New Giants boss Farhan Zaidi first recognized by A’s

CARLSBAD, San Diego County — A’s general manager David Forst recalled the day he and Billy Beane interviewed a young Farhan Zaidi for an entry-level position in Oakland.

Zaidi, who was named the Giants’ president of baseball operations Tuesday night, had a bachelor’s degree in economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and was getting a doctorate in behavioral economics from Cal.

A typical numbers guy, right?

“We originally hired Farhan because of his personality,” Forst said, “not because of his Ph.D or his analytics chops or whatever.”

Wait, what?

“We sat on the couch in Billy’s office and just enjoyed the hour conversation we had with him,” Forst said. “Yeah, it helped that he went to MIT and was trying to get a Ph.D.