The rich are reportedly about to get richer with the addition of one of the brightest minds in baseball.
The Los Angeles Dodgers are expected to name Farhan Zaidi their new general manager later this week, according to MLB's Ken Gurnick.
Zaidi previously served as the assistant GM under Billy Beane in Oakland. In Zaidi's lone season in that role, the Athletics earned an American League Wild Card berth, making several shrewd deals to bolster their pitching along the way.
"He's absolutely brilliant," Beane said of Zaidi in February, per Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle. "He has a great qualitative mind, but also a creative mind. The ability to look at things both micro and macro is unique, and Farhan could do whatever he wants to do, not just in this game, but in any sport or any business. I'm more worried about losing him to Apple or Google than I am to another team."
Among Zaidi's accomplishments during his 10-year tenure in Oakland were the signing of Yoenis Cespedes, the conversion of Brandon Moss into an everyday player and the successful implementation of multiple platoons.
The Dodgers will also add former San Diego Padres and Arizona Diamondbacks GM Josh Byrnes to their front office in a senior executive role, Dylan Hernandez of the Los Angeles Times reports. Byrnes has been in baseball since 1994, when he began working for the Cleveland Indians before taking front office positions in Colorado and Boston. Byrnes was Arizona's GM from 2005-10 and held the same job in San Diego from 2011-14.