It’s true — either the Giants or Cardinals will represent the National League in the World Series this year. That the Dodgers will not remains the saddest truth in this fan’s sports world.

This morning, though, there is a glimmer of something for sullen Dodgers fans to get excited about. It comes in the form of an announcement.

The Dodgers have hired Andrew Friedman as President, Baseball Operations. Ned Colletti will stay as Senior Advisor to Stan Kasten.

— Los Angeles Dodgers (@Dodgers) October 14, 2014

Then I did this.

OK, Friedman won’t change the team immediately, but it’s the beginning of the offseason. The fact is, the Dodgers could look a whole lot different by the time March rolls around in Glendale. By then, this organization — the baseball part of it anyway — will surely have his stamp.

Ned Colletti wasn’t bad bad. He somehow found a way to hang around and bridge the largest ownership gap in the history of sports, having success all along the way. Most of the time, I’m a fan of consistency. I like a GM who stays with his guys and allows them to do what he hired them to do. Colletti’s time, though, had run its course. It was time to change the way the Dodgers were operating. Consistency had turned to stagnation and change, in this case, was the right thing to do.

Colletti will still be around — as a Senior Advisor to Stan Kasten — but the management of everything baseball-related now belongs to Friedman.

For today, my Twitter feed will provide my entertainment. Mike Petriello, Chad Moriyama, Sons of Steve Garvey, Dodgers Digest, DJ Short, Molly Knight, Alanna Rizzo, Craig Calcaterra, Jeff Sullivan, Rob Neyer, Howard Cole and every other baseball personality I follow will certainly have a take and an angle. So will @DodgerzGM who has changed his visible name to DodgerzSeniorAdvisor. It’s the best parody account on Twitter.

They’ll all have reactions that are more thought-through and worth reading, but mine is simply an exhale. That nasty, cold, bitter pit in the bottom of my stomach that’s been there since Game 4 of the NLDS — it might be dissipating. Good deal.

Some fun Tweets about the Friedman thing from today:

Andrew Friedman as soon as he gets to Los Angeles: http://t.co/9w8JH2QnQB

— Cespedes Family BBQ (@CespedesBBQ) October 14, 2014

The toughest thing about this transition is figuring out how to change my wifi password from G1ANTS2010 to G1ANTS2014.

— DodgerzSeniorAdvisor (@DodgerzGM) October 14, 2014

Fingers crossed that Andrew Friedman hires me to be the GM.

— DodgerzSeniorAdvisor (@DodgerzGM) October 14, 2014

I'm not exactly what a Senior Advisor is, but I imagine I'll be working with a lot of old folks.

— DodgerzSeniorAdvisor (@DodgerzGM) October 14, 2014

Colletti: /eats $15 reuben Friedman: /bag lunch Colletti: Friedman: Both: /laughter Friedman: /burns $100 bill Friedman: /tosses into woods

— Jeff Sullivan (@based_ball) October 14, 2014

btw, here's actual data showing that (good) baseball executives have been wildly underpaid: http://t.co/HXd7Ek1Xnm

— robneyer (@robneyer) October 14, 2014

Bonus: Dodgers' Friedman announcement upstages Cards/Giants.

— Sons of Steve Garvey (@sosgsosg) October 14, 2014

If it wasn't before, @jonahkeri's The Extra 2% is now required reading, Dodger fans http://t.co/Z9IOiFDPr6

— Mike Petriello (@mike_petriello) October 14, 2014

Don's gone by the end of the week.

— Howard Cole (@Howard_Cole) October 14, 2014

The Los Angeles Dodgers have not made a World Series since 1988. With their loss this week, they won’t have a spot in the fall classic in 2014. A team with the highest payroll in baseball in one of the best baseball cities in America shouldn’t be eliminated from the playoffs as early as the division series. The Dodgers squad is made up of different types of talent that honestly don’t really work together to create a complete team. This season, their raw talent led them to the division title, and fans and experts alike looked past their obvious shortcomings.

Ned Colletti’s job could be in jeopardy after the team’s clear holes weren’t addressed. By PVSBond, via Wikimedia Commons

It has been two seasons since both trades went down and what do the Dodgers have to show for it? Two division titles and two playoff beat-downs at the hands of the St Louis Cardinals, who have are arguably become the San Antonio Spurs of Major League Baseball.

While the regular season winning is nice, when you spend that much money on a team it is championship or bust. So the question remains who is to blame for the Dodgers disappointments and what do they do about it?

