Athletes - Paul DePodesta

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	Athletes - Paul DePodesta

Paul DePodesta (born 1972) is baseball front-office executive who served as general manager of the Los Angeles Dodgers from February 16, 2004 to October 29, 2005. He was the ninth general manager in the club's history while in Los Angeles.

He is a native of Alexandria, Virginia and attended Harvard University, where he played baseball and football and graduated cum laude in 1995 with a degree in economics.

DePodesta worked for the Baltimore Stallions of the Canadian Football League and the Baltimore Bandits of the American Hockey League.

Baseball Executive Career

In 1996, he got his first baseball job with the Cleveland Indians, where he spent three seasons. He served as an advance scout for two years and his final month with the club he was appointed special assistant to General Manager John Hart.

In 1999, he joined the Oakland Athletics organization as an assistant to general manager Billy Beane.

DePodesta was a central figure in Michael Lewis's book, Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game. It was in this book that sabermetric baseball analysis was thrust into the mainstream.

At the age of 31, he was named general manager of the Los Angeles Dodgers on February 16, 2004 making him the third-youngest person to be named general manager in baseball history behind Theo Epstein (28) of the Boston Red Sox and Randy Smith (29) of the San Diego Padres.

DePodesta has been somewhat controversial in that he follows sabermetric principles, which are based largely on the analysis of Bill James. A chasm has developed between traditional "tools" oriented baseball philosophy and sabermetric philosophy, which is largely what the controversy is based upon.

One of DePodesta's most notable moves was to trade catcher Paul Lo Duca, relief pitcher Guillermo Mota and outfielder Juan Encarnación to the Florida Marlins in exchange for pitcher Brad Penny, first baseman Hee Seop Choi and minor leauge pitcher Bill Murphy in what was reportedly an attempt to pick up pieces to acquire pitcher Randy Johnson from the Arizona Diamondbacks.

During the 2004 off-season, DePodesta reportedly offered a six-year, 66-milion dollar contract to Adrián Beltré which he declined and chose instead to sign with the Seattle Mariners for a contract that had a yearly average value of about $2 million dollars more than the Dodgers' offer.

DePodesta's prominent post-2004 season free-agent signings included J.D. Drew, Jeff Kent, and Derek Lowe.

Though fans and media roundly criticized these moves, Beltré and Mota were largely ineffective for their new teams, while Kent and Lowe performed well for the Dodgers. But DePodesta faced more criticism for signing the injury-prone Drew when he went down with a wrist injury after being hit by a pitch, while Jeff Kent and Milton Bradley clashed in the clubhouse, causing Dodger owner Frank McCourt to acknowledge the team should have been more aware of chemistry issues.

The 2005 season resulted in the team's worst record since 1992 and second worst since moving to Los Angeles in 1958.

On October 29, 2005, McCourt fired DePodesta, citing his desire to see the club win and that DePodesta had not met those expectations. Reports surfaced that the real reason McCourt had fired DePodesta was his inability to find satisfactory managerial candidates to replace Jim Tracy.

Personal

DePodesta has also served as a keynote speaker at numerous business conventions and has been recognized by several publications including Baseball Prospectus and Fortune Magazine, which named him as one of the Top 10 innovators under the age of 40.

He is married and has one son.

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