If Dodgers are as smart as claimed, Ned Colletti will be utilized

What’s a senior advisor do? Not much, usually. Whispers in the big guy’s ear and hopes he nods a lot. Hangs out in the shadows. Survives mostly.

Which doesn’t, however, mean that’s what will happen with Ned Colletti after team President Stan Kasten moved him “aside” from his general manager’s job to the newly created position of senior advisor to Kasten. It doesn’t mean it won’t, either.

But we should probably wait before assuming Colletti has been put out to gentle pasture with some nondescript title.

Kasten and his new almost-GM Andrew Friedman get plenty of credit for their great intelligence. And the intelligent thing would be to utilize Colletti. He’s spent 33 years in Major League Baseball, the last nine as the Dodgers’ GM, and has a voice you should want to hear.

Colletti said Tuesday he had a strong relationship with Friedman, both becoming general managers the same year, and that at least bodes well for him remaining actively involved.

“I’ve known Andrew since the day he walked into a general managers’ meeting for the first time,” Colletti said. “We’ve been friends a long time. When we went through the bit of saga (bankruptcy) there for a while, he would call probably every week just to check on how I was doing and what was new.

“He and I have a good friendship, a good business relationship in that some of his first trades and some of my first trades were actually with each other. We’ve stayed in touch through the years, both socially, casually, professionally. I think he’s a tremendous addition to this group. He brings another view, a successful view. I think his personality here will play great.”

Colletti, of course, is used to being the guy who has others whisper in his ear, so it still needs to play out if they do utilize him as a key advisor. Colletti said all the right things Tuesday, but time will tell if he truly takes to this new position.

Kasten could have simply fired Colletti but decided to keep him around, hopefully for a reason. Kasten said Colletti was given a new contract for his new position.

“Look, obviously he has a hell of a resume if he wanted to be a GM somewhere,” Kasten said. “He could do that. But he says he wanted to stay here and that was really meaningful. It was what I was hoping for.”

Asked why he elected to stay on, Colletti said: “I believe in this organization.”

Colletti doesn’t have much to lose by seeing how this all plays out. If he feels his advice to Friedman and Kasten is being ignored, he can move on. Colletti is 60, still young enough to join another team, old enough to retire if he wants.

Few GMs get nine-year runs these days, and Colletti pulled if off during the “glory” years under the McCourts, the excruciating ones, and made the transition to Guggenheim. And the Dodgers advanced to the postseason five times.

Asked the highlight of his tenure Tuesday, Colletti took understandable pride in inheriting a team that had won only 71 games and leaving it in a much better place.

“I can’t tell you what the apex of it was,” Colletti said. “I know every time somebody’s opening a bottle of champagne, though, it’s a pretty good day. And we did that a few times.”