Clayton Kershaw had a historic season. The Dodgers’ ace went 21-3 with a 1.77 ERA, but his postseason demons struck again against a familiar opponent. He is now 3-7 with a 4.83 ERA against the St. Louis Cardinals and 70-22 with a 1.99 ERA against everyone else. Kershaw cruised through six innings in game one, only having allowed two runs before squandering a four run lead and giving up eight runs in the 7^th inning. While Kershaw deserves some of the blame, Mattingly also deserves some for not pulling out his star pitcher once the Cardinals had closed to 6-4. I don’t care who the pitcher is or how much you trust them, once they start giving up runs and putting the game in jeopardy you take them out especially in the 7^th inning of a home playoff game. Mattingly in his Dodger career has made a lot of blunder-headed mistakes but none like this playoff series.

His first mistake was with Kershaw in Game One. Then, in game three he took Hyun Jin Ryu out after the 6^th inning when he was pitching a masterful game on the road. After the game, Ryu came out and said that he felt fine to pitch the 7^th inning. Instead of bringing in a relief pitcher that has carried the team all season like Brandon League, he brings in Scott Elbert who promptly gives up a two run home run that sealed the Dodgers game-three fate.

In Game Four, with Kershaw pitching on three days rest, the Dodgers jumped out to a 2-0 lead and Mattingly left Kershaw in for the 7^th against the heart of the Cardinals order, which lead to a three-run home run and the end of the Dodgers’ season.

All signs point to Don Mattingly and all-star pitcher Clayton Kershaw taking the majority of the blame. While they both made mistakes, they shouldn’t get all of fans’ ire. Mattingly made some dumb decisions, but in the end he isn’t the one who goes out onto the field and plays. The big hitters the Dodgers have didn’t produce and the bullpen, which was the weakest link of the Dodgers team all season, struck again.

The person who deserves the most blame for the Dodgers’ disappointments has to be general manager Ned Colletti. There have been rumors swirling that there might be changes in the Dodgers front office and I hope they are true. At the trade deadline, Colletti had opportunities to pursue bullpen help that might have saved the Dodgers season. Instead, Colletti went out and got back-end pitchers Roberto Hernandez and Kevin Correia neither of whom made the postseason roster.

While Colletti has built teams that made the postseason, he continues to disregard the team’s biggest needs and it ends up costing them late in the season. The Dodgers could use a new General Manager in their system and maybe then they will finally reach the World Series. The Padres and Diamondbacks have already changed their GMs so the Dodgers should continue the trend in the NL West.

Leave no doubt, this team needs some fixing. In order for this team to be fixed it is going to take major work. Much of the team is locked in for years to come in their respective deals. One solution would be to upgrade on a few positions including third base and catcher. Juan Uribe and AJ Ellis have been good clubhouse guys but their production on the field has been less than expected and more consistent production is needed from those positions. For me, the most important factor of the 2015 offseason will be getting bullpen help. Kenley Jansen is the only bullpen guy the Dodgers could rely on this season and even he has some issues.

Adrian Gonzalez, Matt Kemp, Yasiel Puig, Carl Crawford, Dee Gordon, Clayton Kershaw, Zach Greinke, Hyun Jin Ryu and Kenley Jansen should be the main players returning to the team next season due to their success. Trading Andre Ethier and re- signing Justin Turner should be priorities going into the offseason. This coming offseason is going to be a tough one on both the Dodgers front office and the players but this team will be back again next season and should again be favorites to win a championship. In the mean time, the front office needs to make some changes in both player personnel and front office personnel, because the Dodgers have the core talent to win a title but proving it out on the field is a whole different story.

But then I thought about what I have written recently. My dislike of Juan Uribe at third-base for the Dodgers has overflowed to the point that I just picture a win-sucking vortex down the third base line.

He’s better than Juan Uribe!

Hanley Ramirez was only hitting in the .240’s this year and having statistically as bad a season as he’s ever had. When people have pointed that out to me over the past 24 hours, my response is a quick “He’s better than Uribe,” which also isn’t saying much. Almost anyone, Wilson Betemit included, is better than Uribe. But Hanley is better in a different way. His “upside” is Kemp-like. Just 18 months ago we were wondering whether Kemp would ever harvest the fruits of his pure talent and here we are with him as the cornerstone of the franchise for the foreseeable future.

Not only is Hanley better than Uribe, based on past performance Han-Ram has such potential that it’s scary. Or exciting. Really exciting.

