Someone Has to Run This Team, but Not Boras

It appears I was wrong. It appears that Scott Boras isn’t really the general manager of the Dodgers, even though he has had Chairman Bob Daly’s ear and a bigger piece of his wallet while representing six key players.

If Boras was the general manager, as he made clear in comments to reporters Tuesday and reiterated Wednesday, he would never have let Chan Ho Park start on three days’ rest or pitch in relief. In fact, the Dodgers asked his opinion when they were thinking of going to a four-man rotation and he told them that Park needed to stay on a regimen of pitching every five days, that he was too young, too conditioned to a routine, to be used in relief.

Would they snub their own general manager?

I mean, Boras may be a force to be reckoned with, the potential swing vote in deciding where Park pitches next year and for how much longer Gary Sheffield keeps his mouth shut in regard to his still-simmering spring complaints, but it is obvious now (even to the cynical and facetious) that he is neither the general manager or a candidate to become general manager--one of several critical issues shadowing the Dodgers as they struggle to stay alive in the playoff races.

For now, Dave Wallace remains interim general manager, assisted by Dan Evans, and the conventional wisdom is that Evans will move into the No. 1 position at the end of the season and the respected Wallace will supervise the farm system out of his new Vero Beach home while retaining significant input into major league decisions.

John Hart, the retiring general manager of the Cleveland Indians?

Billy Beane, the young and dazzling successful general manager of the Oakland Athletics?

The conventional wisdom, Part II, is that they are too high profile and high salary for the equally high-profile Daly.

Hart could become GM of the Texas Rangers or Baltimore Orioles. Beane could be imprisoned by his Oakland contract.

That is not to rule either out entirely, but Evans is here, already employed by the Dodgers, riding the inside track, the point man--as Dodger injuries mounted--in the negotiations for pitchers James Baldwin, Terry Mulholland and Mike Trombley.

Although Wallace had to sign off on each, Evans laid the groundwork.

He had little to trade, gave up less than that and the acquisitions were generally applauded by scouts and certain media pundits whose names can’t be recalled at the moment.

With the clock ticking and the Dodgers hurting, neither Mulholland nor Trombley have pitched well in relief, and Baldwin faced the San Diego Padres in tantamount to an imperative assignment Wednesday night having been hit hard in three consecutive starts.

Should Evans be judged on that?

Considering the limited market and his more limited farm system, along with the duress he was operating under because of the injuries, that may not be fair.

The bottom line is that the mid-season market was a crapshoot at best. On a rotation basis, Woody Williams, who is owed $7.25million next year and was widely shopped by the Padres, has pitched well for the St. Louis Cardinals. The San Francisco Giants and Arizona Diamondbacks have also enjoyed a measure of success with Jason Schmidt and Albie Lopez, but who else?

“Given all the circumstances, I think we made the three best deals that we could make,” Evans said before the start of Wednesday night’s game. “I mean, you make any deal on how a guy is performing at that time, and I think our scouts did a great job in that regard. We have both Mulholland and Trombley for another year, and I think Baldwin’s only problem has been mechanical.”

If so, he and pitching coach Jim Colborn made the right adjustments.

Baldwin gave up only one run and five hits in seven innings against the Padres, but San Diego completed an embarrassing sweep with a 4-3 victory that was the result of a slumbering Dodger offense and poor relief by Jeff Shaw and the struggling Trombley.

Now the Dodgers face a four-game series against the division-leading Diamondbacks with the hope that Park, who starts tonight, hasn’t been scarred by the sudden controversy and that Mulholland can fill a starting void Friday night.

With 16 games left, there will be no official decision regarding the general manager until the season has been completed. While Evans is widely respected as one of baseball’s best administrators, he would be taking the helm for the first time of an organization with major payroll and personnel issues, and, at 41, he carries some baggage.

After 19 years with the Chicago White Sox, for instance, he was bypassed when Ron Schueler stepped down as general manager last year. Kenny Williams was elevated by owner Jerry Reinsdorf, who is chairman of baseball’s minority hiring committee and may have felt compelled to fill the position with a minority. Williams is African-American.

Evans was also bypassed after interviewing for five other GM vacancies. He was a runner-up to Pat Gillick in Seattle, Bill Stoneman in Anaheim, Dean Taylor in Milwaukee, Frank Wren in Baltimore and, looking back nine years, said he was simply too young when he interviewed with the St. Louis Cardinals.

“Not getting those jobs doesn’t make me any less qualified,” Evans said. “In fact, I became more prepared every time I interviewed because I wasn’t afraid to ask, ‘What do I need to work on?’ If you can’t accept criticism, you can’t learn from it.”

For the present, the important issues will be played out on the field, but it would be a surprise at this point if Evans didn’t soon become the general manager. Baldwin didn’t hurt his case Wednesday night, and Boras definitely isn’t in the picture.