather him go to the Padres than the Giants!
Ironic that the Rays near future looks dubious due to the regression of their farm system, which made the Rays GM available to the Dodgers. And in one of the first moves after the Rays ex-GM goes to LA, one of the most respected farm system builders in MLB leaves the Dodgers for the Padres.
I think that time will show that the Friedman thing is not going to be the slam dunk that so many believe it will be
White is pretty overrated. Multiple people in the org. should get credit for Puig and Ryu, not just White. Other than relievers, they also haven’t produced anymore valuable from their system since Kershaw came up in ’08. Evoladi got them Hanley, but that’s it.
So yes, they’ve hit home runs on the International market (Carlos Santana, Puig, Ryu, Kuroda, Kuo, Kenley, etc), but they’ve had some pretty bad drafts (some of which could be attributed to McCourt though). He can be replaced.
I was just looking at MLB’s top 100 prospects. Dodgers had #13, 14 & 15 in Seager, Urias, and Pedrson. #100 in Holmes. Rays placed no one in the top 100.
Time will tell.
If by since 08 you ignore Dee Gordon, Carlos Santana, Ruby De La Rosa, and SVS, He also drafted David Price, and Paul Goldschmidt but Ned and Frank ultimately didn’t sign them.
Santana was signed Internationally, not drafted. Same with Rubby and he’s probably a reliever going forward. SVS was drafted before Kershaw. I guess your right about Dee, though.
White was the one that signed Santana and De La Rosa. So he was right about the everything in his post.
I guess this signals the end of Omar Minaya with the Padres
That’s fine with this Padre fan.
Dodgers lose a great baseball guy to the Padres in White and are rumored to be bringing in a Padres & Dbacks hand me down of a bad baseball guy in Byrnes. Friedman was a good hire, but those would be two bad signs for Dodger fans.