Paul DePodesta

Paul DePodesta
DePodesta speaking in 2011
Born	(1972-12-16) December 16, 1972 Alexandria, Virginia
Nationality	American
Alma mater	Harvard University (1995)
Occupation	Baseball executive
Years active	1996–present
Organization	New York Mets
Website	It Might Be Dangerous... You Go First, a blog about the Padres written by Paul DePodesta

Paul DePodesta (born December 16, 1972) is the vice president of player development and scouting for the New York Mets. Formerly a front office assistant for the San Diego Padres, he was later general manager of the Los Angeles Dodgers from February 16, 2004, to October 29, 2005. The year after leading the Dodgers to their first playoff win in 16 years, he was fired after the 2005 club finished with its worst record in 11 years. He was the ninth general manager in the club's history since moving to Los Angeles. He is also known for his notable appearance in the book Moneyball.

DePodesta is a native of Alexandria, Virginia, attended Episcopal High School ('91) and then Harvard University, where he played baseball and football and graduated in 1995 with a degree in economics. He has worked for the Baltimore Stallions of the Canadian Football League and the Baltimore Bandits of the American Hockey League.

Baseball management

Early career

In 1996, DePodesta got his first baseball job with the Cleveland Indians, where he spent three seasons. He served as an advance scout for two years and, in his final month with the club, 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 key figure in Michael Lewis' book Moneyball. The book thrust the analytical principles of sabermetrics into the mainstream.

Los Angeles Dodgers

At the age of 31, DePodesta was named general manager of the Los Angeles Dodgers on February 16, 2004, making him the fifth-youngest person to be named general manager in baseball history behind Jon Daniels (28) of the Texas Rangers, Theo Epstein (28) with the Boston Red Sox (now of the Chicago Cubs), Andrew Friedman (28) of the Tampa Bay Rays, and Randy Smith (29) of the San Diego Padres.

DePodesta's reliance on sabermetric principles has been somewhat controversial. He is often considered part of a new breed of front-office executives whose personnel decisions depend heavily on analysis of performance data, often at the perceived expense of more traditional methods of scouting and observation.

One of DePodesta's most notable moves was made at the 2004 trading deadline. He traded 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 pitcher Bill Murphy, in what was reportedly an attempt to pick up pieces to acquire pitcher Randy Johnson from the Arizona Diamondbacks. DePodesta was heavily criticized in the local and national baseball media for this trade, because Lo Duca was thought to be the "heart and soul" of the team. The Dodgers made the playoffs anyway, with Penny developing into one of the better pitchers in the National League during his stint with the Dodgers, which lasted until the end of the 2008 season. Hee Seop Choi, however, was a disappointment, batting just .161 in 2004 and .253 in 2005, and striking out 80 times in 320 at bats. Bill Murphy was traded that year to acquire Steve Finley, who hit 13 homers in 58 games, including a memorable grand slam that clinched the division title. Lo Duca played through 2005 with the Marlins and then went to the New York Mets, Washington Nationals and back to the Marlins, making his final Major League appearance in September 2008.

During the 2004 off-season, Adrián Beltré, who had hit 48 home runs in 2004, signed with Seattle as a free agent, spurning DePodesta's offer of 3 yrs for $30 million for Seattle's offer of 5 yrs for $64 million. DePodesta signed J. D. Drew, Jeff Kent, and Derek Lowe. Drew enjoyed two productive seasons as a Dodger and then used an opt-out clause in his contract to sign a new 5-year deal with the Boston Red Sox. Both Kent and Lowe put in four productive seasons for the Dodgers and cut ties with the franchise at the end of the 2008 season with Kent retiring and Lowe signing a contract with the Atlanta Braves.

Coming off the successes of 2004, the 2005 season saw the Dodgers lose a number of players to significant stints on the disabled list. Many of the players lost to injury were expected to produce heavily for the team including J. D. Drew, Milton Bradley, Éric Gagné, Jayson Werth, César Izturis and Odalis Pérez. 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, Dodgers owner Frank 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. He was later replaced by Ned Colletti, who hired Grady Little as manager. Some have speculated that McCourt fired DePodesta in response to media criticism from Los Angeles Times sports columnists T.J. Simers and Bill Plaschke, who were vehemently "anti-Moneyball" and referred to DePodesta pejoratively as "Google Boy," and is frequently referred to as "The Fifth Highwayman."

