I always laughed at those Yankees soap operas: "Not my team," I said. "My Dodgers would never be that stupid."

So much for the hot stove taking awhile to heat up.

So, the McCourts have owned the team for four seasons, and in that time, have had three general managers and it looks like three managers. The average tenure is not even two seasons. As 1. mentioned, this is becoming like the Steinbrenner Yankees of the 1970s and 1980s, except that I don't see Frank McCourt becoming a TV character, ala Steinbrenner on Seinfeld.

BTW--Seinfeld Trivia Question (this is probably an easy one)--who did the voice of Steinbrenner on Seinfeld?

Joe Torre Pro's: Able to handle several conflicting egos in the dugout.

Cons: Irrational alliances on bad players (Luis Sojo, Miguel Cairo, Andy Phillips, I'm sure there are others)

Bullpen management so inept he needs well publicized orders from the front office to not ruin a promising young player.

According to this link, this was all between Colletti and Little.

I believe it's called Stockholm Syndrome.

Now sign good baseball players and stop overspending for bad baseball players. Redefine your priorities in player evaluation, and build around your young hitters. Shore up the starting rotation.

Sheesh.

I wonder if McCourt knew this was coming when he said they'd both be back for 2008. This would seem to strengthen Flanders, since it's evidence that not even a stay of execution from the guy at the top of the pyramid can save anybody who runs afoul of him. But was that the plan, or something McCourt was surprised to learn?

You can hit homers at Dodger Stadium you dolt.

Colletti met with Little and his coaching staff in the manager's office on Sept. 30...Colletti opened the meeting by blaming himself for personnel decisions that might have left the team thin in the starting rotation and everyday lineup, then put equal responsibility for the 82-80 record on Little and his staff. Little, according to the source, "didn't take it well."

Correction: Grady is RESIGNING, not being fired

Just got a call from Camille Johnston setting me straight on that. Should make for an interesting conference call, especially given that Grady will actually be on it.

11 Wait, you're supposed to dump her at that point?

I don't feel sorry for Grady, he made his bed, I have no problem with him being fired.
While enjoying Frank McCourts money during 2008 he can wonder if things would have been different if he'd played the 8 best players on this team every night instead of pandering to contracts and whatnot. In the end it got him nothing by toeing the line.

Thinking that Joe Torre is the answer is the problem

I wanted to be edgy.

I'll grant you, it's good entertainment value, just for the wrong reasons.

Here's what I don't get. How can things be so patently obvious to this crowd, yet people who get paid millions of dollars to run a team don't understand simple truths?

Wait, what?

248 Yes, but Colletti can improve. He can adjust. He can start listening to the right people. He seems to have the other skills of a GM, he just isn't a great player evaluator. He is, however, surrounded by excellent player evaluators. And, if he took a crash course from some of the people on DT, he could become a better GM in a matter of weeks. His job involves a lot of things, but one of them is dealing with an intellectual framework and a body of knowledge. Like any professional, he can expand his intellectual horizons.

In Little's case, it is going to be difficult to change his essential nature. It is more important that he be a leader of men and a good in-game decision-maker. He can't learn to be a different person than he is. I think he's a B- decision maker and a D+ leader. On a team like the Dodgers, a mix of a-hole veterans like Kent and Lowe and "entitled" prospects (scare quotes to indicate ironic detachment from this media-created image), we do need a stronger, more decisive leader.

I like Little. I don't like it that he's being made to look bad during this process. I don't think it's his "fault" exactly; he's not a stubborn idiot like Jim Tracy. But a change could help the Dodgers.

I'm still not 100% convinced that McCourt's fingerprints aren't all over this. I'm not gonna weep for Grady, but just like Dan Evans and Paul DePodesta before him, he got righteously hosed.

I am very afraid, because I think Colletti is more entrenched for the McCourts than we think. I am also afraid that Colletti thinks that we played the kids too much, and God that just makes my stomach turn. I really am starting to think this offseason will be a blood bath for DT readers. I hope I am wrong.

However, almost every move Ned makes makes me think I can do better. Does this mean he's one of the worst GMs in baseball, that he's one of the few that doesn't understand how runs are created. I hope not.

Rather than the other way around, of course.

It's an entirely different all together.

38 year old Dodger Fan,
born with Blue Blood,
Tommy we miss you

I like Little too, and you hit nail on Tracy. Just hope you're right. I'm trying to see the positive.

This could lead to an unintentional managerial search should the Dodgers fail to come to an agreement with Torre.

It's amazing and rather impressive PR-craft how little of this surfaced in the media until the last few days. I guess it helps a team when the local media is staffed by opinionated clowns rather than actual reporters. That guy in Westchester County, NY, ran rings around the LA Times in covering LA's team.

