The World Champion Dodgers can add more hardware to their trophy case. This week, the team was named the 2020 Major League Baseball Organization of the Year. Baseball America has recognized the award annually since 1982.
The Dodgers were pretty much the best team from start to finish. They posted the best regular season record at 43-17. While they faced some challenges in the postseason like every winning team does, they eventually got the job done.
Also taken into consideration were several huge acquisitions such as Mookie Betts in the last offseason by MLB Executive of the Year, Andrew Friedman. Other key acquisitions were Blake Treinen, Brusdar Graterol, and Alex Wood, who had all key moments in October.
With one of the deepest farm systems in the majors, the Dodgers look to stick around for a couple of years at the most elite level of baseball.
In some front office news, Dodgers senior vice president of baseball operations Josh Byrnes has interviewed for the general position with the Phillies. Byrnes has been with the Dodgers since 2014, after previously being a GM with the Diamondbacks and Padres.
The Phillies are also interested in another Dodgers front office executive, Jeff Kingston, who is the current Los Angeles vice president and assistant general manager. Kingston arrived to the Dodgers in late 2018, having previously been in the Mariners front office.
Friedman has had many successful baseball executives work with him in the past, so it isn’t a surprise that two Dodger executives are in the running for the GM position in Philadelphia.
In other organizational news, while the MLB has been restructuring the Minor Leagues recently, the Dodgers announced that they will longer be affiliated with the Ogden Raptors. The Raptors were the rookie level for the Dodgers in the Pioneer League.
The hot stove this offseason has been pretty quiet so far, as only rumors continue to flow in. Some of the biggest Dodgers rumors have been trade packages surrounding players such as Nolan Arenado, and Francisco Lindor or free agent acquisitions like Trevor Bauer or DJ LeMahieu.
Dodger Stadium also just recently kicked off their first night of the Dodgers Holiday Festival. The festival runs from 5 p.m. to 11 p.m., prices range from $55 – $115 depending on the size of the car.
Surely, the hot stove will heat up at some point while we all wait for some roster moves to take place.
Think Blue Planning Committee 
A few thoughts:
1) Nice to see the organization get plaudits since they did pretty much do everything right this year. Actually the first high five was from Steve Cohen who said he’d like to emulate the Dodgers when building the Mets now that he’s the new owner. He took his first step today by signing Trevor May, a reliever who would have looked nice in our bullpen in 2021.
2) I have no clue who is behind Josh Byrnes and Jeff Kingston in the Dodger pecking order but I hope there are some good people there. AF never replaced Farhan when he left. What if Byrnes and Kingston are hired by the Phillies and Mets in the next couple of weeks. Our front office would be pretty well decimated, unless there are other high value guys there that just don’t get any publicity.
3) I wonder how much the team takes in from their holiday festival admission fees. With so many people hurting financially this year, I think it would have been a great gesture to do free admission or at least cut it down to $10-$20 a car. Some kids are going to have an awful Christmas this year and the Dodgers could have gone a ways to make that a lot better. Charging $55-$115 will just serve to eliminate the folks who should have been at the head of the line in the first place because they have lost their jobs and have nothing to give their kids this year. The Dodgers are having us believe that they lost bazillions this year. A few more dollars wouldn’t have made it all that much worse and the free publicity would have more than made up for it. I’m usually a Dodger ownership supporter but this one leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
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Jeff, the parking is still owned by McCourt. I think he is the one who set the parking fees. Of course if the entrance fee is set by the team that is just wrong. But you have to believe McCourt is getting something. The award itself is well deserved.
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As far as I can tell Bear there isn’t any parking involved. You show up you drive through, and you aren’t allowed to leave your car, even to use a restroom (which must be fun if you have young kids with you).
It is, however, being held in the parking lot, so maybe McCourt does get a cut. Not sure if he gets a percentage on every car that parks during the season or if they just pay him an annual rent. Either way, it sucks. This event should be free to bring a little cheer to those who are going through hell right now.
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Like I said, I am not sure how it works out financially. Not getting out of the car is NUTS. Whoever organized it is looney tunes.
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Personally I cannot wait until that parking lot agreement is over. To think that McQuacky is making any money at all off of Dodger fans to me is abhorrent.
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The way the pandemic is raging in L.A. right now I can understand their not wanting to have fans milling around and having to make sure everyone is distancing and wearing masks.
As far as McCourt making money off of us, keep in mind their divorce cost them both a lot of money and we need to make sure they can both maintain their previous lifestyle.
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Excuse me, but screw their previous life style Let them bust their ass like the rest of us did.
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Okay guys, I’ve told you before, now I’m going to tell you again, Frank Mcourt does NOT directly get any of the parking revenue At dodger stadium. He is a fifty percent partner with Guggenheim, in an entity that owns the parking lot. The dodgers rent the parking lot from the entity for 14 million per year, McCourt gets a portion of that rental money after costs. He will benefit if the dodgers ever develop any of the land ( such as a hotel, or shopping ) but he has no say so in if or when that would be done.
The Dodgers have a 99 year lease on the parking lots, from the entity, and from what I can tell, have control of any future development. So McCourt gets 7 million per season minus cost.
The money from this Xmas drive thru all goes to the dodgers, or any other function that happens in the stadium parking lot. BTW I’m with you Jeff, the Dodgers are being very greedy with the Price they are charging for this event.
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Dodgers acquire Knebel from the Brewers.
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