Gabe Kapler Joins Los Angeles Dodgers Front Office
By Phil Watson
The makeover of the Los Angeles Dodgers front office continued on Friday with the addition of former player Gabe Kapler as director of player development.
The Los Angeles Dodgers continued their seamhead revolution with the hiring of former player for baseball analyst Gabe Kapler as their director of player development.
Kapler, 39, had been with Fox Sports 1 since its launch in 2013 and was the network’s resident expert on sabermetrics and advanced statistics.
The Dodgers have named @gabekapler Director, Player Development and Billy Gasparino as Director, Amateur Scouting.
— Los Angeles Dodgers (@Dodgers) November 7, 2014
Since hiring former Tampa Bay Rays general manager Andrew Friedman as their president of baseball operations, the Dodgers have been creating a very analytics-heavy front office team. They hired Farhan Zaidi, formerly the assistant to general manager Billy Beane with the Oakland Athletics, as general manager.
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Kapler was a player who beat long odds to play 12 seasons in the major league. He was a 57th-round draft pick by the Detroit Tigers out of Cal State Fullerton in 1995, but made it to the bigs just three years later.
In 12 seasons with the Tigers, Texas Rangers, Colorado Rockies, Boston Red Sox, Milwaukee Brewers and the Rays, Kapler hit .268/.329/.420 in 1,104 games. He also played in Japan in 2005.
He retired for a season and managed the Red Sox’ Class-A affiliate in Greenville, S.C., in 2007 before returning to play for the Brewers in 2008 and the Rays in 2009-10.
He retired after he was released by the Dodgers in March 2011 after he had gotten an invitation to spring training as a non-roster invitee.
Kapler managed the Israeli national team in its qualifier for the 2013 World Baseball Classic.
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