Tuesday, March 11, 2008

Responses to "Responses From Ned Colletti"

Inside the Dodgers is taking questions for Ned Colletti. Apparently, Ned is answering them, with astonishingly lengthy responses no less. It's as if Ned is taking the English AP test all over again. Quantity over quality? You decide, reading quotes like these:

  • (In response to a question begging to play Andre Ethier every day) The season is 162 games in length and many different unpredictable things will happen between now and the end.
  • (In response to short-term needs, to which Ned focuses on pitching) There's more to pitching than just throwing.
  • (In response to a question about letting the kids play) As time goes on more and more of our young players will get the opportunity to play.

Wow. As deep as a magic 8 ball.

But let's not forget the best response--a long one, at that--to a question basically asking if the Juan Pierre signing was foolish. Ned replies, "If anyone is expecting Juan to carry the club, then we've signed the wrong player", to which we answer that the first answer could still be "no" and the second answer could still be "yes".

But the best Ned rationalization is this quote: "If the players fail to hit in the clutch in the middle of the order, and Juan is healthy and gets 200 hits and steals 60 bases, then Juan's value is diminished." Juan Pierre has only reached the 200-hit / 60-SB level once in his eight years. Did we factor the chances of him getting to these magic numbers again, in any of the five years of his contract, upon signing?

Look, I don't think Ned's a bad guy, and I appreciate his effort answering questions. Let's just try not to put us in a situation where we repeat mistakes of the past. Especially those of the not-too-distant past of last year.

3 comments:

Dusto_Magnifico said...

I like the part where he blamed the rest of the lineup, particularly Furcal, on Pierre being basically horrible.

Orel said...

He must have gotten that line from Bill Plaschke.

Eric Karros said...

I guess the above comments can be considered responses to 'Responses to "Responses From Ned Colletti"'.