Paul DePodesta

Paul DePodesta

Paul DePodesta is the chief strategy officer and de facto president of the Cleveland Browns of the National Football League. He previously served as a front-office assistant for the Cleveland Indians, Oakland Athletics, and New York Mets. He was also general manager of the Los Angeles Dodgers. DePodetta was a key figure in Michael Lewis’s book Moneyball, which thrust the analytical principles of sabrmetrics into the mainstream.

About Paul DePodesta in brief

Summary Paul DePodestaPaul DePodesta is the chief strategy officer and de facto president of the Cleveland Browns of the National Football League. He previously served as a front-office assistant for the Cleveland Indians, Oakland Athletics, and New York Mets. He was also general manager of the Los Angeles Dodgers. He is known for his appearance in the book and movie Moneyball about his time with the Athletics. He attended Episcopal High School and then Harvard University, where he played baseball and football and graduated in 1995 with a degree in economics. He has also worked for the Baltimore Stallions of the Canadian Football League and the Baltimore Bandits of the American Hockey League. His reliance on sabermetric principles has been somewhat controversial, often at the perceived expense of more traditional methods of scouting and observation. He signed J. D. Drew, Jeff Kent, and Derek Lowe to contracts with the Boston Red Sox, but later cut ties with the franchise at the end of the 2008 season with Kent retiring and Lowe signing a contract with the Atlanta Braves. He also signed Adrián Beltré, who had hit 48 home runs in 2004, to sign with Seattle as a free agent, spurning Seattle’s offer of 3 years for USD 30 million for 5 years forUSD 64 million.

DePodetta was a key figure in Michael Lewis’s book Moneyball, which thrust the analytical principles of sabrmetrics into the mainstream. He led the Dodgers to their first playoff win in 16 years in 2005, but was fired after the 2005 club finished with its worst record in 11 years. On October 29, 2005, Dodgers owner Frank McCourt fired him, citing his inability to find satisfactory managerial candidates to replace him as the real reason for the team’s failure to win a World Series. 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 togeneral manager Billy Beane. He spent three seasons with the Indians before joining the Mets in 2000. He became the fifth-youngest general manager in baseball history, behind Jon Daniels, Theo Epstein, Andrew Friedman, and Randy Smith.