Dodgers: Farhan Zaidi Leaves Dodgers To Become San Francisco Giants Head of Baseball Operations

Farhan Zaidi is leaving the Los Angeles Dodgers for the San Francisco Giants. The most sweeping of changes for the Los Angeles Dodgers took place on Tuesday evening. Los Angeles has a general manager position open in addition to two open coaching positions.

Henry Schulman of the San Francisco Chronicle reported on one half of the Dodgers’ braintrust departing on twitter.

The #sfgiants have a new head of baseball ops. Farhan Zaidi has taken the job, I’m told.

— Henry Schulman BLUE CHECK MARK (@hankschulman) November 7, 2018

Moreover, this announcement came swiftly.  Originally it was that a final decision would be made by Zaidi on Wednesday regarding his baseball future.

Still, the job was officially offered to Zaidi with it reported the decision was up to him.

Farhan Zaidi is said to be the choice of the #SFGiants to lead their baseball department, and the Dodgers appear prepared to sign off on the move. “The ball’s in Farhan’s Court,” is the way one rival exec put it. Another way to put it: It’s up to him.

— Jon Heyman (@JonHeyman) November 6, 2018

Last week, Zaidi was asked about his future with the Giants in the Dodgers end of season press conference. Zaidi declined further comment at that time. Nevertheless, after this tweet by Bill Plunkett; it felt like the proverbial writing was on the wall.

#Dodgers Andrew Friedman says he has felt "more like an HR director" over past 9 days because of the departures, staffing decisions. Would not comment on GM Farhan Zaidi's offer from the #Giants. But Zaidi is not attending the GM Meetings this week

— Bill Plunkett (@billplunkettocr) November 6, 2018

Zaidi became the Dodgers’ general manager on November 6th, 2014. Under his reign, the Dodgers made an NLCS appearance followed by their first World Series berth in 29 years.

Analysis

This is a massive ‘get’ for the San Francisco Giants organization. Of all the front office or coaching names that are on the Dodgers organizational flow chart – this is the one guy I would prefer stayed right in Southern California. With no official general manager at the helm, the Winter of Andrew Friedman is upon us. Let this be a lesson that when you win and win with regularity, other teams come hard after your key people. We are about to learn just how key the man with the laptop was in building the current Dodgers.