Brandon Gomes, a former major league pitcher just six years removed from his playing days, has been named general manager of the Los Angeles Dodgers, a position left vacant since Farhan Zaidi’s departure to the San Francisco Giants.
Gomes, 37, has a long history with Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman, who originally traded for Gomes when he served as GM of the Tampa Bay Rays in December 2010.
Shortly after Gomes retired at the end of the 2016 season, Friedman — two years into his tenure with the Dodgers at that point — hired him as the organization’s pitching performance coordinator.
A year later, in 2018, Gomes was named director of player development, replacing Gabe Kapler, who became manager of the Philadelphia Phillies. A year after that, Gomes was named vice president and assistant general manager, a role he held for three seasons.
Friedman operated without a traditional GM after Zaidi was hired away from the division rival Giants in November 2018 but has said the front office tackled the traditional duties of that role collaboratively.
That will continue to be the case, though Gomes — reportedly a candidate for the New York Mets‘ GM vacancy before Billy Eppler got the job — will have his hand on more aspects of the Dodgers’ baseball operations department moving forward.
The Dodgers also announced Tuesday that Damon Jones, formerly chief legal officer for the NFL’s Washington Football Team, has been named vice president, assistant GM and baseball legal counsel for the Dodgers. Alex Slater (now the vice president and assistant GM), Brandon McDaniel (vice president of player performance) and Thomas Albert (head athletic trainer) all received promotions.
Source: www.espn.com