You should hope he doesn’t turn out like Manny…

First of all, the premise that the Manny Ramirez trade was a bad one is erroneous. The original trade for Manny required the Dodgers to take on only part of Man-Ram’s salary (the Red Sox paid a lot of it) and basically get a hall-of-fame level rental for almost two years. Manny led the Dodgers to back-to-back playoff and NLCS appearances in his first two years. If you want to argue that the re-signing of Manny was a mistake, then I think a valid argument can be made, but the original trade brought excitement to the team and with casual fans paying more attention, maybe even gave the anti-McCourt sentiment that followed a nudge.

He’s going to be as good as he used to be!

Maybe. Even if he isn’t the MVP caliber player he once was, the Dodgers are only committed to him for two years. Even if he turns out to be a little better than Casey Blake (which would be the downside of Hanley), it would still be much better than what they have now and would give Dodgers management time to figure out what they want to do with the infield long-term.

The Pressure Cooker

For the past two years, Matt Kemp and Andre Ethier have had a heap of pressure on them. While other players in the lineup have exhibited positive stretches, Kemp and Ethier have been forced to be the stalwarts, often playing through injuries and leading the Dodgers’ offense. With Ramirez in the lineup, the collective pressure is eased. Words cannot describe (though I’ve tried) the tremendous pressure put on the entire rest of the lineup by a .185 hitter who is playing every day at a corner infield position. Now the Dodgers don’t only have a player who won’t put additional pressure on other guys. They have a potential superstar who can take as much pressure off other guys as Kemp and Ethier. And that’s something to be really excited about.luke chat

So what will he really be?

So will Hanley be the old Hanley — terrorizing opposing pitchers from a middle infield or third base position? Or will he be this year’s Hanley — a spoiled child not able to cope or play nicely with new friend. My prediction is that Hanley Ramirez will end up somewhere in between. His tarnished image and game will begin to dissipate and while he is unlikely to be the Hanley of old, he is a huge upgrade at the position the Dodgers sorely needed a change.

Last night Ramirez’ acquisition paid off in a tangible way when he sent the ball over the outfield wall in San Francisco to secure a Dodgers extra-inning win and pull them one game closer to the first-place Giants.

Now if we could just do something about this first-base thing…

With the movie Moneyball coming out soon, it’s a good time for people to legitimately re-examine his legacy as the Dodgers General Manager.

DePodesta seemed at the time like a smart guy. For those of us who read Moneyball, it was exciting to think that the Dodgers had the best of both worlds: a big market where money could be spent AND a general manager who had some kind of inherent advantage over everyone else.

When DePodesta was hired, Dodgers fans had visions dancing in their heads; not of sugar-plumbs, but of getting good value deals on some players and at the same time having money to spend on players the A’s never could (see: Jason Giambi, et al.).

His Wikipedia page includes entries like this:

During the 2004 off-season, DePodesta let Adrián Beltré, who had hit 48 home runs in 2004, sign with Seattle as a free agent.

As if it was only DePodesta who made the decision not to sign Beltré. The Dodgers’ failure to hang onto an MVP candidate in McCourt’s first offseason as the owner looks ominous in hindsight.

While the media lambasted DePodesta for action or inaction throughout his time with the Dodgers, they should have been looking at the office above DePodesta’s.

I’ll ask this question: If you were an owner without any real money who wanted to keep his team just good enough to compete without having to spend much money, who would you try to hire? I would try to hire DePodesta.

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=VciA-lN5k7s

When the team didn’t turn around instantly and then had an atrocious season, McCourt needed a scapegoat. And he found one in DePodesta.

It was easy at the time to question the ability of Hee Seop Choi. I wonder whether anyone used the opportunity to question Frank?

Hindsight is sometimes a useless gift, but in this case I think we need to take a different view of Paul DePodesta. While his handling of Beltré, Choi, and some others were questionable, they weren’t any worse than some moves Colletti has made.

But we treat Ned a little differently because his boss is a bumbling fool. So was Paul DePodesta’s. Let’s not forget that.

1) Safety. It’s pretty simple: when a guy gets beat to the edge of his life on opening day and when the stadium already has a history of parking lot shootings, people are wary for their own personal safety.

Even if they aren’t worried about getting beaten or shot, there are increasing amounts of vulgarity and belligerent behavior that I know I wouldn’t want my wife or kids to see (if I had kids).

Can you spot the troublemakers?

