While ARod's trade to the Yankees, Greg Maddux's return to the Cubs, and Albert Pujols's $100M extension occupied baseball headlines for the last week, the move with the most significant long-term implications occurred in California. Frank and Jamie McCourt, the new Los Angeles owners, brought the Los Angeles franchise directly from the 1960s into the 21st century by hiring Paul DePodesta as the Dodgers' General Manager.

The 31-year-old DePodesta, who graduated Harvard University with an economics degree in 1995, entered baseball as a Cleveland Indians' intern in 1996. He spent the next two seasons as an advance scout before joining the Oakland Athletics as Billy Beane's Assistant General Manager in 1998, a position he held until last week. According to the Dodgers' press release announcing his hiring, DePodesta's work "has been recognized by numerous publications, including Fortune magazine, which recently named him as one of the Top 10 innovators under the age of 40".