One of Jeff Bridich’s proudest accomplishments likely didn’t come up when he was bumped from senior directior of player development to GM of the Rockies. As a junior at Harvard, Bridich hit a two-run homer over Fenway’s Green Monster against UMass. Even though the Crimson ultimately lost 13-12, it remains a cherished family memory for Bridich, writes Patrick Saunders of The Denver Post. “Hitting a homer at Fenway was cool, but it’s more special because my dad did the same thing when he played for Harvard,” Bridich said. “He hit his to almost the same spot. Of course, my father did it with a wood bat, so that’s a little bit more impressive.” Here’s more out of the NL West..
- If the Dodgers move on from General Manager Ned Colletti, their top target appears to be Rays GM Andrew Friedman, according to Bill Plaschke of the Los Angeles Times. A lot of great things happened under Colletti’s watch, including Clayton Kershaw becoming a Cy Young Award winner and Dee Gordon becoming an All-Star, but the new Dodgers owners view him as someone who gave away too much money to older players and built a shoddy bullpen.
- While toiling away in Triple-A last season, Giants first baseman Travis Ishikawa spent just two weeks with his family between February 1 and September 1. With little hope of getting back to the bigs, he nearly gave up on baseball to spend more time with his family back home, writes Alex Pavlovic of The Mercury News. “I thought about retiring. I was trying to figure out something else where I could be home and make money…Thank God I stuck with it,” the Giants’ unlikely hero said.
- Bridich understands the value of catching and Saunders wonders if that could affect his offseason plans. Russell Martin would be a tremendous get for the Rockies, but he’ll be a very hot commodity after the season he had in Pittsburgh. While the Rockies have Wilin Rosario and Michael McKenry behind the plate, there are limitations to what they can do.
It’s stunning to me that Andrew Friedman works without a contract. So teams are basically free to pursue him at any time. Wow.
Part of the reason he’s in a perfect situation for himself. It would be a huge surprise to see him leave the Rays. It could be interesting to see if the Dodgers could throw enough money his way to get him to leave.
I’m a bit surprised that many of the execs aren’t making more than the few million a year they are. A good GM can save you tens of millions a year compared to someone like RAJ, or Colletti and his 6 outfielders.
Well, I am thinking the Dodgers may soon be paying a new GM a pretty big contract.
It’s also been reported that he has a small ownership in the team.
Yeah, Friedman has pretty much a dream situation as a GM with the Rays: pretty good freedom of action (except obviously with payroll), a challenging assignment to work with, a stake in the team, and great job security. Can’t really see him leave that for the Dodgers. Plus, I’m not entirely sure Friedman’s talents would translate well to the Dodgers; if you notice, his best successes have come off the low cost FA and waiver acquisitions he’s done. The couple of times he’s gone after a bigger name FA haven’t gone especially well, and with a much larger payroll, that’s what will be expected of him.
Agree.
Friedman seems to be a perfect for the Rays for a few reasons, i really dont see him in Dodgertown any time soon.
That said if they offer to quadruple his salary, who knows, money talks, always has, always will.
The thing I really like about Friedman has been his ability to understand the value of talent he has and what he is acquiring in trades.
The Rays have done a good job of stockpiling talent through years of gathering high picks and signing very good talent to cost-controlled contracts and trading away talent that they can’t sign to get a good return.
Free agency is an avenue ideally used to fill in the cracks. Good teams build through the draft and international free agency.
Trades are another avenue to get better, but its usually a trickier transaction to pull off. Friedman has done a pretty good job with trades.
I dunno how in demand Martin will actually end up being. A lot of the teams supposedly interested — Red Sox, Cubs, Rangers, Dodgers — actually have an OK incumbent catcher and most have other gaping holes to be fixed. Sure the Sox and Dodgers can do it all, but do they really want to spend $16-17m a year on a 31 year old catcher when they have Vazquez and Ellis? The Rockies and White Sox will battle it out with the Pirates, I think. He gets 4/68 or so.
$68MM is still a pretty large contract compared to what he got last time around.
If Martin gets 4/68 or anything close it will quickly become one of the worst contracts in baseball..
I don’t know if Martin gets that much but if he does it’s unlikely to be in Colorado.