2) Carlos Santana, Russell Martin, Trayvon Robinson, et al. These are players the Dodgers have traded or allowed to walk away who are all-stars or future stars in the league, and they aren’t the only players the Dodgers have made personnel mistakes with. While the Phillies (who the Dodgers faced in the 2008 NLCS)  have made every move imaginable over the past 3 years to make their team better, the Dodgers have struggled to stay even mediocre.

If you want to see everything the Dodgers should have been doing with their roster, look at the Phillies. If you want to see pretty much everything the Dodgers should not be doing, from a roster standpoint, look at, well, the Dodgers.

Who would Dodgers fans rather have right now: Casey Blake or Carlos Santana? Would you give up the playoff run in 2008 if you could have Santana at catcher or first base even? Russell Martin was probably a move the Dodgers had to make, but it’s still frustrating to see him doing so well with a well-run organization.

And what about Robinson? He was touted as one of the gems in the farm system and initial reaction to his being traded (by people who know a lot more than me, like mikesciosciastragicillness.com) is that the Dodgers got fleeced.

3. Cost/Value: During the McCourt regime, the price of a Dodgers ticket has become more and more expensive without the relative value of the team on the field changing at a commensurate level. In other words, fans are paying more for the same mediocre roster. Instead of old ex-Giants Jeff Kent and Jason Schmidt, we have Juan Uribe… and what would I do to have a Jeff Kent-level player, even during his time with the Dodgers, on the roster right now…?

The team seems like something Donald Sterling might put together if he was a baseball owner. What a sad day when I’m comparing the owner of the Dodgers to Donald Sterling.

The team has some stars, but the overall entertainment value has become a hollow shell of what it used to be. The experience is certainly different, but it’s grown far worse and this fact has never been acknowledged by Frank or any of his people.

4.  Blue Land – The Dodgers spend $14-15 million per year on, get this, rent. Apparently McCourt has broken up the Dodgers’ holdings into separate entities. One of these is called “Blue Land” and the Dodgers pay it huge bucks for rent — far more than other teams pay for rent throughout the league.

On top of that fact, the ambiance of the place has been lost. Ushers seem more like ill-trained automatons than the baseball-knowledgable, straw-hat-wearing ushers of the past. Fans aren’t able to move into unoccupied seats, even late into the game.

The scoreboard is filled with obscure stats, for example that James Loney was the 11th best hitter in late game situations when Vin Scully had chicken for dinner between June 27, 2007 and May 3, 2010. I’m only exaggerating a little here.

To top off the point about “Blue Land,” I’ll describe something that happened to my family during the last game I attended. In the 8th inning, on a 95 degree day, the Loge Level concession stand ran out of water. The water at the stadium already costs $6.50 and on a day this hot, they SOLD OUT OF BOTTLED WATER. It seems like someone could have made a Costco run when they realized that there is an announced crowd of over 35,000 people and they clearly didn’t have enough water for a hot day. The funny thing is, there were probably only 15,000 people there. If there were more, I can’t imagine what they would have done. They would have run out by the 4th inning. It’s no wonder that nobody wants to go to the games anymore. But it is sad. And it needs to change.

In the words of the protesters in front of Dodger Stadium on Saturday, “the sooner the better.”

The stadium sold out of water on a day that looked like this 15 minutes before game time...

* LA Times Dodgers Blogger Steve Dilbeck is awesome. Here he talks about the consipracy theory that Dodgers GM Ned Colletti is a secret agent for the Giants sent to Los Angeles to destroy the Dodgers. — http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/dodgers/2011/02/say-it-isnt-so-are-dodgers-gm-ned-collettis-giants-roots-still-running-strong.html

* Yahoo! Sports Matt Hinton reported that the website www.pac12.com is currently owned by someone selling Tupac songs via Amazon. Is he really still alive?! — http://rivals.yahoo.com/ncaa/football/blog/dr_saturday?author=Matt+Hinton

* At the bottom of this page, www.bigwest.org gives us interviews of Cal Poly Men’s Basketball players Shawn Lewis and Will Donahue after the Mustangs’ 5th straight conference win. Coach Callero adds insight including some encouragement for more fans to show up and continue to be rowdy in Mott Gym. — http://www.bigwest.org//story.asp?story_id=14489

* And last, but not least, soccer. Wayne Rooney’s goal against Manchester City was called by his coach the “greatest strike in 25 years” according to sportsnewscaster.com. Judging by their picture here, I don’t doubt it. Too bad none of these video highlights are posted and easily findable online… — http://www.sportsnewscaster.com/wayne-rooney-goal-vs-manchester-city-premiere-league-results-video/12188/

-owen@fansmanship.com