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| Dodgers manager Joe Torre (right) and general manager Ned Colletti chat during batting practice before a game against the Diamondbacks in the Dodgers’ home opener on April 13 in Los Angeles. (AP photo) |
When Ned Colletti took the general manger's job for the Los Angeles Dodgers in 2005, he knew what he was up against.
The Northern Illinois graduate was the seventh Dodgers' GM in eight years and the team had just completed a 71-91 season, their second worst record since the move from Brooklyn in 1957. To add another degree of difficulty, Colletti came from Los Angeles' rival, the San Francisco Giants.
These often are the situations new general managers hired from outside an organization face.
"When you're coming from the outside, first of all, no one likes that," Colletti said. "Secondly, it takes you a while to get to know who's who. It probably took a couple of years and you do it really by trial and error.
"You can't have a quiz and you can't have all the experiences you're going to have when it comes to making a decision on somebody."
To make Colletti's situation even more difficult while trying to turn around one of the premier franchises in baseball, he inherited a staff that included people hired six general managers ago. That hardly made it easy to change the culture of how things work within the franchise, implement his philosophy and build a staff that works within that culture and that philosophy.
"I had a lot of people that had been hired by a lot of people," Colletti said. "It was like having a house built by five or six different contractors. It took a while to get that sorted out."
And this is all before a general manger goes about improving a team, much less the day-to-day functions of transactions, scouting and meetings.
Despite that, and to Colletti's credit, he's managed to build a team that has been to the playoffs three of the past four seasons and been in two straight NLCS.
LITTLE STEPS
If Colletti has learned anything since arriving in Los Angeles, it's patience.
Faced with a difficult situation to start, Colletti propped the team up with free agents while holding on to and developing younger players such as outfielder Matt Kemp and catcher Russell Martin. Admittedly, he was impatient with the quick fix of free agency but had to remain patient with his younger players and not expect too much.
"This business is one that you play almost every day for six months, so you have this evaluation process going on in your head every day," Colletti said. "But you can't do anything rash and you can't do anything without a lot of contemplation."
Colletti said he makes judgments on whether or not to keep a player, give him a multi-year contract, or move him in little increments. A good week or a bad week at the plate doesn't necessarily change the big picture.
Sycamore sophomore baseball coach Jake Howells, who interned in the baseball operations department under Colletti in the summer of 2006, said the smallest of details matter on a daily basis for general managers like Colletti.
"In his office, he would keep track of every player in Major League Baseball on the 25 and 40-man roster," Howells said. "There are a lot of transactions every day in baseball that you really don't know about. They don't show up on SportsCenter. But if you're a general manager, it's important to know about all of them."
VARYING PHILOSOPHIES
With a down economy and increased acceptance of advanced statistical analysis, the value of players on the open market changed in the past couple of seasons. While the economy is something general managers can't control, how they look at players is.
Some teams, such as Boston and Oakland, rely heavily on statistical analysis to decide how they want to go forward. Others disregard it and rely on what scouts see and report almost exclusively.
Colletti falls somewhere in the middle on that debate. He employs two people on his staff trained in analytical research and mathematics.
"I use a lot of statistical analysis. I use the information," he said. "It's not the end-all for me. I won't make any decisions solely based on that. I don't think you can do that. But it's not lost on me."
When it comes to bringing in foreign-born players, as Colletti has done with Japanese pitchers Takashi Saito and Hiroki Kuroda, he likened the analysis to that of scouting a college player using an aluminum bat versus a wood bat.
"You have to really analyze the person a lot and figure out how bad they want to play in this country," Colletti said.
And it requires a staff that a general manager trusts to give critical evaluations.
"I rely on our scouts a lot for all that," Colletti said. "You can't do this job without a lot of different people. Whether you're scouting in central California, in Asia or in DeKalb, Illinois, you have to have people everywhere."
AN EASY DECISION
A female in the front office isn't a novel concept in baseball except for one area – general manager. But Colletti's assistant GM, Kim Ng, has been poised to become baseball's first female general manager for years. She interviewed for the same position Colletti did in 2005, but didn't get it.
Colletti, who knew Ng from when he worked for the Cubs and she worked for the White Sox, immediately kept her on as his assistant.
It has turned into one of Colletti's smartest moves as Ng has built a sterling reputation in various areas, especially arbitration. Colletti says he believes it's a matter of time before she runs her own club.
"It takes somebody with enough foresight and willing to change something that's never occurred before for it to happen," Colletti said. "She knows what she's doing. These jobs are no longer just for one person. They are for a leader, but they're for a staff of people.
"As long as she is going to surround herself with people that are loyal to her and to the organization and are talented and at the same time, she'll do very well."
EXCITING TIMES
The Dodgers have been in serious contention for a World Series for the past couple of years, and like any contender, general managers look to pull off trades right around the trade deadline.
In 2008, Colletti acquired Boston slugger Manny Ramirez. In previous trades at or around the trading deadline, Colletti has added Greg Maddux, Jim Thome, Casey Blake, George Sherrill, Vicente Padilla, Ronnie Belliard and Jon Garland.
"It's an interesting time, especially those days," Colletti said. "It's a process that begins a little after the All-Star break a lot of times and slowly crawls its way to the 31st of July."
With the Dodgers expected to be in contention again this season, another deadline deal wouldn't be unexpected from Colletti.
"It's exciting in a lot of ways," he said. "We've made a lot of moves in July and even into August."
