Dodgers’ Andrew Friedman has a methodical approach appreciated by dugout leaders

Joe Maddon chuckled as he described his former boss. “What people don’t realize,” the first-year Angels manager said of Andrew Friedman, “is he’s a lot older than I am.” Not by actual age, of course. “You have to give him a lot of credit,” said Farhan Zaidi, the Dodgers’ former general manager under Friedman who is now entering his second season as the San Francisco Giants’ president of baseball operations. I don’t know if this was a shift in strategy rather than, this is the time all the pieces fit together.” Maddon benefited from Friedman’s similar approach in Tampa Bay, where the Rays became one of baseball’s best at using analytics to draft and develop homegrown prospects and uncover gems on the free-agent market and waiver wire. “The thing about Andrew which he isn’t given enough credit for, which I always thought from the beginning, I thought he was a very good scout,” said Maddon, who won 754 games and the 2008 American League pennant during nine seasons with Friedman in Tampa Bay.