It sounds like a lot of bad timing hit Grady Little.

It also explains what was a mystery. How come the Dodgers seemed to get interested in Girardi only after Torre got sacked, when he's been available for a year. Answer: They didn't just get interested in him, they were interested in him since September. They just managed to keep it quiet and/or were playing Bud's "don't disrupt the post-season" dictat.

They're working out the deals of the coaching staff, which would include Mattingly.

Sources said that the Dodgers and the former Yankees manager have agreed to the terms of his contract, and what remains to be done is to agree on issues about the coaching staff and his input on player personnel moves. Torre wants to choose his own coaches, among them Don Mattingly, and is negotiating the amount of money to be spent on them. The deal could be completed in the next day.

Possibly, Grady has a chip on his shoulder when it comes to any criticism from the top, he certainly had his issues in Boston.

If we are to believe Tim Brown's story, it seems that Grady made the mistake of taking things personally and then lack of communication and enthusiam with Ned led to the break up.

Yup, that's exactly what I was thinking. But to be fair it was probably NedCo who is pulling these odd strings no?

Or so I hear.

It's easy to find fault with Torre for tactical details like his bullpen management, but his handling/manipulation of both his meddlesome upper management and the muckraking press around him for the last 12 years has been absolutely masterful.

AWKWARD.

Ned did say he talked to Girardi.

They both said Grady would have the job if he wanted it.

Oppo.

There is nothing very unique in this sport about a bad team changing management a lot. I think baseball managers live by the "it's better to be lucky than good" adage.

What teams haven't replaced their manager in the past three years at least once? The Braves, Rockies, Red Sox, White Sox and Twins come to mind. I think Bob Melvin is the longest-serving manager in the NL West -- three years, maybe four. The Bosox went through a bunch of managers before Francona.

Two seasons are enough to know if a manager isn't working out. GMs need a longer time frame.

Just think what stability can get you. Clint Hurdle, for one. Ozzie Guillen.

That is so indicative of...something.

Mainly Joe Torre & Girardi questions.

Not that makes you or me feel any better.

of course.

TJ asked the questions we all wanted to hear before the call got cutoff. I really wish KLAC would have left him & co. on instead of getting Dan Patrick. I listen to local programming in Rochester, NY now instead of LA radio.

http://www.beloblog.com/Pe_Blogs/baseball/dodgers/2007/10/free_agency.html

Dude, I'm joking. Drop the PR gloves for one day.

On any number of levels.

1) They had no idea how to run one.
2) The fact they kept saying this was all on Grady.

Morons. I've got morons on my team!

That soured me on owners forever.

Also, is it time to start a collection here among DTers to buy the Dodgers? I've got a couple hundred bucks, who else is in?

BTW, all of this is perfectly cromulent if they sign Alex Rodriguez.

By the way, this is the first time I have listened to Mason and Ireland and they are quite the jerks to people who call in.

I don't think this is a big deal, unto itself. I liked Grady, personally, but his line-ups were whacked and his passivity in terms of the clubhouse dynamic problematic at the very best. This doesn't solve our real problem--which isn't even Colletti, it's megalomaniac ownership with no baseball vision at all--but it's a step forward. And if that megalomaniac ownership really does believe this is about signing A-Rod, needless to say that's a symptom I'd be willing to live with.

Cent one: I blame Jeff Kent for everything that has gone wrong for the Dodgers over the past 4 years.

Cent two: All signs point to A-Rod signing with the Dodgers. The radio deal with KABC was the key; the Dodgers basically got equity in the venture. The conventional wisdom is that a team cannot afford A-Rod unless it owns its own TV network. However, with the Dodgers holding a stake in its radio deal's performance, and especially in a city where everyone is in their cars all the time, the Dodgers will reap a fortune from A-Rod.

1) Biggest Contract
2) See Above

But great times for sportstalk and message boards and places like DT.

But then don't call me Steve Lavin.

That is really inciteful and something I hadn't thought of...

Boras is going to be on Mason and Ireland in 20 minutes.

I'm guessing it's not quality team members. Or World Series titles. Or May Flowers.

I'm guessing it's not quality team members. Or World Series titles. Or May Flowers.

Problem solved.

now then, I don't think Torre is the answer to the Dodgers woes, unless he can make Juan Pierre and his contract disappear.

However, if they fail in 2008, the fault will clearly point to Colletti.

Excuse me for being out of the loop, but am I missing something here? Is Torre coming to Los Angeleez?

Bob, calm down.

160 But I loved that interview with Kim Ng.

Doesn't LA also have a huge number of radio stations? And isn't a large amount of that market Spanish-language? Which Dodger radio contract is the more lucrative?

There is far more money in such a network than there is in just showing the games. The fact alone means that with creative minds a deal could be struck.

