Logan White’s Departure Is Not Insurmountable

Well. Lets talk about something else.

Logan White was good at his job whilst a member of the Dodgers. As an executive in charge of evaluating talent, White found several big league talents in the draft: Matt Kemp, James Loney, Russell Martin, Chad Billingsley, Scott Van Slyke, Jonathan Broxton, A.J. Ellis, etc. He drafted but failed to sign guys like Paul Goldschmidt, David Price, and Kevin Gausman, the guy has an eye for talent.

Overrated by some, severely underrated by others, White has been an enigma in the front office, and now he’s gone to the Padres. Lets be clear, Logan White got a promotion that the Dodgers very well could not offer, so there was not a whole lot the team could do. Given the description of his new position, I’d venture to guess that White in the Padre’s front office would mean more than White as a GM in Los Angeles.

So by and large, this transaction is garnering attention, people are saying this transaction is an earth moving get for the Padres, and a brutal loss for the Dodgers.

I’m not so sure that’s the case.

Here’s two links, one from last year that I wrote that detailed the Dodgers players by fWAR (don’t worry, not a lot has changed other than Dee Gordon isn’t terrible now), and an Eric Stephen tweet

Yikes.

Kemp Loney Martin and Billingsley are solid regulars, but ever since 2004, it’s Clayton Kershaw, Dee Gordon who has had one good season 3 second division type players, and a pile of AAA level players and relievers. Put however much blame you want on Frank McCourt, but Nathan Eovaldi being your best player since 2006 is simply unacceptable. Chris Reed was a bad pick, Chris Anderson is looking a lot like Chris Withrow, Chris Withrow himself spent 4 seasons in AA purgatory, came up, was good for half a season and then blew out his elbow, none of the picks between 2007-2011 (possibly 2012) have worked out.

With or without Frank McCourt’s spending limits on scouting, it’s a bad track record. As long as you’re drafting a decent player once every two seasons, you’re doing just fine, but to choose Zach Lee over Kevin Gausman, to choose Chris Reed over Sonny Gray, Joe Panik, Robert Stephenson, Matt Barnes, Kolten Wong, Alex Meyer, and Blake Swihart.

ALL OF WHOM ASIDE FROM STEPHENSON SIGNED FOR SIMILAR A SIMILAR AMOUNT THAN REED.

Now, White’s saving grace with the Dodgers will always be the ability to scout oversees. Seriously, Hiroki Kuroda, Yasiel Puig, Hyun-Jin Ryu, Julio Urias, and potentially good players like Julian Leon.

However, just how much credit should he get? Mike Brito founderer of Fernandomania, and discovered Yasiel Puig and Julio Urias is with the team, the head of international scouting, Bob Engle is still with the team (who really was integral in bringing in all of the international signings since he came, which includes Ryu Guerrero and Arruebarrena among others). All of the scouts are still with the organization, Logan White was crucial in the international arena, but to act like he was the sole reason that Yasiel Puig, Hyun-Jin Ryu, Julio Urias, Alexander Guerrero, Erisbel Arruebarrena are with the club would be severely underselling the impact Engle and his staff have done.

So basically we have a useful member of the front office who has been really terrible in the domestic arena and has had some crucial misses in the draft, but an amazing member in the international department. Luckily, given that most of the people contributing to the haul the Dodgers have reeled in the past 3 years are back, they shouldn’t suffer much.

I think it was time for change in the domestic scouting department, there was a lot of misses throughout White’s tenure, there were a ton of hits. Unfortunately there was more of the former recently. He will be missed, but can be replaced.