San Diego Padres and New York Mets

DePodesta with the San Diego Padres, 2008

On June 30, 2006, DePodesta was hired as the Special Assistant for Baseball Operations for the San Diego Padres and was promoted to Executive Vice President on November 10, 2008.

On November 8, 2010, DePodesta was hired as the vice president of player development and scouting for the New York Mets by general manager Sandy Alderson, with whom DePodesta worked when Alderson was CEO of the Padres.

Moneyball : The book and the film

In 2003, Michael Lewis, the New York Magazine author, wanted to write an article but finally published a book named Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game. He was interested about how Oakland Athletics baseball team's general manager (GM) Billy Beane, tried to find some good players to raise the team level, while struggled with one of the smallest payrolls in the Major League Baseball (MLB). How he hired Paul DePodesta, as his assistant, for his new criterias, based on sabermetrics an approach which consist especially in more sophisticated analyses of baseball statistics. And how, in 2002, they achieved 20-game winning streak, a fact unprecedented in American League (AL) in decades, proving the good aspects of their new methods. The Lewis's book examines various baseball personalities's lives and careers. It also explains extensively the art of sabermetrics, evoque its history and its pioneers. Especially Bill James, who created the term sabermetrics in reference to the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR). He published "The Bill James Baseball Abstract" from 1977 to 1988 and several books. It is said that DePodesta and Beane where studying his publications. However, DePodesta did not feel comfortable with being in the spotlight. He didn't like either the idea of sharing his secret methods. But inevitably, these innovative strategies have spread from 2003, in the great world of baseball.

When the movie Moneyball was being adapted from the book, DePodesta did not approve of the way that his character was being portrayed. “There were a handful of things. (...) Some were factual, others were more ephemeral.” “Jonah was awesome,” “He was so respectful of me and my time. It would have been flattering to be portrayed by someone of his expertise.” “It had nothing to do with the casting” said Paul DePodesta about it to Yahoo Sports. "I just could never get comfortable with the idea of somebody else portraying me to the rest of the world.(...) Like any movie, to make it interesting, there has to be some conflict there. In some respects, a lot of the conflict is going to revolve around my character, and that was never really the case in reality." said Paul DePodesta to the Wall Street Journal.

The role was previously going to be given DePodesta's name and to be played by Demetri Martin. Since DePodesta did not want his name or likeness to be used in the movie, instead the character of "Peter Brand" was created. It is a composite of Beane's deputies in Oakland, as the character is not an accurate representation of any specific real-life person. However, Moneyball's director Bennett Miller has credited DePodesta for being generous and helpful in the making of the film. Brand was played by Jonah Hill, who was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance.

Here a some differences between Paul DePodesta in real and his fictitious character Peter Brand. DePodesta was playing football at college and wanted to be a football coach. . Then he played baseball and football when studying at Harvard. In 1992, he was a football's wide receiver; a photo shows him as number 17. Graduated from Harvard in economics, he got an interning job in 1995 for the Canadian Football League's Baltimore Stallions. In early 1996 he got that baseball job with the Cleveland Indians where he gradually worked as a scout. Within a year, in october 1996, at only 24 years old, he has a promotion as advanced scout. In October 1998, he became assistant to General Manager for them. It's only after all those experiences that he has been engaged by Billy Beane as A's assistant to the general manager, in November 1998. But in the film, the guy doesn't look like an athletic type of person, looks shy and is even not experienced in sports matters.

Personal life

Paul DePodesta is married and has three sons and a daughter.

On December 13, 2012, DePodesta was elected to the Board of Directors of Sears Holdings Corporation. 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 appeared uncredited on several episodes of Homicide: Life on the Street.

External links

• It Might Be Dangerous... You Go First, a blog about the Padres written by Paul DePodesta
• The best unemployed GM in baseball by Jacob Jackson : Article defending DePodesta's moves
• Depodesta's Reign - Statistical analysis of all his trades
• Official Padres biography
• The Genesis, Implementation, and Management of New Systems
• A Sports Economist’s Thoughts on Moneyball: A Guest Post by J.C. Bradbury on economist's web site