Dodgers Have Lots of Work to Do

It’s being done casually, quietly, eerily.

The grandest gesture of Bob Daly’s three-year regime is being treated like a shrug.

Like we’re not going to notice.

Like we’re too numb to care.

Dan Evans is soon going to be named the new Dodger general manager.

The next Branch Rickey. The new Buzzie Bavasi. In the footsteps of Al Campanis. In the shadow of Fred Claire.

In the deepest water of the Los Angeles sports landscape.

With no proof of buoyancy.

There was no national search. There was no long list of interviews. There were no minority candidates. There was no John Hart or Billy Beane.

To Evans, a respected baseball man, we say, good luck. To Bob Daly, we say, you better be right.

He swung for the fences on Jim Tracy.

Still swaggering after the home run trot, he is swinging for the fences again.

Sometime during a season in which the Dodgers climbed down from that Hollywood sign to rediscover their work ethic and spirit, Bob Daly made a decision.

Who needs a big-name manager?

Therefore, who needs an established general manager?

Who needs some new face and new ideas coming in here and splitting open this new foundation formed by ... well, Bob Daly.

In hiring Dan Evans, Daly is making two things clear.

He is the boss.

And he is The Boss.

Evans’ backroom skills in Los Angeles will be combined with assistant Dave Wallace’s field skills in Vero Beach, Fla.

Just as Brian Cashman and Mark Newman combine to run the Yankees from New York and Tampa, Fla.

George Steinbrenner has won six world championships by surrounding himself not by the strong and established, but the smart and trustworthy.

Even Joe Torre had been considered a mediocre manager--he even quit to become a broadcaster, remember?--before Steinbrenner hired him in 1996.

Although Daly would not comment for this story, in hiring Evans he hopes to complete the reproduction of the leadership of the most successful franchise in the game.

With one exception.

Who, on the Dodgers, is going to be Gene Michael?

That’s the longtime former player and manager who, acting as a vice president, gives Steinbrenner some of his best advice.

Does Evans, a 19-year front-office veteran with the Chicago White Sox, have enough personnel-evaluation experience to be that guy? Aren’t his strengths in rules and negotiations?

And if Wallace is going to run the minor league system at Dodgertown, how much help can he offer in the evaluation of current major leaguers from other organizations?

Daly, of course, didn’t seem to need much help in trading for Shawn Green and hiring Tracy. And once he fired Kevin Malone this year--a man he didn’t hire--everything seemed to work.

Dodger players spent a total of 760 days on the disabled list, yet didn’t quit. They were outmanned despite an astoundingly high payroll, yet stayed in the race until the final week.

So some Dodger fans may want to give Daly the wheel and see where he leads them.

But he should know, it’s an awful bad time for blind curves.

This winter the Dodgers need a general manager who can make the tricky moves that can keep them in contention for another season until the good minor leaguers finally begin arriving at Chavez Ravine in 2003.

Can Dan Evans make the right trade of Gary Sheffield? How is he going to replace the apparently retiring Jeff Shaw? What on earth does he do with Eric Karros?

And none of those matters can be addressed until Evans delivers poor Jim Tracy a leadoff hitter.

This is the same executive who delivered us James Baldwin, Terry Mulholland and Mike Trombley, right?

Well, yeah, but it’s unfair to judge Evans on his first trades here, because he arrived at midseason and was given a bad hand. And, more important, in exchange for zilch, he traded zilch.

So the clock starts now. But the ticking is insistent.

The final attendance figure barely broke the three-million mark this year and will probably drop below next year if the team is not again in contention.

For years, the Dodgers could draw three million by simply opening the doors.

Patience is thin. The last playoff victory was an unlucky 13 years ago.

This season was a start. But a week before the last game, this season is also finished, and that act is getting old.

And so a new man has been chosen to lead them, a man named Bob Daly, um, Bob Evans, um, Dan Evans.

Welcoming reception to be hosted by Scott Boras.

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Bill Plaschke can be reached at bill.plaschke@latimes.com.