00:00I want to go into the front office here.
00:02I had a chance to work with Andrew Friedman when he was with the Rays.
00:06And I got to tell you, Craig, I mean,
00:08you're talking about a guy who I think is maybe even elevated himself above
00:12Theo Epstein.
00:12I mean,
00:13one of the reasons they were able to make this move with the Tigers was
00:17because of their minor league system that he has built up there.
00:20I mean, you know, it's one thing to have the open checkbook.
00:22It's another thing to be able to have a farm system.
00:25They've got guys all over that system.
00:27And he brought that from when he was in Durham,
00:29and he was a general manager, as I said, of the Rays here.
00:33I mean, this guy has to go down as one of the greatest general managers of
00:36all time as well.
00:38A lot of folks have followed in his footsteps.
00:40Haim Bloom is now the general manager of the St. Louis Cardinals.
00:44He was previously in Boston.
00:46Craig Breslow is getting a lot of credit for that,
00:48but these are all Haim Bloom's guys that are doing it now.
00:51He got fired, I thought, pretty unfairly.
00:53Peter Bendix, who worked for both of those,
00:55is now the general manager in Miami.
00:57They're on the cusp of the wild card, too.
00:58James Click was with Houston.
01:00He was also in Tampa Bay.
01:02The lineage just goes on and on.
01:03You're absolutely right, Dan.
01:04But also, let's also not forget,
01:06even though the players that they traded are their farm system guys,
01:09the Dodgers also do a great job on the international market.
01:13They bring in players from the Dominican Republic, Venezuela,
01:15and some others.
01:16And, of course, from overseas as well.
01:19Sasaki, Yamamoto.
01:20That's a huge part of what they do as well.
01:22And this is not unlimited money.
01:24Like, you could spend in the past.
01:25Like, on Yasiel Puig,
01:26you have a certain amount of pool money
01:28that you can use to get it done.
01:29The Dodgers are finding a way to do that, too.
01:32But, yes, Friedman, of course,
01:33is an elite executive among executives in Major League Baseball.
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