Talking With: Ned Colletti, Part I

BK:  Did that come in handy with the meetings and the negotiations and the other things you had to do?

NC: It does. You know where people's strengths lie, so you can delegate more. You can section off your department better. All of that stuff, all of those components. Any management style or front office of any company is greatly enhanced when you know who is who.

BK: So much has been made this off-season about the amount of money that especially pitchers are receiving and the length of contracts. Were you surprised at all about how the market is playing out this winter?

NC: Well ... you generally know who's going to be a free agent. You can tell right now once somebody signs a contract who's going to be out there next year most likely. You never know how the finances are going to go, but you do know that the same fundamentals of any economic model work, where it's supply and demand. When you have a lot more demand than you do supply, it's always going to have an effect where that side of the marketplace is going to be the stronger side.  That's a fundamental we can all understand and it rings true in baseball, too. Going into the off-season, I felt there it was going to be a thin group and I thought there was going to be a lot of competition for that group.

BK: I know you can't necessarily comment on specific players, but guys like Jason Marquis, Ted Lilly, people aren't necessarily considered top players getting major dollars from teams, did you anticipate that kind of explosion?  Even a seven-year deal for a guy like Barry Zito?

NC: No, I can't say that I could have predicted any of this. I could have predicted that yeah, there's going to be more demand than supply, but I couldn't have predicted that the numbers would have grown to where they've grown.

Andrew Kamenetzky:  Does that concern you at all, in terms of salaries escalating to the point where baseball ends up dealing again with repercussions of owners and players not finding a middle ground? Having some of the salary escalation issues of a few years ago? 

NC: Well, in a general scope, yes. I don't know if any industry can continue to grow at as rapid a rate as the salaries grew this off-season. So in a general overview, I'd say yes. More specific to our club, it reinforces to me the amount of money, time and talent that needs to be put into player development and scouting. We're fortunate that we do have some young players that played last year in the big leagues and a few more that haven't quite gotten there yet, but we believe will. And I think for teams to be able to survive the drastic increases and costs, the ones that survive are going to be those that can develop players from within at the same time. Mix and match. I don't think anybody's going to be able to go outside completely to build their club.

BK: In terms of the guys you brought on this year, Randy Wolf, Luis Gonzalez, signing Nomar Garciaparra to a shorter extension, Jason Schmidt to three years as opposed to seven with Zito, I assume that kind of flexibility with the young kids is intentional.

NC:  Yes. Well, we followed the same model that we had a year ago.  (Back-up catcher Mike) Lieberthal is (signed for) a year. We followed that same model as best we could. I probably told you a year ago, I would rather overpay in dollars and save years. We tried to continue that same approach. You need a player that will go along with that approach, because it's counter to most players' thought process. The longer the contract, the more security, the better off (they are). So you have to find the right mix of talent that you respect and want to put on your club coupled with the attitude of players that are open to taking shorter deals. And if you have to overpay a little bit, so be it.

AK:  So in the end, you're providing yourself security in the years themselves as opposed to the actual year-to-year payroll?

NC:  Yes. And it is coupled with the young players, because I don't want to have a young player stalled for a long period of time. But we also have to gauge when is that young player really ready to compete without a safety net underneath him. When you get into the season with younger players, or even with older players, if you get into a season when somebody is hurt or somebody's performance isn't up to what it needs to be, and you don't have the depth to survive that, it's pretty tough to find it without really, really overpaying for it once the season starts. 

BK:  Ideally, if the younger players continue to develop and everything plays out the way I assume you hope they do, do you anticipate having to follow the Cleveland model, where they've locked up a lot of guys before they to get to arbitration? Exchange a couple years of free agency for maybe some more money?

NC:  We'll see. It needs to be taken on an individual basis. I think everybody is motivated in different ways and it's something we would look into, certainly, and take into consideration. I wouldn't want to make a blanket signing situation where everybody that's had one or two years of service, if we have three or four players in that group that we're gonna try to sign them all long term. We may, but it would all be done on an individual player by player basis. 

BK:  How does the new value for younger players affect the trade market? Is it harder to make deals now because people value young players so much?

