The 1998 season saw the sale of the franchise from Peter O'Malley to the Fox Entertainment Group take effect. The new corporate executives would quickly anger Dodger fans when they bypassed General ManagerFred Claire and made one of the biggest trades in franchise history. They traded All-Star catcher Mike Piazza and starting third basemanTodd Zeile to the Florida Marlins for a package that included Gary Sheffield. The team on the field performed poorly under all the stress and soon Fox fired Claire and manager Bill Russell, replacing them with former Manager Tommy Lasorda, who was appointed interim GM and Minor League manager Glenn Hoffman who took over for Russell. The team limped along to finish in third place in the National League West and more changes were in the offing for the following season.
The Dodgers selected 50 players in this draft. Of those, only four of them would eventually play Major League baseball. The first round pick was outfielder Bubba Crosby from Rice University. He played nine games for the Dodgers before he was traded to the New York Yankees, where he was a part-time player for three seasons. He hit.216 in 205 games in the Majors. This draft also included pitcher Scott Proctor from Florida State University and catcher David Ross from the University of Florida. Proctor was a relief pitcher in the Majors, who played in seven seasons and was 18-16 with a 4.78 ERA in 307 games. Ross was primarily been a backup catcher during his two decade career which began in 2002 and ended in 2016.
