Kasten: Mega-trade in line with Dodgers' vision

Kasten: Mega-trade in line with Dodgers' vision

NEW YORK -- Dodgers president and CEO Stan Kasten said Thursday that the club's recent mega-deal with the Boston Red Sox fit right in with ownership's plans, and that neither the team's financial model, nor its long-term direction, was radically altered by the nine-player blockbuster.

Los Angeles took on more than a quarter of a billion dollars in new salary obligations in the deal that netted first baseman Adrian Gonzalez, outfielder Carl Crawford and right-hander Josh Beckett. The trade bolstered the Dodgers at several positions while providing the Red Sox with desperately desired payroll flexibility.

Along with several other moves, including a trade for Hanley Ramirez from the Miami Marlins, the transaction shocked the baseball world and announced the Dodgers as a major financial player in the years to come.

Kasten, however, said at the first Bloomberg Sports Business Summit in midtown New York City that even the latter move was no shock to the organization he now runs. He spoke, along with attorney Bruce Bennett and Lee H. Berke of LHB Sports, Entertainment and Media, on a panel discussing the recent sale of the iconic franchise.

"This is very consistent with what our plans were," Kasten said, adding that "we remain first and foremost a scouting- and player development-based operation."

The moves, then, served two purposes. One is obvious: to improve the 2012 Dodgers and increase their chances of playing in the postseason. That's always a central goal, and it surely applies with the new Los Angeles ownership group.

Additionally, Kasten emphasized that the trades also functioned as a statement of purpose. It's no secret that fan discontent simmered in Los Angeles prior to the new ownership group taking over. So, in taking on a significant amount of salary obligation, the group showed fans that it intends to be aggressive in talent acquisition.

"[We can't] tell our fans, 'We're going to do this right, we're going to do this long term, just wait five years for 25 guys to grow into their uniforms,'" Kasten said. "So we were able to acquire proven stars in the chronological middle of their careers, very good players, whom we couldn't get any other way.

"Players like Adrian Gonzalez, players like Hanley Ramirez, they're not available. You can't get them in the free agent market. This was a way to improve the team right away, while at the same time maintaining our core belief in also building the scouting and player-development system. That was always part of our model."

But it won't just be Major League talent they add. Kasten was emphatic about that. He said that the Dodgers intend to max out their permitted spending, both in the international talent market as well as in the First-Year Player Draft. And, of course, they made one last foray into the non-capped international market, signing Yasiel Puig out of Cuba in June.

"We are hiring more scouts, trying to hire better people," Kasten said. "We took an opportunity that we had in June to sign the most recent Cuban émigré. We had an exciting draft. We were aggressive getting them signed.

"The Dodgers were dead last in international signings. We reversed that. We intend immediately to become leaders."

As for the future of the Major League club, it doesn't hinge on what happens over the next few weeks, Kasten said. He was asked about "consequences" that might befall the organization if the 2012 Dodgers do not make the postseason, and he indicated that there were no ultimatums facing members of the team's brain trust.

"We fully expect ... to make the postseason," Kasten said. "But whether we do or we don't, it won't change our plans for this offseason. ... Building now, building for next season, as well as continuing our scouting and player development."

Dodgers reportedly seeking to extend Colletti

LOS ANGELES -- The Dodgers have offered general manager Ned Colletti a long-term contract extension, according to a report in the Los Angeles Times.

Club chairman Mark Walter said it was his "understanding" that an offer had been made, but Colletti and club president Stan Kasten wouldn't comment.

Colletti received a contract spanning three years, plus mutual options, from former owner Frank McCourt three years ago. Kasten has previously said he expected Colletti to remain with the club.

This is Colletti's seventh season as general manager. The team reached the postseason in three of the first four seasons but never reached the World Series. The Dodgers trail the first-place Giants by 4 1/2 games going into a showdown series in San Francisco beginning Friday night.

Colletti had to work under severe financial limitations the previous two seasons as McCourt took the team into bankruptcy. The sale of the Dodgers from McCourt to Walter's Guggenheim Baseball Partners, Kasten and Magic Johnson, for $2.15 billion closed May 1.

Since then the Dodgers have been on a spending spree, extending Andre Ethier's contract for $85 million, outbidding all clubs with a $42 million deal for Cuban immigrant Yasiel Puig, then picking up more than $300 million in future payroll while dealing away prospects to get Hanley Ramirez, Adrian Gonzalez, Josh Beckett, the injured Carl Crawford, Joe Blanton, Brandon League, Nick Punto and Randy Choate.