I only mostly dislike them. I will hate them more if they beat Navy Saturday. Notre Dame is favored!

162 Air roots maybe? And those roots should give him some first-hand knowledge about older, underperforming veterans.

http://tinyurl.com/2qqqaf

Goulet: Hi. You from the casino?
Bart: I'm from a casino.
Goulet: Good enough. Let's go.
------
Goulet: Are you sure this is the casino? I think I should call my manager.
Nelson: Your manager says for you to shut up!
Goulet: Vera said that? Hmph.

I figure that there is a whole generation whose only reference to figures like Bob Goulet (I think Johnny Carson called him Bob) is being drawn on the Simpsons.

Colletti can't afford not to sign him!

My blog is the Griddle.

You can do the math. Getting a deal with KABC that allows the Dodgers to share in the revenues was a huge financial coup for the organization.

I'm guessing he'll wait until after spring training to sign so he knows who His players will be.

http://tinyurl.com/3adbbp

In light of the conf call, I'd say the yankees post season performance had nothing to do with this development.

Given the power your voice has here, I'd hope you will approach the remainder of the off season developments with an open mind, and not assume anyone is out to break down the amazing foundation the team has built.

I liked your thoughts on the last A-rod post last week, and hope the dodgers' decisions this offseason are prudent and calculated, as is your opinion on steps as they unfold.

It looks as if this could be a busy offseason for the dodgers if nothing else.

It's just that it takes the equivalent of a few whacks over the head with a Louisville before he gets it.

Hopefully Long can work the same magic on Abreu that he worked on Cano.

http://tinyurl.com/2b29hw

So much turmoil, but absolutely nothing has changed. We still have to wait awhile to see what happens with our roster.

Our poll was run about a month ago. Seems Giradi had some support. Shockingly I didn't have Torre on the list.

1. Neifi!
2. Royce Clayton

I was just wondering how they were going to handle this (especially after learning they also had an understanding with Joe Girardi before he signed with the Yankees). The Yankees could have just promoted Mattingly (like when the Angels replaced Stoneman) but when they added Girardi (who was not currently on the Yankees staff) to the mix they covered themselves by also adding Tony Pena (although everyone knew it was between Girardi and Mattingly and that Pena had no chance). It'll be interesting to see what Bud's reaction will be if the Dodgers go straight to Torre.

Penny
Lowe
Bills
Schmidt
Loaiza

& young pitching waiting in the wings. What will happen with Nomar though...

it sounds more like he was politely asked to resign.

Grady might not be wired to manage, he did it in Boston and got criticized (in probably the second toughest Baseball market) and then he came here and had what he called, his toughest year ever.

I think that is just as likely a story as anyone else wants to come up with re the alternative.

Do you want his ringlessness on your team? He will quite literally drain grit from your grittiest players. (I don't know who they are, but their grit will not be safe.) And he is so ringless that even adding Torre will actually lower your total ringage.

So, your call.

Mark Kreidler has an interesting piece on the Dodgers and A-Rod. He also makes the salient point that, in addition to being totally classless in their treatment of Little, the Dodgers were left to pick up the Yankees scraps: they were the 2nd choice of Torre, Girardi and Mattingly, who all preferred to be in NY.

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/columns/story?id=3087385

But we'll see.

Frankly I don't remember what I said I last year about Ned, unless it was something like he cannot take things personally, holding grudges is unprofessional in his line of work.

But for Grady, if he just doesn't want to manage, then get out. Go ride your new (or semi-new) motorcycle and play with your grand kids.

Until Grady comes out and disavows what he said today, I'll believe him because frankly, if he wanted to burn the bridge, he would have enough people with torches to help him out.

Had the Girardi story not broken like it did last week, I think Jon is right, that Grady could have come to some conclusion and the team would have waited him out.

I have worked over 20 years in this game, justice and truth have strange ways of getting together.

But that is the society we live in.

http://yankees.lohudblogs.com/

Anyone care to rate Colletti's people skills? My first guess would be a 3, but I suspect two categories would be needed. My guess is he is extremely good at dealing with the McCourts, no small feat, but warrants a low number for pretty much everybody else.

I have a friend who argues that you don't need a plan. You start the season with the team you have, not the team you want. I think that's how Ned is operating.

I -- and I would guess most here -- think that's hogwash, and it makes it difficult for me to care about the team.

Thank Heaven for Number Seven (and number 27 and number 55 and number 51 and all my other favorite numbers).

I think its clear that Ned thought there might be an issue with who would be managing the team next season at least as early as last week so he made some inquiries, those inquiries got released in broad terms to the press, perhaps to influence the Yankees to move fast.

But until Grady and Ned spoke today, nothing firm was known. If Mattingly had been hired, Girardi would have been waiting anyway so there would no real rush if Girardi was interesed in coming to L.A.

