Those of us who covered or just watched Don Mattingly when he played for the New York Yankees knew we were watching a multi-talented baseball player. He could hit, both for average and for power, and he was a fabulous first baseman.
We never knew, though, how multi-talented Mattingly apparently was. We will find out next month when the team Mattingly manages, the Los Angeles Dodgers, holds “a night of entertainment with Don Mattingly.”
That’s what the news release said. It just didn’t say what acts Mattingly would perform at his Jan. 24 charitable event – singing, dancing, tap dancing, yodeling, magic tricks, back flips? I guess you have to buy a ticket ($195) to find out.
No tickets are needed to know what tricks Mattingly’s bosses have executed on his behalf.
You don’t, on the other hand, have to buy a ticket to find out the entertaining acts Mattingly’s bosses have produced. They have been so busy putting together their 2013 show that the manager himself registered a complaint last week.
“We’re going to have to work hard and there are going to be a lot of hills left to climb and we’re going to have some low points during the season,” Mattingly said last week in a Los Angeles radio interview. “For me, it’s not fair to guys. They bust and they bust and they bust, then you run into two hot pitchers in a five-game series, they shut you down and they’re out of the playoffs. It’s tough for me to be down on guys after they battle 162 for you.”
Given his choice, though, Mattingly will take what President Stan Kasten and General Manager Ned Colletti have delivered to his clubhouse.
Beginning last July 25 when they acquired Hanley Ramirez from Miami, Kasten and Colletti have committed $565 million in new players to the future of the Dodgers. That was after the Guggenheim Partners/Mark Walter paid a baseball-record $2 billion for the Dodgers.
Of immediate economic impact, the Dodgers have 21 players signed for next season with total pay of $212.7 million. By the time Colletti finishes putting together the 2013 roster, the Dodgers will very likely have an all-time high opening-day major league payroll. The current opening-day high is the Yankees’ 2008 payroll of $209 million.
The Dodgers’ payroll does not include money they owe released players for 2013: $8,333,333 for Manny Ramirez and $3.2 million for Andruw Jones. Nor does it include the $25.7 million posting fee they bid for exclusive negotiating rights to Korean pitcher Hyun-Jin Ryu.
A month after acquiring shortstop Ramirez, the Dodgers took on a net $281 million in a stunning trade with the Boston Red Sox (who included $11.7 million in the deal).
The Dodgers obtained first baseman Adrian Gonzalez, outfielder Carl Crawford, pitcher Josh Beckett and infielder Nick Punto from Boston. Last week the Dodgers further bolstered their starting rotation, signing Zack Greinke, the best pitcher on the free-agent market, for 6 years and $147 million.
They also traded for utility man Skip Shumaker, but his salary is only $1.5 million. There is, however, no “only” about the addition of Korean pitcher Ryu and Cuban outfielder Yasiel Puig.
After the Dodgers won rights to Ryu they signed him to a 6-year, $36 million contract. Last June they signed Puig to a 7-year, $42 million contract, which included a $12 million signing bonus.
“When Mark Walter and his group came in May 1, they said think bold,” Colletti said in a telephone interview. “They said ‘We know what you’ve been up against. Be bold and come to us with ideas to improve, including redoing the scouting and international scouting.’ We’ve hired eight scouts in the last couple months.”
When Kasten was the long-time president of the Atlanta Braves, he was an advocate of conservative spending. He worked up to his present economic position with a term as president of the Washington Nationals.
“It’s the circumstances,” he said on the telephone. “Los Angeles is different from Washington is different from Atlanta. We have an extraordinary market with a deep and broad fan base that has expectations filled with 50 years of success. You can’t ask them to wait for our young guys so we have to do what we have to do.”
The result of doing what they had to do – catching up, Colletti called it – has placed the Dodgers in the off-season spotlight. Payrolls just don’t rise the way the Dodgers’ has.
“We started a year ago with a $90 million payroll,” the general manager said. “That doesn’t equate to the size of the market or what your expectations were.”
The Dodgers were at that unnaturally low level because the previous owner, Frank McCourt, was underfinanced from the start of his ownership in 2004 and became worse from there, running the Dodgers into the hallowed ground of Chavez Ravine until they landed in bankruptcy.
“If we had been at 180 a year ago and now we are at 210, 220, would people be shocked?” Colletti asked. “If Philadelphia is at 180, we could’ve been at 190. What caught peoples’ attention was we were at 90.”
The Dodgers, according to the commissioner office’s calculations, finished the season with a $189 million payroll, eighth highest in the majors.
So much for the present expenditures. As for the future, the Dodgers don’t plan to make a habit of their recent spending.
“We have to go back to what the Dodgers’ roots were, building the farm system,” Kasten said. “This was a franchise that once turned out rookies of the year regularly and did a lot with international development. We have to return to those roots.”
