Column: Andrew Friedman’s bold moves paid off for the National League champion Dodgers
The on-field segment of their postgame celebration concluded, the Dodgers marched down a set of concrete steps leading to an underground weight room, where cases of champagne and beer waited for them.
As the players walked by, their names were chanted by a crowd of Dodgers fans behind their bench. The players acknowledged the cheers and continued down.
When the players disappeared, another chant started, only this one was for someone who hadn’t thrown a pitch or taken a single at-bat in the 11-1 victory over the Chicago Cubs in Game 5 of the National League Championship Series.
“Fried-man! Fried-man!”
The chant was for Andrew Friedman, the team’s once-polarizing president of baseball operations. Over the last three years, he has prioritized fortifying the margins of the 40-man roster and stockpiling depth, which hasn’t always resonated with the star-driven market where his team was based. On Thursday, however, he did something every Angeleno could applaud.
He returned the Dodgers to the World Series.
And so it was that as Friedman ducked into the subterranean world under the stadium, his team’s supporters chanted in unison: “Fried-man! Fried-man!”
Only Friedman didn’t hear them.
Informed later about the scene, he joked, “I should go back out.”
He wouldn’t have to. His players stopped spraying inexpensive alcohol on one another and started a chant of their own.
“An-drew! An-drew!”
Looking over the eye of the booze storm, Clayton Kershaw saw Friedman on the far side of the room speaking to a small group of reporters. Friedman paused for a moment, but continued on with the conversation. Or tried to.
Kenley Jansen wanted Friedman to have his moment.
“Little-guy! Little-guy!” Jansen chanted as he pulled Friedman by the arm into the center of the chaos.
With his players chanting his name, Friedman stood on a small table. Streams of champagne blasted him in the face. Friedman raised his arms.
“This really speaks to the types of relationships throughout this organization — the front office, the coaching staff, the players,” Friedman said.
This was always the vision, this was always the plan, but it wasn’t always this harmonious.
Friedman’s introduction to the city of Los Angeles three years ago was especially awkward, starting with an inelegant reading of a prepared statement. Over the remainder of that news conference, the former Tampa Bay Rays general manager provided little insight into his philosophy, saying numerous times he would “solve for winning” without ever explaining how he intended to do that. In a town intimately familiar with charlatans, he raised immediate suspicions.
He was bold from the start, unafraid to go against what the fans wanted. He traded popular players such as Matt Kemp and Dee Gordon. He didn’t pursue high-end free agents.
Players privately wondered whether he was more invested in the team’s future than the present. They grumbled over the influence of Friedman’s front office on lineup decisions.
In Friedman’s first season in charge, 2015, the Dodgers were eliminated by the New York Mets in the NL division series. Last year, with Dave Roberts as their rookie manager, the Dodgers reached the NLCS, but were outclassed by the Cubs, who traded their top prospect to acquire All-Star closer Aroldis Chapman.
In the winter that followed, Friedman re-signed their top three free agents — closer Jansen, third baseman Justin Turner and starting pitcher Rich Hill. The investment totaled nearly $200 million, but a large part of the fan base remained dissatisfied. Wasn’t this basically the same team as last year?
It wasn’t.
If the team’s foundation was set by previous general manager Ned Colletti, Friedman and Zaidi were three years into sharpening the edges. The result was evident Thursday.
Utility man Enrique Hernandez blasted three home runs, including a third-inning grand slam that broke open the game. Austin Barnes was now the team’s primary catcher. Chris Taylor scored the first run of the game, galloping from first base to home on a first-inning double by Cody Bellinger. Shortstop Charlie Culberson made a spectacular throw from his knees to register the first out of the second inning.
The bullpen didn’t give up a single run in the NLCS, with the likes of Brandon Morrow, Kenta Maeda and Tony Watson making up a formidable bridge to Jansen.
The small-market principles he used to guide the Rays to their only World Series appearance were now being applied with a big-market budget. You might not like it, you might not think this is how baseball should be played, but convention failed this franchise for nearly three decades. The game changed and Friedman made the Dodgers change, too.
And that could be what wins the Dodgers their first World Series in 29 years.
Follow Dylan Hernandez on Twitter @dylanohernandez
ALSO
Bill Plaschke: Finally, the Dodgers have the look of a World Series team
Dodgers’ Enrique Hernandez is the utility man of the hour
Magic Johnson reacts to Dodgers’ first World Series since 1988: ‘Oh, I’m so excited’
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