Dan Is the Man on Moves

After months of moves that could be called curious, questionable or even silly, the only way to describe Dodger General Manager Dan Evans’ off-season right now is successful.

It’s not as if this season has been a best-case scenario for the Dodgers, as if all their wishes came true. Their best pitcher has a bad back. The third baseman hit better last year when he had a hole in his abdomen. The second baseman is having trouble hitting the ball and, lately, getting into the lineup.

Outside of Shawn Green’s power surge the last six weeks, the recurring themes among what has gone right for the Dodgers and enabled them to hop into first place in the National League West midway through the season are the transactions made by Evans.

Trading Gary Sheffield to the Atlanta Braves not only brought the intended clubhouse alchemist in Brian Jordan, it netted an All-Star pitcher in Odalis Perez.

Japanese pitcher Kazuhisa Ishii has already given the Dodgers a victory for each million of the $11-million fee they paid for the rights to negotiate with him.

The Dodgers couldn’t be sure which Omar Daal they’d receive when they acquired him in a trade from the Philadelphia Phillies, but he has been pitching more like the guy who was 16-9 with a 3.65 earned-run average in 1999 than the one who was 4-19 with a 6.14 ERA in 2000.

Center fielder Dave Roberts has brought a real leadoff hitter back to L.A.

And after trading away apparent best closer candidate Matt Herges, the Dodgers found a guy as fearsome as any bullpen-dweller on their own roster: Eric Gagne.

Throw in the glove of Cesar Izturis, who was obtained with Paul Quantrill for Luke Prokopec, add the new life in Eric Karros’ bat and the Dodgers have one of the best records in the major leagues.

“I give the scouts the credit,” Evans said. “They recommended the players.”

But he isn’t about to propose a toast.

“Anyone within the organization who said it didn’t feel good to be in first place would be lying,” Evans said. “It’s been good for the organization. But at the same time, everybody has to retain the focus as to what we’re trying to accomplish. Our goal is not to be in first place now, it’s to be in first place at the end of the season.”

Maybe the long view was what was missing from Dodgerdom during the winter, when Evans kept saying he had a plan and we all wondered if that plan had anything to do with making the playoffs.

“Criticism comes with the job,” Evans said. “That’s OK. One thing I really benefited from is I had a lot of good bosses who explained to me you just can’t worry about the criticisms from people you don’t work with.

“If your game plan doesn’t work, I think you should be criticized. A lot of people felt our off-season shopping should be done by end of the winter meetings. We didn’t have that mind-set. We didn’t leave Boston with a finished club. But we didn’t have to play our first ballgame for another four months.”

With the World Series champion Diamondbacks in their division, it figured that the Dodgers’ travel plans for success had to pass through Arizona.

As it turned out, the beginnings came on the road to Arizona, somewhere along Interstate 10. Still jittery about flying in the weeks after Sept. 11, Evans decided to drive with Manager Jim Tracy to the first two games of the World Series in Phoenix.

Evans had just been formally given the job after basically running the club for the last three months of the season as an assistant to Dave Wallace.

He made only one move of consequence during that time, trading for pitcher James Baldwin, and that wasn’t nearly enough to get the Dodgers to the pennant. But he also used that time to learn the inner workings of his support staff and the personnel tendencies. Which scouts were conservative, which ones were liberal, which ones would speak up and which ones had to be pressed for an opinion.

Now it was time to think ahead, with plenty of time in the car with Tracy, nothing but pavement ahead and desert to the side.

“I knew we wouldn’t be interrupted,” Evans said. “I knew we could openly kick some things around. We started to see some things about our club.”

They knew they had to improve the leadoff spot.

They wanted to, in Evans’ words, “diversify our rotation.” Although he appeared to take it literally by bringing in pitchers from Venezuela, the Dominican Republic and Japan, he was talking about bringing in different styles of pitchers, and, more important, more left-handers. That’s critical in a division that features left-handed sluggers such as Barry Bonds, Todd Helton, Luis Gonzalez, Larry Walker and Ryan Klesko.

Finally, Evans said, “We wanted to see if we could add some guys who have been part of winning teams, guys who have been solid winning guys.”

The result was such a good group of guys that when Evans left for a 10-day trip through the minor league system, he discovered “I really missed being around the club. They just have such a good atmosphere.”

Halfway through the season, Evans’ work isn’t quite finished. With such a thin margin separating the Dodgers, Diamondbacks and Giants at the top of the division, he might need to make another move. They could use another big bat so that Green doesn’t have to supply all the power.

They also could shore up the middle relief corps. That could be as simple as having Kevin Brown and Darren Dreifort come back from their injuries, which would allow Daal to go back to the bullpen and Dreifort to actually earn some of the $9 million he’s getting this year.

“I’m not sitting back waiting for those two to come back,” Evans said. “They’re coming off of surgeries. I’m trying to take the same approach we had in the off-season, because you can’t guarantee their returns.

“If there’s something there, we’ll explore it. But we don’t have any glaring weakness in our pitching staff.

“You always want to improve. Every team has room for improvement.

“We’re a good club right now. If we think we can get better, we will, we’re not going to do things just to prove we can make a move.”

Evans has proved he can make a move. Or two. The Dodgers, somehow, are in first place. Maybe it doesn’t take a bunch of guys having career years to overachieve. Maybe all it takes is one guy to have a career year. The general manager.

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J.A. Adande can be reached at j.a.adande@latimes.com.