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Author and ESPN writer Molly Knight interviewed Farhan Zaidi, the Dodgers' new general manager, on stage at the Doha Goals Forum in Los Angeles on Monday. They talk mostly about his unusual route into the sport — an economics and technology academic who approached Billy Beane about a job with the Oakland A's after reading "Moneyball" — and being the game's first Muslim GM. He remarks on how strange it has been to sit in baseball meetings where no women are present and how he hopes to recruit more diversity on the Dodgers' staff. There's also some baseball talk but no disclosures with the trade deadline looming this Friday, except he admits the Dodgers do hope to improve this week.
Left as mysteries are how actively the Dodgers are shopping slumping outfielder Yasiel Puig (July OPS: 582), whether they might need to send slumping center fielder Joc Pederson (July OPS: 534) back to the minors despite making the All Star team, how close they may be to acquiring the big pitcher(s) they need and how tightly the sphincters might be gripped across the organization now that the Giants have crept up to within a half game of passing the Dodgers.
Knight speaks about and signs "The Best Team Money Can Buy: The Los Angeles Dodgers' Wild Struggle to Build a Baseball Powerhouse" on Wednesday from 12:30 pm to 1:45pm at the Central Library.
