Paul DePodesta

Paul DePodesta

• School Harvard University
• High School Episcopal High School (Alexandria)

• Born December 16, 1972 in Alexandria, VA USA

Biographical Information

Paul DePodesta is the Vice President of Player Development & Amateur Scouting for the New York Mets. A former baseball and football player at Harvard University, DePodesta began his major-league front-office career as an advance scout and assistant in baseball operations for the Cleveland Indians from 1996 to 1998. From 1999 to 2003, he was the assistant GM to Billy Beane for the Oakland Athletics. He also appeared prominently in the book Moneyball, and was widely known to prefer a statistical point of view when analyzing players.

DePodesta then served as general manager of the Los Angeles Dodgers for the 2004 and 2005 seasons. In 2004, his team won its first division title since 1988 (although they had made the playoffs as a wild card in the mid-1990s). During that season, he made a controversial trade that sent popular players Paul Lo Duca, Guillermo Mota, and Juan Encarnacion to the Florida Marlins for Brad Penny and Hee Seop Choi.

DePodesta was never popular with the Los Angeles press, and was routinely assailed in print by Bill Plaschke and T.J. Simers. The final nail in the coffin may have been when he interviewed Orel Hershiser by phone for the Dodger managerial opening (DePodesta was in Europe, attending a sibling's wedding, at the time). DePodesta was never a favorite of former Dodger manager Tommy Lasorda, who was known to have the ear of owner Frank McCourt.

After being dismissed from the Dodgers following the 2005 season, Paul was hired by the San Diego Padres as a Special Assistant for Baseball Operations in June, 2006, working under CEO Sandy Alderson. When Alderson was named general manager of the New York Mets in late 2010, he hired DePodesta to his current position as the Mets' vice president of player development and scouting. DePodesta would spend six years with the Mets. On January 5, 2016 the sports world was shocked as DePodesta was hired away from the Mets by the Cleveland Browns of the NFL to be their Chief Strategy Officer.

Preceded by Dan Evans

Los Angeles Dodgers General Manager 2004-2005

Succeeded by Ned Colletti

Further Reading

• A.J. Perez: "Paul DePodesta leaving Mets to become Browns' chief strategy officer", USA Today Sports, January 5, 2016. [1]