Dodgers Can’t Identify With Being a Playoff Team

In the pretend world, the Dodgers speak bravely of a miracle finish, of a tap dance to the finish, of a flurry of their wins and of Giant losses, because, you know, it’s not over, the numbers don’t crunch the Dodgers out yet, the wild card still beckons.

In the real world, even a rousing bottom-of-the-ninth comeback win over the Colorado Rockies only means the Dodgers linger barely alive in the wild-card race with San Francisco. But not really.

As the Dodgers wandered aimlessly through eight innings Wednesday, and even after they rallied stunningly at the end to beat the Rockies 3-2, it was time to start wondering who the Dodgers want to be.

The way baseball is now, there’s nothing more important.

Can you be the New York Yankees?

Can you spend as much as you want when you want? Can you buy whatever free agent you want, plus plug in, through trades, any good player the other teams can’t afford in the middle of the season?

Or should you be the Oakland A’s, the Angels, the Minnesota Twins?

Should you quit worrying about the big, flashy trades or the flamboyant free-agent signings and concentrate on unearthing little gems like David Eckstein and producing your own pitching studs, your own Jarrod Washburns or Mark Mulders?

Do you invest in a great scouting staff and grow your own, as the Atlanta Braves have done, and then commit to paying them, both scouts and players, whatever salaries the market will give them? Or do you grow your own, then give them up when you can’t afford them and grow some more, as the Twins have done?

These Dodgers have no identity.

They seem to be the worst combination of spending big, but not quite big enough, of needing to go outside for help because there isn’t enough inside but not being quite able or willing to. They are the poor-man’s Yankees.

Sometimes that works. It has worked for the Arizona Diamondbacks.

They went out and spent huge for two aging fastball pitchers. Randy Johnson and Curt Schilling have been worth it, have been hardy, healthy, impossibly amazing winners and for their money the Diamondbacks have a World Series championship and will get the chance to defend that title this season.

The Dodgers spent huge for Kevin Brown and Darren Dreifort. They’ve been physically fragile, totally unreliable and the Dodgers have not made the playoffs with them. Johnson’s back could have gone bad. Schilling could have blown out an elbow. Brown could have been the 23-game winner. Dreifort could have been the reliable No. 2 starter.

Is that bad luck for the Dodgers or bad scouting, bad karma or bad decisions?

Dan Evans, the Dodger general manager, stood in the corner of the dugout Wednesday. His manager, Jim Tracy, was on the field trying to make happy talk, trying to convince someone to believe the Dodgers had a reason to try hard.

Words weren’t enough for his team. Shawn Green seems unable to muster the energy to look at more than three pitches, so he swings at all of them. Eric Karros can’t turn on a ball with his bat. Adrian Beltre seems to be batting with his eyes closed, as if he’s visualizing himself on vacation already.

It is what happens when your team has been climbing uphill all season. They might not have been good enough if Brown and Dreifort had been healthy pitchers. They certainly aren’t good enough when they aren’t.

When the Dodgers are officially eliminated from the playoff race, don’t blame anybody wearing a uniform, player or manager. They did the best with what they had.

“Clearly,” Evans says, “we squeezed every drop possible out of this club as it is built now.”

So it is up to Evans to figure out what the Dodgers will be.

Evans immediately speaks of his hiring of Bill Bavasi as director of player development. He speaks passionately about Bavasi, the former Angel general manager. “He is one of the most well-rounded, intelligent people I know and he has made huge strides already in our farm system,” Evans says.

Never, Evans says, did he even hint that the Dodgers would be able to look to the farm system for help this season. There was not a chance, he says, the Dodgers were going to be able to pull a starting pitcher up to replace an injured Brown or Dreifort. The Angels did that, bringing up John Lackey in the middle of a playoff race. “That’s what Bill did for the Angels,” Evans says.

So does Evans want the Dodgers to be more like the Angels than the Yankees? It sounds like that. He says that although “there’s nothing wrong with signing free agents or making trades to use as a resource or as an insurance policy, I believe in teams that are built on scouting and player development.”

If this sounds as if he is endorsing the Angel way, Evans wouldn’t admit it. “I’m not trying to be like any organization,” he says. “I’m just looking to do things the way I believe in. Patience is rewarded in this sport.”

It’s a lot easier for the Angels to be patient. There are no great expectations. The Angels can start 6-14 and there is no great call to fire the manager or general manager or to make a trade.

Evans will need a strong will and the strong backing of his bosses. Building from the ground up does take patience. That patience is rewarded, if you’re right, if you win, if you find stars and replacements for those stars. Right now the Dodgers don’t have enough stars or replacements. They aren’t the Yankees. They aren’t the Angels. Who are they?

*

Diane Pucin can be reached at [email protected].