The NL West rivalry between the Los Angeles Dodgers and San Francisco Giants just got more competitive and arguably more heated.
Farhan Zaidi, who has served as the Dodgers’ GM the past four seasons, has accepted a job as president of baseball operations for the Giants.
The San Francisco Chronicle’s Hank Schulman reported the news:
The #sfgiants have a new head of baseball ops. Farhan Zaidi has taken the job, I’m told.
— Henry Schulman (@hankschulman) November 7, 2018
The Giants will be Zaidi’s third MLB team after he began his career with Oakland before moving to the Dodgers.
During Zaidi’s time in LA, the Dodgers were the dominant team in the NL West while the Giants went from being barely a playoff team to being one of the worst in baseball. San Francisco is looking to overhaul the team and get back on track and thinks Zaidi can help them get there. They’re probably right.
The MIT graduate is known for being not just an analytics guy, but a creative and brilliant thinker who comes up with newer, better and different ways to do things. He is said to blend new-school thinking with old-school scouting.
In San Francisco, Zaidi will have his greatest responsibility and task yet. He worked beneath Billy Beane and David Forst in Oakland and beneath Andrew Friedman with the Dodgers. This is a promotion for Zaidi and a challenge he decided was worth of accepting.
