GM Ned Colletti Reportedly On The Hot Seat

Is This The End? Mark J. Rebilas-USA TODAY Sports

There were going to be consequences for that performance in the playoffs. Whether or not you like them, Dodger baseball is going to look fairly different next season. What could one of those changes be? Well, general manager Ned Colletti is apparently on the hot seat

There’s a tendency to dwell on the Mattingly part because Don Mattingly is the direct result of a terribly constructed roster. He puts the players out there, the players fail, a lot of teeth gnashing going towards Mattingly’s direction, but Ned Colletti gives Don Mattingly the cards to play with.

If you were as upset as I were that Don Mattingly’s best option in game 3 was Scott Elbert who was topping out a 86 miles per hour, and only pitched a grand total of 24.1 innings in 2014. Guess how many of those innings were in the major leagues? 4.1 innings. This was the best left handed reliever because JP Howell could not continue his brilliance in the first half mainly because having no control comes back to bite you sooner rather than later. Brian Wilson is getting paid 9.5 million dollars this season! Brian Wilson once threw 13.2 innings in 2013. So obviously, the team gives him what was the equivalent of a 2 year 19.5 million dollar deal based off of less than 14 innings.

Jamey Wright didn’t appear in the postseason, because there is no real motivation in pitching Jamey Wright in a meaningful playoff game. Pedro Baez! A reliever who doesn’t strike guys out doesn’t get ground balls, gives up a lot of home runs is a bad idea? Paco Rodriguez rotted in triple A until he was hurt and then he was bad, and also probably hurt. RIP Chris Withrow‘s elbow.

This is a Ned Colletti post, but the most evident flaw of the 2014 Dodgers came in the form of a bullpen. A bullpen that was terribly constructed. A bullpen that clearly needed to be upgraded, but was not. You can forget the disastrous Brandon League deal. The signing of Chris Perez, Paul Maholm, and refusing to kick them off the roster were not Ned’s undoings. It ultimately was the inability to upgrade at the deadline. TWICE!

Andrew Miller, James Russell, Jason Frasor, Huston Street all were dealt at or before the July 31st trade deadline. The Dodgers did not get any of these players. All of these players had different pricetags, none of them were Dodgers. But it was okay, the bullpen at that point was looking alright. Not having Chris Perez, or Paul Maholm worked for a second.

But then the flaws became apparent. Paco Rodriguez got hurt, JP Howell wasn’t as sharp as he normally was, Jose Dominguez, flamethrower hurt his shoulder, Onelki Garcia never came back, Jamey Wright started to waver, the lack of depth started to show. I personally thought that Dan Haren was so bad that not getting Bartolo Colon would be what kills the Dodgers in the playoffs. Haren didn’t log a single inning in the NLDS which reflects how much he factored into the series. The obvious structural flaws really lied in the Dodgers bullpen. But it’s okay because the Dodgers could upgrade at the August 31st deadline, right?

Well nope.

Great GM’s (Billy Beane anybody?) would have gotten Jonathan Papelbon regardless of what that meant for Kenley Jansen‘s in the closer role. -Kenley Jansen is more than qualified to be a closer, but the closer spot is so vastly overrated that not having Jansen and Papelbon ultimately hurt the Dodgers-.

Decent GM’s would have gotten Jonathan Broxton. Remember him? He just posted a season where he had a 62 ERA- (38% above league average), and a 90 FIP- (10% above league average). He was traded for minor league players that did not appear on any consensus top 20 prospects lists for either team.

And with that note, we can say that terrible GM’s look at their bullpen that clearly needs fixing, and do nothing about it. Ned Colletti is a terrible GM. The culmination of a horrible offseason in which the signs with the largest monetary value were Brian Wilson with his 121 FIP-, and Dan Haren with his 114 ERA-. The greatest sign Colletti made was NRI Justin Turner, important to note that every single team passed on him. He had to settle for a NRI in late February from a desperate team. It worked, but nobody could have realistically predicted it. It was the culmination of a July 31st trade deadline where Darwin Barney was Colletti’s “saving grace”. It was the culmination of an August Waiver deadline period in which Roberto Hernandez and Kevin Correia played “who could be the worst pitcher in the least amount of innings.” Correia won. Barely.

So there’s nothing to do but wonder about what could have been. I doubt Jonathan Broxton would have made all the difference. Jason Frasor doesn’t make this bullpen unbeatable. But the thing is that while Miller and Street were fairly unrealistic in the first place because of price tags, Frasor and Broxton were brutally available. As was Neal Cotts, and yet nothing was done.

None of the aforementioned moves are guarantees. Hell, Joakim Soria was worse than Chris Perez post-trade deadline, baseball is funny, but there was no trade made, and that’s on the general manager. Having someone, anybody who was reliable in anyway shape or form could have limited the damage in Game 1 of the NLDS instead of Pedro Baez bringing his gas can and giving up the decisive home run . Having a reliable arm maybe could have shut it down in the 7th inning after Kershaw was over 90 pitches, handed it over to Kenley for a 2 inning save. Lots of maybe’s? Sure. But i’ll take those “maybe’s” over what happened I find it crazy that Colletti will actually be canned, just because it feels surreal. I can’t remember the pre-Colletti era, partly because of how long it’s been, partly because I haven’t been following it . I don’t know how realistic a GM switch is, or how credible one Ken Rosenthal tweet is, but one thing’s for sure, that NLDS felt brutal enough to force some change to happen.

Colletti has been egregiously bad enough times where I don’t think anyone would be surprised if he’s the man who takes the blame for this dumpster fire of a playoff trip.