With the addition of Ryu and Puig, the Dodgers have already initiated their foreign foray. Overseeing that effort will be Bob Engle, a veteran international scouting executive, whom the Dodgers hired away from the Seattle Mariners last month.
Before that move, the Dodgers hired Gerry Hunsicker away from the Tampa Bay Rays as senior adviser for baseball operations. They are obviously beefing up the front office as much as they are the team on the field. Scouting, too.
“We’ve added to the Dominican Republic staff, the Venezuela staff, Mexico, Europe, Australia, Taiwan, Korea and Japan,” Colletti said.
The Dodgers are not spending money foolishly; nor are they spending money they won’t have. They have been negotiating a new long-television package with Fox Sports that could be worth more than $6 billion, or they could create their own network, a la the Yankees’ YES network, and gain even greater revenue.
Are they finished spending for next season?
“I wouldn’t say we’re finished,” Colletti said. “If a way to improve the club comes to our attention, we will probably look at it. We’re probably finished on major league upper echelon spending, but if something presents itself that catches our attention, we’ll consider it.”
One item remains on his list, Colletti acknowledged. “We always look to improve the bullpen, especially the left-handed part of it,” he said. “We’re not without our weaknesses.”
The boss, on the other hand, is pleased.
“We feel pretty good about our roster,” Kasten said. Does he anticipate spending more money? “I think we will look at things on a case by case basis,” he said. “We set out to improve the team.”
But, he reiterated, “We’re also spending money to build the minor league system. In three, four years, we can replenish our major league team without spending a lot of money.”
JOSH BEING MANNY
The first thing I thought of when I heard that Josh Hamilton was leaving the Texas Rangers for the Anaheim Angels was Manny Ramirez.
It was in December 2000 that the often childishly temperamental Ramirez left the Cleveland Indians as a free agent and defected to the Boston Red Sox for an 8-year, $160 million contract. He went for the money, and it was a mistake.
By leaving Cleveland, Ramirez gave up his comfort zone. The Indians and their fans had treated him well, making no demands and willingly accepting his sometimes erratic behavior. He did not find that comfort zone in Boston, and he quickly became an unhappy, sometimes tormented soul whom Red Sox fans did not always treat kindly or with the understanding he had received in Cleveland. Ramirez’s eight years in Boston were filled with complaints.
After fighting through drug and alcohol problems that sidetracked his baseball career, Hamilton found sobriety and tranquility in Texas. He had a couple of relapses with the Rangers, but they learned how to deal with the slugging outfielder and keep him on an even keel.
Can he count on the same compassionate and helpful relationship with the Angels? He may get it, but he can’t count on it.
A misunderstanding ended the Rangers’ relationship with Hamilton. The club apparently thought it would have a last chance to sign Hamilton; he said the Rangers had a first chance and didn’t take advantage of it.
The Rangers apparently were letting Hamilton test the market, preferring not to set the market themselves. Clubs often do that with free agents, and the strategy often turns out to be a mistake.
At his news conference in Anaheim, Hamilton and his wife offered the analogy of a man and woman dating, saying that instead of putting on a romantic press the Rangers let him date other women. If the Rangers really wanted him to stay, Hamilton suggested, they should have smothered him with affection and not let other clubs get near him.
Maybe the Rangers were wary of signing a long-term contract with Hamilton, not trusting him to stay straight for five years or so. Hamilton, on the other hand, owed it to himself and the rest of his career to find out what it might have cost him to retain the safety and security of the Rangers’ cocoon.
METS DICTATING DICKEY FUTURE
The Mets lost all of their money to Bernie Madoff, the Ponzi schemer, but did he take their mind, too?
The Mets, as of this writing, were seriously trying to trade R.A. Dickey, their 20-game and Cy Young award winner. They were reportedly talking to the Toronto Blue Jays and others about giving them Dickey for prospects.
I guess 50 years in New York haven’t been long enough for the Mets to learn that their fans want production, not prospects. No question that prospects who produce can help turn a bad team into a competitive team, but how many prospects are good enough to inspire that transformation?
I am taking the Mets at their word that they want to trade Dickey because they want the prospects. However, it is entirely possible that the Mets don’t want to give Dickey the contract extension he wants to prevent him from being a free agent a year from now.
Dickey has one year left on his Mets’ contract. It calls for a very cheap $5 million salary, not a whole lot more than the average major league salary. In his request for a two-year extension, Dickey has been more than reasonable. He has reportedly asked for about $26 million. The Mets are said to be holding at $20 million.
It’s insulting for a team these days to offer a 20-game and Cy Young award winner $25 million for three years. Pitchers with far less impressive credentials get better offers than that.
The Mets are insulting Dickey, and they are insulting their fans, asking them to pay exorbitant prices to watch a bad team with few players worth watching. Dickey is one of those players, but the Mets would rather yank him out of their starting rotation and plug a prospect into their lineup at another position.