The Dodgers have opened talks with general manager Ned Colletti on a long-term contract extension, reports Bill Shaikin of the Los Angeles Times. Dodgers chairman Mark Walter confirmed that the team had extended an offer to Colletti, though the GM and team president Stan Kasten didn't comment. Colletti is in the last guaranteed year of an extension signed after the 2009 season, though Colletti could have returned in 2013 under a mutual option.
Colletti was hired as the Dodgers' GM after the 2005 season and has led the team to no fewer than 80 wins in each of his six full seasons in Los Angeles, good for a 584-525 overall record. The Dodgers have made three playoff appearances (two NL West titles and a wild card) under Colletti, advancing as far as the NLCS in both 2008 and 2009.
Despite Colletti's contract status and a new ownership group taking over, there has been relatively little speculation that Walter, Kasten and Magic Johnson would hire a new general manager, probably due to the Dodgers' surprising success this year. Walter commented that he was impressed with how Colletti negotiated and completed the blockbuster trade with the Red Sox that saw the Dodgers take on roughly $260MM in salary in the form of Adrian Gonzalez, Josh Beckett, Carl Crawford and Nick Punto.
Noooooooooooooo!
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!
Ugh…
To the guys that agree with this… Kennedy, Uribe, Jones, Lilly, Garrett Anderson, Eckstein… any other vet he refused to cut…
Eckstein?
… from his Fantasy League team: Colletti’s Crushers!
who knew on the contract ned gave were going to be good we signed Juan cause we thought he was going to be good we signed andrew jones cause we thought he was good to be good kenndy is a utility player and everything is about taking risks
All you have to do is look at the Dodger’s current roster. The major free agents Ned signed over the past two offseasons?
Ted Lilly 3 years 33 mill (was too much money for someone that old, and whatcha know he has been old and injured)
Juan Uribe 3 years 21 mill (too much money for someone who had been so bad throughout their career, whatcha know he has been terrible)
Matt Guerrier 3 years 12 mill (too much money for an older middle reliever, whatcha know he has been injured and not as good as any number of young cheap relievers from inside the system)
Juan Rivera 1 year 5 mill (too much money for a platoon player who had not been good for years, there were better younger free agent options that went cheaper {Ross, Gomes, Hairston}
Harang 2 years 14 mill and Capuano 2 years 10 mill have performed fairly well but there were better ways of spending that kind of money IMO
I liked the Mark Ellis signing and it has been Ned’s best free agent move of the past two years. Overall though he has bee very bad.
He was impressed how Coletti pulled off the blockbuster trade? Really?
YES!!! 20 yrs 100,000,000!!
it’s clear that money is no issue
Colletti on his best days is an average GM. I’m a little shocked the new regime hasn’t cut him loose to get their own man.
Everyone, GM or second guessing armchair manager, was surprised the Dodgers so quickly agreed to pay so much for the combined contracts of Beckett, Gonzo, and Crawford (And no, I’m not trying to say which team won that trade). Do they really think Colletti is the man to lead hem to the promised land?
Open question to Dodgers fans: Colletti, yay or nay?
nay. a most definite nay.
Most definitely no.
Nomar Garciaparra, 2 years, $18.5m
Juan Pierre, 5 years, $44m
Jason Schmidt, 3 years, $47m
Andruw Jones, 2 years, $36.2m
Manny Ramirez, 2 years, $45m
Juan Uribe, 3 years, $21m
Matt Guerrier, 3 years, $12m
James Loney, 1 year, $6.4m
Juan Rivera, 1 year, $4.5m
Carlos Santana for 2 months of Casey Blake
James McDonald for 19 games of Octavio Dotel
Edwin Jackson for Danys Baez
Esteban Loaiza, Mark Loretta, Gary Bennett, Mark Hendrickson, Brett Tomko, Russ Ortiz, Nick Green, Ramon Ortiz, Angel Berroa, Garret Anderson, Scott Podsednik, Eugenio Velez, Lance Cormier, Dioner Navarro, Adam Kennedy.
I can give Ned a pass for Schmidt and the Manny re-signing, but the rest were awful to mediocre from their conception.
*Ignore reply*
I meant to shoot for devil’s advocate and it came out hypocritical.
Yeah, which is why I said I can give him a pass on the Manny re-signing. It was probably excessive, but after Manny’s 2008 performance Ned would’ve been run out of town if he didn’t make the deal. And Schmidt, well, can’t blame Ned for Schmidt’s arm falling apart.
Ted Lilly is probably worth adding to this list, too. I was pretty confident he wouldn’t be healthy/productive beyond the first year of that deal.
Ned knew Schmidt was injured at the time that he signed him (this came out much later on).
Sorry, Dodgers fans.
But was Walter equally impressed about the James McDonald for Octavio Dotel trade?
I thought Magic was the GM? (tongue in cheek)
Somewhere Bill Bavasi and Omar Minaya are preparing their resumes.
Hypothetically he should be a better GM than in the McCourt regime due to not overpaying in minor league talent to force the other team to pay the entire salary of the incoming player to the dodgers.
DON’T DO THIS! NOOOOOOOOOOOO! Get Mitch Kupchak lol
At least the team has enough money now to get around his mistakes.
Or he just makes mistakes with 100MM contracts instead of mistakes with 20MM contracts.