Jon SooHoo/Los Angeles Dodgers

Jon SooHoo/Los Angeles Dodgers

By Jon Weisman

Moments into his introductory press conference as the Dodgers new general manager, Farhan Zaidi asked, “Is Steve Dilbeck here?”

Zaidi then pulled out a mini screwdriver on the pretense of being willing to fix the Times blogger’s laptop, a reference to Dilbeck’s mocking description of Zaidi as a member of the Dodgers’ new Geek Squad.

In fact, Zaidi has a well-rounded baseball background and philosophy, which he put on display today for reporters. Here are some selected quotes:

“I was pretty happy with my situation in Oakland, but the opportunity to come here and be part of what these guys are doing was too exciting to pass up.

“I think the biggest component of this is we all have a healthy respect for each other, and with our experiences we bring different strengths to the table. … There’s a lot of room for us to share across (our) responsibilities.

“”We’re the Dodgers. We have incredible resources; we have high expectations. We need to be the best at everything.

Regular season vs. postseason
You don’t go a day in the Dodger universe without seeing the debate over why a team that was strong in the regular season doesn’t win in the World Series. I asked Zaidi about this.

“There’s increasing amounts of research on the distinction of success, (but) it’s a really, really hard question, because just when you think you have a story that a team like ‘this’ is going to succeed, then four teams who don’t have that characteristic get to the LCS, and then you have to rewrite the story,” Zaidi said.

“Even this year, I can’t remember exactly what the numbers were, but the Royals were No. 1 in baseball in stolen bases and the other three teams were I think in (the area) of the bottom three, so what does that tell you? If you look at the universe of teams that have gone deep in the playoffs, there’s so much variance in the kinds of teams they are, the strengths and weaknesses. When you look at that, it’s really hard to say, ‘This is how you succeed in the playoffs.’

But based on the history here, and it was something we looked at in Oakland, we’ll do what we can to give ourselves a better chance, even if it’s not going to be 50 to 80 percent. Every little bit when you get on that big stage and the stakes are so high matters.

“There are certainly players who have repeatedly been on good teams in different places and played a key leadership role on those teams. … It’s more personal when you’re around teams, you can say, ‘This guy is gonna help us when we get in the postseason, the leadership he brings and how he gets the most out of the players around him.’ So for me, it relates more to specific individuals and what they accomplish in the clubhouse, rather than being a generalization of ‘you need this kind of player.'””I’ve obviously seen a lot of (the Giants), and there are some common threads between their three (World Series) teams, but there are also some differences. So I think even that team has had different evolutions. … I think any time a team has had that kind of success, you really have study them hard and see what lessons there are to be learned.

“I don’t think you can win three World Series in five years just by being lucky. That may be stating the obvious. There’s no doubt that the postseason, with a single-elimination game and best-of-five, best-of-seven series, there are certainly times you need the ball to bounce that way, but luck is not a sufficient characteristic for a team to win. You’ve got to be really good and have the ball bounce your way, too.”

“There’s a lot of people in the media and on the Internet doing great work (in analytics), work that maybe at one point teams thought was proprietary and they could create some advantage out of, but now it’s in the public sphere. … The challenges of creating a competitive advantage are greater. On that side of the operation, that’s something we’re going to have to keep an eye on.

“I view any new stat, any new metric, with an inherent skepticism. … They’re our attempts to create a mathematical representation of a real world that’s impossibly complex. Every mathematical model is a gross simplification of reality. So every time you see a metric, you’re asking yourself not just what it’s telling you but what it’s missing.

“The hard question isn’t just evaluating how good players are, it’s how good players are going to be. And that’s another thing that you’re never going to be able to build, is some model that’s going to project and tell exactly what someone’s going to do next year. … That’s why you need this holistic approach to baseball operations, otherwise you’re going to miss out on a whole swath of opportunities.

“I think there is a role for analytics in helping us better understand and maybe even getting a better sense of what health risks are out there, based on players’ previous histories. But obviously, the diagnostic side of health is going to rule the day. Analysis is going to play a supporting role.

“The goal is still the same — to be as efficient as possible. Making baseball decisions and finding great value gives you a lot of flexibility in other places on the roster, and maybe you can better leverage your resources. … If you have the same approach and same discipline, it increases your ceiling of what you can accomplish.

“The one thing I’ve heard from other general managers (is) it’s a really hard job and involves a lot of things. People think it’s just about trading Player X for Player Y and whether you want to do that or not, but there’s so much more to the job than that. Having other people around not just to share the responsibility, but to serve as sounding boards for situations I’m not familiar with, will be great. … Stan (Kasten) brought this point up — you can’t have too much experience on a baseball staff.

“I spoke to (Don Mattingly) the other day for a few minutes, and I just totally outed myself by telling him how much I idolized him when I was growing up, so I don’t know if he’s ever going to see me in a position of authority. I can just hear him thinking, ‘God, I’ve heard this so many times.’ I had a great conversation with him — he seems like a terrific man. I told him, ‘This is your team, and you know the team and the personalities and the players as well as anybody. And that’s part of what I said in my message to Ned (Colletti). The knowledge they have is going to be a hugely valuable resource for us.

Zaidi 3“I’m actually a big proponent of diversity in our game, in any way, so in that sense, I am proud (of becoming the first Muslim general manager). In Oakland, we made I think great strides on diversity.

“Where we were and where we’ve been the previous couple of years, we felt like we had a great opportunity to accomplish something (at this year’s trade deadline) and move the team into the playoffs, and that was really the thinking. We had a team that had been right there for the past 2 1/2 years — at the time of the trade deadline, we probably had the best or second-best record in baseball — and we felt we owed it to the players on the team and the fans to try to push to get over the hump. I still look back on it as the right decision based on where we were, and where we had a chance to get. … As of the eighth inning of our Wild Card game, we thought it was working. We had a 7-3 lead with Jon Lester on the mound and a low pitch count.

“I think there’s so many ways (to build a bullpen). I’ve seen so many different types of relievers have success: guys that throw hard, guys that throw sidearm, 86 miles per hour. I just think it’s about building a bullpen of guys who have success from a performance standpoint and functionality from a managerial standpoint. When Don has a certain type of situation … he has a good option.

“We’re trying to make smart baseball decisions. That’s part of Andrew and my and Josh’s DNA … to create a roster that will some stability over the long run involving young players. I think we’re so focused on that, if we achieve what we want to there, we’re not going to be so focused on where our (payroll) limit is. We’re going to be able to build something that is sustainable and that we’re very comfortable with from a financial standpoint.”