When the Los Angeles Dodgers acquired Chase Utley from the Philadelphia Phillies on Aug. 19, 2015, he was a 36-year-old who was hitting .217/.284/.333 with a 64 wRC+.
However, the Dodgers front office knew he could do more to help the team as president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman and then-general manager Farhan Zaidi sought to change the culture in the clubhouse and on the field during their first season running the team.
Utley wound up re-signing with the Dodgers multiple times before retiring after the 2018 World Series.
While Utley became revered throughout the Dodgers organization, Zaidi took exhaustive measures to explain why the team needed to pursue a trade for the veteran, via according to Peter Gammons of The Athletic:
When it became known that Utley was available, Zaidi wrote a 3,000-word treatise on why he believed they should acquire him.