MLB teams
Dan Szymborski, Special to ESPN.com 9y

Dodgers' sneaky-good offseason

MLB, San Diego Padres

Everybody loves a good heist movie. In a typical one, a likable protagonist and his lovable, ragtag band of ne'er-do-well miscreants will form an intricate, detailed plan and eventually get the better of the antagonist who owns the thing that the group intends to steal. The plan may be to rob a bank. Or sometimes a casino or a museum with a diamond the size of Mike Trout's WAR.

However, the current grand burglary I'm thinking of doesn't involve bags of money or famous jewels -- this mise-en-scène played out during the winter meetings at the San Diego Hilton this week. And the perpetrator is the Los Angeles Dodgers, who deviously retooled some of the weaknesses from their 94-win season using stuff from the other guy's wallet.

The 2014 Dodgers were a solid team, but far from a perfect one. The outfield defense was a mess, they got nothing from behind the plate, they had two starting pitchers who were both healthy and good, and too much of the bullpen consisted of incompetent "name" relievers that you'd want in 2010, not 2014. The team's core was still talented, so blowing up the team and starting from scratch made little sense. A retool was in order.

The front office in Dodgerland that attended the winter meetings this year was very different than the 2013 group. Andrew Friedman, the team's new president of baseball operations and still on the sunny side of 40, was lured from Tampa Bay, where he oversaw one of the most successful front-office operations in the past decade. To assist him in his dream team of thievery came other recruits for this operation, including general manager Farhan Zaidi from the Athletics; senior vice president Josh Byrnes, who was fired by the Padres last season; team farm director Gabe Kapler; and Jeff Pickler, special assistant in pro scouting and player development. I'll let them sort out who gets played by Brad Pitt and who gets George Clooney.

What's even better than making a big score? Making it while people think you were the one who was robbed.

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