The Los Angeles Dodgers promoted Billy Gasparino to vice president of baseball operations, starting with the 2024 season. This year is Gasparino’s 10th as a member of the organization.
Gasparino first joined the Dodgers prior to the 2015 season as their director of amateur scouting. During his nine years in the role, he oversaw many successful drafts that have assisted in putting the Dodgers in the advantageous position they currently find themselves in.
Since Gasparino joined in 2015, the Dodgers have been in the top half of MLB Pipeline’s farm system rankings. More often than not they were somewhere in the top 10.
The top Dodgers prospects in those early years were drafted before Gasparino joined the front office, but his impact on the farm system can be seen as early as 2017. Walker Buehler was the 24th overall pick in the 2015 MLB Draft and was the first selection made by the Dodgers in the Gasparino draft era.
Buehler was a headliner of the Dodgers’ sixth-ranked farm system in 2017, coming in at No. 93 individually on MLB Pipeline’s Top 100. It was the first time one of Gasparino’s picks made it into the publication’s top 100. With the 2018 rankings, Buehler skyrocketed all the way up to the No. 12 overall prospect in baseball.
But it’s the 2016 draft class that is perhaps Gasparino’s most impressive and complete one to date. Gavin Lux and Will Smith were the Dodgers’ first two selections and Dustin May was taken in the third round.
It would be during the 2019 season when the 2016 class began to bear fruit for the Dodgers. Lux (No. 10), May (No. 35), and Smith (No. 57) led the way for the Dodgers’ third-ranked farm system that year.
Gasparino and the Dodgers scouting department also fared well in 2022 and 2023. In both years the Dodgers owned the second-best farm system in baseball according to MLB Pipeline, which is the highest ranking they have had with Gasparino overseeing the Draft.
The Dodgers farm system in 2022 featured a pair of 2019 picks in Michael Busch (No. 45) and Ryan Pepiot (No. 77), along their 2020 first-rounder Bobby Miller (No. 27). The trio were once again the cream of the crop in 2023 with Miller (No. 24), Busch (No. 54), and Pepiot (No. 70) staying in MLB Pipeline’s top 100.
A sometimes overlooked advantage of the Dodgers having an elite farm system is the availability of trade chips for both the offseason and deadline. The two biggest trades involving players drafted by Gasparino were for Mookie Betts and more recently with acquiring Tyler Glasnow.
Betts was traded by the Boston Red Sox to the Dodgers in exchange for Alex Verdugo, Jeter Downs and Connor Wong.
The Tampa Bay Rays traded Glasnow to the Dodgers during the offseason in exchange for Pepiot and Jonny Deluca. Both payers were selected in the 2019 MLB draft, with Deluca being a late-round find by the Dodgers.
Who replaced Billy Gasparino?
With Gasparino receiving the promotion, Zach Fitzpatrick took over as the new Dodgers director of amateur scouting.
Fitzpatrick, a graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, joined the Dodgers organization in November 2015 as an amateur scouting coordinator. He was promoted to assistant director of amateur scouting in November 2018 before then taking the reins from Gasparino five years later.
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