Reports: Dodgers name Oakland assistant GM Farhan Zaidi general manager

Ken Gurnick, MLB.com's Los Angeles Dodgers beat writer, dropped a bit of a bombshell tonight:

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>Dodgers will name Oakland&#39;s Farhan Zaidi the new general manager later this week, according to baseball source.</p>&mdash; Ken Gurnick (@kengurnick) <a href="https://twitter.com/kengurnick/status/529831223494180864">November 5, 2014</a></blockquote>

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Zaidi has been credited with many of the moves made by Oakland's front office that led to much of the Athletics' regular-season success between 2012 and 2014, most notably pushing to sign Yoenis Cespedes and to move Brandon Moss from the outfield to first base.

Zaidi has a Ph.D. in Economics from U.C. Berkeley, and began working for the club shortly after receiving that degree in 2004.

The Dodgers organization is obviously moving in a decidedly different direction from the one set by Ned Colletti, who was relieved of his duties as general manager after the 2014 season. Colletti will remain as a senior team advisor, and the near-unlimited gobs of money he was allowed to throw at the free-agent market probably isn't going anywhere, but the fact remains that Zaidi was a central cog in Oakland's sabermetrics-inclined front office, one whose philosophies likely sound like gibberish in Los Angeles.