We didn’t stop the hires: Gabe Kapler, Billy Gasparino join Dodger front office

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By Jon Weisman

The past 24 hours in the Dodger front office should be sponsored by Hires Root Beer.

The third and fourth people to officially join the executive staff since Thursday evening are Gabe Kapler as director of player development and Billy Gasparino as director of amateur scouting. Ken Gurnick of MLB.com has more on the newbie newbies.

… Kapler, 39, became a favorite of new president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman while playing his last two seasons for Tampa Bay.

He’s the only one of the Dodgers’ recent hires with even a tenuous previous link to the organization, having tried to make the club in 2011 as a non-roster invitee. But he was released at the end of that Spring Training. He has been an analyst with FOX Sports.

Kapler managed in the Minor Leagues for one season (2007) with Boston, then returned to playing. He also was a coach for Team Israel in the World Baseball Classic.

Gasparino, 37, worked with Byrnes as the Padres’ scouting director, where he essentially has been replaced by former Dodgers VP of scouting Logan White. Gasparino came to San Diego from Toronto after interning with the Indians. He played one season in the Minor Leagues for Colorado.

The Dodgers also have reassigned Vance Lovelace and Rick Ragazzo, previously vice presidents of player personnel and pro scouting, respectively, to the positions of special assistant to the president and CEO.

As you can see from the video atop this post, fitness is just a wee bit of an interest for Kapler.

Kapler attended Taft High School in my hometown of Woodland Hills, followed by Cal State Fullerton and Moorpark College. Here’s not-quite-HD video of him hitting a home run as a non-roster Dodger at Spring Training 2011.

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C.J. Nitkowski wrote the following tribute to Kapler today for Fox Sports’ Just a Bit Outside.

… Gabe and I were teammates in 1999 in Detroit. To see him go from that rookie season to who he is now is nothing short of inspiring. So many things impressed me about him this year. His passion for the work he did sticks out more than anything. I constantly felt challenged by him, in a good way, to be better. I was forced to see things from all angles and to never be lazy or content doing something one way because that’s how it has always been done. It’s easy to fall in that trap. He wouldn’t allow it.

We hashed things out in conversation. Constantly bouncing ideas and theories off each other and trying to bring readers and viewers something better. I loved that as a goal. How can we be better? How can we distinguish ourselves from what everyone else is doing? It’s a fun challenge if you’re driven and not content with the status quo.

What made that all work was that Gabe is both strong and open minded. He has no problem admitting he might be wrong on something, a character trait that I admire more in people these days than ever. Few can bring so much to the table while admitting they may have gotten one wrong once in a while. Humility is refreshing. …

As for Gasparino, you can get some insight into his thought process from this 2013 interview with Padres 360. An excerpt:

Padres 360 – As far as being a scouting director, when you go into the draft, what aspects are you looking for in players?

Billy Gasparino – I’ll kind of skip the obvious, the kind of tools part of it, and what they do on the field and go more to what we do.  We ask a lot of questions on what we call the players’ makeup.  So we like to look for players — ask coaches and teammates people that know them — how competitive they are.  How much do they love the game?  Have they faced any adversity and how did they overcome it?  What’s their work ethic like when no one is around?  All of those type of questions.