My experiences is that stories don't wrap up cleanly, there are gaps in logic and continuity that go unexplained.

I think this is one of those times.

And I don't think playing Juan Pierre would qualify for that.

If Torre turns them down--still possible--then the McCourts look like total morons for their ham-fisted timing on this. But they would then conduct a real search and satisfy the minority search rules...

I am someone who told friends Grady should have been let go last June--impossible then as I knew it since we were flirting with baseball's best record at the time--because I thought he was a poor manager. Poor in his handling his players in general and poor his judgment of whom to play: I am very pleased Little is out.

I think the vitriol toward Colletti is mostly undeserved, he had one decent off-season and one awful decision the second: signing Pierre. Signing Schmidt was a calculated risk because of his injury the preceeding season. Nomar was a reasonable decision and was only disasterous because Grady wouldn't bench him. Gonzo gave them a good near-half season; Wolf nearly so.

(Little wouldn't bench Gonzo soon enough either. Torre or anyone else hired will be a lot stronger willed, I believe, and do what needs to be done when the veterans bitch. Grady should have told Nomar and Gonzo they were sitting because they were hurting the team. Instead Grady--always non-confrontational to a very serious fault-- didn't explain at all, and that I think is really what set Kent off about the vets being disrespected...)

But so far Ned has not blown up the youth movement, just retarded its full blossoming a season. THIS off-season is Colletti's true test.

As far as the McCourts' "bad" front office decisions, while they have been tactless. I have agreed with each managerial firing, and thought our previous G.M. St. Paulie-Boy also needed to go when he did.

There are gaps that won't get explained--I agree with that. It's not because there was no logic, or continuity. There was. Things happen for reasons. Unless Canuck isn't the only Calvinist on the block, we can all agree to that, right?

So, the question is, while acknowledging that nobody has perfect knowledge of what happened: is it more likely that Grady Little very recently decided he'd rather not have a job or that Colletti decided he wanted somebody else to have Little's job, but that he had to arrange the dumping in such a way as to not make a liar of McCourt?

I'm not arguing that my theory is empirically, obviously correct. But it looks more likely. Maybe there'll be a story next week that Little has prostate cancer, or that his wife is leaving him, or some other huge personal trouble that would make a decision to prefer unemployment more explicable. I don't think talk radio listeners calling him names is a believable reason.

Only Arte has said anything public about signing a player like A-Rod, to which he said no to a player who would demand that type of salary.

Absolutely not. Nomar had a wretched second half in 2006, and his subsequent collapse was wholly predictable.

Just what is BFOG+, you ask?

It stands for Belly Full of Guts Plus - that is, adjusted for veteran grittiness and rings won. (I don't remember the exact calculation, but veteran grittiness counts more than rings.)

Draw your own conclusions from there, but if Pete Abe 243 is right - get ready for a lot more Scott Proctor. His name is carved in gold in the biggest spots on Torre's Wheel of Guts - that's how Joe determines who comes in from the bullpen every night.

You guys will love Torre, seriously. But, you might simultaneously hate his guts, too. Good luck.

But occasionally people do walk away, I think if Grady gets some type of special assistant to the assistant in the player development area of the team, than maybe your theory makes more sense but we won't know that for some time.

He'll have Meloan, Broxton, Saito, Beimel, and whomever else the Dodgers retain. A wee bit better than the Yankees had.

The problem is, even when the Yanks had a great bullpen (late 90s), Torre push-buttoned it the whole way, and only used "his guys", the "guys he trusted". If you weren't trusted, it didn't matter how good you were. You didn't pitch.

If you were trusted, you were pitched until your arm fell off (Karsay, Quantrill, Tom Gordon) or you pissed Torre off (Tanyon Sturtze). Again, ability was irrelevant. Tanyon Sturtze turned 8 great performances in one month into two years of pitching the 7th inning, no matter how much he sucked.

To put it another way - there was a very good reason for the Joba rules.

If, say, Broxton blows a few games early in the year, it might take him all season to get Torre's trust back. Just fair warning.

It's all about the optics. The kabuki dance. This is a polite parting of the ways. Grittle at least pondered quitting based on his spat with Colletti after the season ended. Maybe in the end he decided to bestow one more season on us, but by that time Colletti was free to think anew on the managerial spot. After leaving Little to twist for days in public, they owed him at least the right to say it was his decision and put any spin on it he wanted.

If you get fired and your boss says so, that is a severe judgment. The Dodgers realized they didn't want to do that. After all, it reflects on Colletti and McCourt too. If Little's such a bum, why did they hire him?

I agree, a team that could go from Girardi to Torre in a day is a team that doesn't know where it's going...so any road will get them there, as the expression goes.