Although he's had more money to spend in a shorter span than any general manager in history, Colletti has received praise from ownership for landing impact players in the prime of their careers without trading away Dodgers top pitching prospect Zach Lee.

Trades by LA change look of Top 20 Prospects list

By Ken Gurnick / MLB.com | 09/06/12 10:00 AM ET

With the Minor League regular season completed and September callups being made, MLB.com has re-ranked its Top 100 Prospects and each club's Top 20 Prospects

Like just about everything else with the Dodgers this year, there have been massive changes to their Top Prospects list.

And like just about everything else, the changes have been extraordinary.

Like the $42 million they spent to outbid the rest of baseball for Cuban exile outfielder Yasiel Puig.

Like the flurry of mega trades that dispatched three of their top eight prospects in deals that landed Hanley Ramirez, Randy Choate, Shane Victorino, Adrian Gonzalez, Josh Beckett, Carl Crawford and Nick Punto.

Like the two players still to be officially named in that Red Sox deal -- unofficially, their names are Rubby De La Rosa and Jerry Sands -- who weren't officially on the prospects lists but were considered such by the Dodgers and their trade partners.

The trades, designed to put the Dodgers in position to win now, took a big chunk out of a farm system that wasn't exactly loaded to begin with.

Dodgers management, meanwhile, held on tightly to No. 1 prospect Zach Lee, whom they spent $5.25 million on to sign in what remains one of the great head-scratching personnel moves of the otherwise frugal McCourt Era.

Graduated

A telling sign of the Dodgers' thin farm system is that only one name -- Shawn Tolleson - graduated during the season to be on the club for the September stretch drive.

Tolleson, once the high school equal of teammate Clayton Kershaw, has battled back from Tommy John surgery to race through the farm system and emerge as the middle-relief replacement for Josh Lindblom, who went from prospect to big leaguer to Philadelphia Phillie in the Victorino trade.

Dropped off

Juan Rodriguez came to the Dodgers from the Red Sox last year with Tim Federowicz and Stephen Fife in the Trayvon Robinson trade. He's a reliever that throws hard and wild, with a lot of strikeouts and too many walks. Early in the season he was suspended for a month for violating team policy.

Gorman Erickson stepped up in 2011 but stepped back this year. All of his pertinent offensive numbers have plunged, throwing in doubt his prospect status.

The Dodgers have seven new faces on the Top Prospects list, again representing a variety of reasons.

Puig makes the list because of his raw ability, which was on display in his brief trial at Class A. He's immature, but has Matt Kemp five-tool skills.

First-round Draft pick Corey Seager proved to be as advertised, not just as a pure hitter, but handling shortstop well enough to stay there for now.

As a 31st-round pick, even the Dodgers didn't consider Matt Magill a prospect back in 2008, but they do now. He keeps winning as he climbs the levels of the system, this year at Double-A, where he pitched even better than he did at Class A the year before.

The son of former Major Leaguer Jose Valentine, Jesmuel Valentin makes the list on potential, because his initial season at rookie ball was nothing special with a .211 batting average. But he's a polished defender in the middle of the infield with the big league bloodlines.

Jose Dominguez could be the next De La Rosa. A 100 mph fastball is hard to ignore, and he earned a late-season promotion from Class A to Double-A as a middle reliever after opening the season as a starter. This is his fifth professional season, having signed as a 16-year-old.

Jarret Martin came to the Dodgers with Tyler Henson in the Dana Eveland trade with Baltimore. He showed better mechanics the first half of the season, but dealt with injuries in the second half.

Top 100 representation

The only Dodger listed in the Top 100 is Zach Lee, the $5.25 million signee who skipped out on Louisiana State football practice to be a Dodgers Minor Leaguer. So far, if he hasn't shown he's worth $5.25 million, he's been good enough for the Dodgers to resist including him in any of their Deadline deals.

Scouts say Lee lacks the dominant pitch that would make him a No. 1 starter, but he has enough of an arsenal and all the intangibles to qualify as a middle rotation starter. He slipped from No. 45 to No. 49 on this list.

Not included on this list, but likely to appear soon, is Puig, who cost the Dodgers eight times the bonus of Lee.

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