NC:  I think trades have always been difficult to make. As contracts started escalating in value, trades became even tougher to make. And when you have as many young players who teams are signing now with long term deals, when you have teams that are willing to sign players through their arbitration years and maybe a year of free agency or so, I think that's really a by-product of the collective bargaining agreement, which has given more flexibility to small market teams and mid-market teams. Again, I think it lessens the pool of players that would normally be traded. In years past, players that started to reach arbitration eligibility after maybe one year or two years of it, some teams couldn't afford to keep that player, so they'd be trading that player as a four plus (in MLB service time) or five plus player, and that player would most likely hit the free agent market as a six-plus player. That doesn't happen much anymore. Players that are of value to teams end up being signed, whether it's to a long term deal or even year to year, where the small market clubs or mid-market clubs can continue to retain the player, even if it's on a year by year arbitration basis.  So I think the last collective bargaining agreement spread the ability around, where practically every team has a change to retain their club.

BK:  Which is good for the fans and good for the game, but just makes it tough for you guys.

NC:  Well, it's good for everybody. It just tougher to make a trade, which means it limits your free agent pool and it's going to limit your trade pool, but you have to spend the right amount and effort in developing your own players, scouting and signing players internationally. There's always going to be a shift in the game to one way of doing things to another, I see in the last couple years, and I could see it going forward, where people have long talked about how it's better to develop your own players and this and that, it's becoming more and more of a requirement. You're going to have to be able to develop your own players. You're going to have to draft well, and you're going to have to be involved internationally to the point that your team is going to have to use more than one outlet to find the players.

AK:  Has that need to develop your own talent been part of your reluctance to part with some of the young players you guys have? Or does that have as much to do with your belief in them?

NC:  Both. That's a good question and a good point, but the answer is both.

AK:  How difficult has it been for you to hang on to some of these guys against the idea of getting the guy who may not have quite the upside, but you know is ready right now? Balancing potential against the known quantity?

NC:  Well, if it was the right player for us, we would trade young players. If we were assured it was the right move to make. But that hasn't presented itself yet. Have our young players been asked about? All the time. But the players are being offered back, we don't believe it to be equal value.  We would make a trade of the younger players in an equal value deal.

AK:  You've been around the game a long time. Does this pool of young talent that's either just now  making its mark or on the verge, is it as good as any one collective you've seen?

NC:  Um, it gets cloudy after a while when you think back to other organizations and how they've done it. The Minnesota Twins, just recently, that group is really a home grown group, by and large.  That team has been pretty good for a while now.  They win divisions, they get to the postseason.  So that's a pretty good one and that's not that far removed, coming out of the minor leagues. I think the Mets teams in the mid-80's that won the World Series, you're talking about some pitchers and players there that were developed. 

I'd say to take snapshot of 2006, this group, there were more good young players coming out of this organization that contributed to the big league club than probably any other club. Arizona had some some good young players coming up. Florida certainly had some good young players coming up. That would be a snap shot of this place and time right now. But there have been been other teams that have become successful through their own scouting and player development. I would say most recently Minnesota is a great example.

AK:  But you think this group of young Dodger talent could have the potential to stack up against those other collectives that you've named?

NC:  They could. It remains to be seen. There's a lot of ground yet to be covered before I can tell you that it has happened. I don't know why my philosophy is what it is, but I believe it takes time. I believe that a season will test every aspect of every player's character, talent, dedication and health. So before we get to that point, there's still a ways to go.

BK:  People talk about the Dodgers set up well now in whatever trade market is out there because of the surplus of arms and the amount of potential starters. Does what happened last year, with the amazing amount of injuries and things like that make you little less anxious to dip into that surplus?

NC:  Yeah. And I think quote that I can't believe has ever been uttered in the history of baseball is, "We've got too much pitching." I don't think I've ever heard anyone say we've got far too much pitching here. So I think that's a great commodity to have, whether it's to spin it off to fulfill another need or just to keep your club going. I think the '06 Dodgers, I think we fell short not because of a lack of a power hitter, but because our pitching wore out. And I could see it coming from mid-July on, when the starting pitching started giving us five innings and not six and seven innings.  And the bullpen, which took a hit right out of the gate with Eric (Gagne) going down and Yhency (Brazoban) going down and having to rebuild that on the fly and give people opportunities.  By the time you get to 110 games in a season, a lot of players are starting to see a wall. I think our pitching was probably the difference between us making the postseason and going deep into the postseason. So we wanted to address that if we could and try to give us ourselves as many different choices as possible and as much depth as possible going into a season. Or going into a spring training, I should say.