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The outfield of Dodger Stadium on a gloomy, drizzly day after the last game of the season for the Dodgers on October 4, 2010. (LAist/Jimmy Bramlett)
The outfield of Dodger Stadium on a gloomy, drizzly day after the last game of the season for the Dodgers on October 4, 2010. (LAist/Jimmy Bramlett) For the second straight year it was raining at Dodger Stadium the day after their season ended. I pointed this out to Dodger Talk co-host Josh Suchon on Monday as we were walking from the parking lot and he gave an over-the-top reply: “It’s God crying that there’s no more baseball here in LA this year.”
While God may be crying, there are a lot of uncertainties up in the air surrounding the Dodgers, primarily who is the owner. While neither General Manager Ned Colletti nor Manager Don Mattingly can answer that question, it is something that affects the team especially how much money is available for Colletti to spend to field a competitive team next season.
“That we don’t know yet,” Colletti said about the money issue. “We haven’t gotten to that point yet. Probably soon.”
But he doesn’t think what happens in the divorce proceedings will affect what he has to spend.
“It hasn’t affected the team,” Colletti answered when asked why he thinks it won’t affect his player payroll budget. “We thought our ballclub was ready to compete. We came out of spring training thinking we had the right players knowing that we can add players when we got to the middle part of the year which we did.”
Colletti is confident that money will not be an issue. “I think we’re going to have a budget that will allow us to compete.”
As to the makeup of the team, Colletti wants to stick with the youthful core and make changes.
“I don’t see major roster revisions,” Colletti said. “I see a lot of shoring up. The core of our group - some of them had leveling-off years or had down years. If they were seven or eight years older in their career, you’d think maybe they wouldn’t be able to rebound from it. But you’re really talking about the majority of players that are entering their prime or right at it. If we hadn’t seen what they did in ’08 or ’09 and a little bit in ’07, then you’d have more concern.”
Having said that he also said that all phases of the club will be addressed: starting pitching, bullpen and offense.
“We’re talking. We haven’t really…,” Mattingly started to say before allowing Colletti the floor.
“It’ll take us a little while,” Colletti said. “We want to make sure we put together as good of a staff as we can put together. So it will be a little bit of a process.”
With all of that being said, where exactly does that leave the Dodgers? Who knows. Everyone can speculate what the payroll will be, who will be offered arbitration, who will be wooed to bring their talents to Southern California, which young player will be shipped off to parts unknown.
Fentanyl and other drugs fuel record deaths among people experiencing homelessness in L.A. County. From 2019 to 2021, deaths jumped 70% to more than 2,200 in a single year.
