Dodgers Throw a Maybe Shower

The dispatches have arrived from Vero Beach in fits and starts, surrounded by static, as if the strange late-night rantings of a distant radio station.

ZzzzzzzCesar Izturis is starting at shortstop and batting secondzzzz.

ZzzzzzzEric Gagne is the closerzzzzzz.

ZzzzzzDave, Leon, Bip, Robin, Somebody Roberts is the center fielderzzzzz.

ZzzzzzMatt Herges is gonezzzzz.

When the Dodgers finished spring landscaping last weekend by trimming their Herges, the news had become so cryptic, I felt it my duty to decode it.

After five strenuous seconds, the message became clear.

The Dodgers don’t think they can win this season.

The Dodgers have started rebuilding.

What usually happens only in remote shanties is happening here in the temple.

The Dodgers are trying to fix past mistakes not with a paint brush, but with a power scraper.

They are beginning the season with a Kansas City vision, a Pittsburgh attitude, and a map to third place.

For the first time in forever.

They won’t say it. Don’t be silly. You don’t sell widgets by promising that you will one day sell better widgets. A stadium needs to be filled, jobs need to be saved, discernment will be practiced.

But they don’t have to say it. Everything they have done this spring is screaming it.

Eric Gagne as the closer? Even though his next save will be his first? Not of his major league career, but of his professional career?

Opening day, ninth inning, two out, Dodgers holding a one-run lead against the San Francisco Giants with Barry Bonds at the plate.

You might pick half a dozen Dodgers to pitch in that situation, including outfielder Shawn Green, before you would pick Gagne.

But here he is, a former starter with a hockey mentality and a 95-mph fastball the Dodgers hope will overcome his--and our--fears.

“The issue here is, does he have the stuff and the competitive desire to handle this?” General Manager Dan Evans said. “We think he does.”

Then, Cesar Izturis batting near the top of the order? We can understand starting the kid at shortstop, but putting him in a pressure batting position that could include occasionally hitting leadoff?

The next walk he draws will be the third of his major league career. Two seasons ago, in his last summer spent in one place, he batted .218 for triple-A Syracuse.

Batting this 22-year-old kid any higher than seventh or eighth is asking him to walk a tightrope like, well, like a closer who has never closed.

“You’ll love this kid, he handles the bat well, he can give us speed at the top,” Evans said.

Then how about a guy named Roberts getting the majority of at-bats in center field? An exhaustive search has revealed that the guy’s name is Dave Roberts, in town after a career as Kenny Lofton’s backup in Cleveland, only 75 major league games in eight pro seasons.

He is probably only keeping the seat warm for a prospect. We might have had more fun with Bip.

Finally, amid all these odd additions, what is the Dodgers’ biggest spring subtraction?

Would you believe a clubhouse favorite who went 20-11 for them the last two years while chewing up 210 innings?

Matt Herges was not sent into baseball exile in Montreal because he gave up a few bombs in Florida.

He was traded because he is 32, and could make a lot of money next season as a “middle-aged” setup man, and the Dodgers would rather have two young Expo farmhands who could help in three years.

He was traded because he is the sort of player who will eventually fit best on a team on the verge of a championship.

The Dodgers have just admitted they aren’t it.

And these funky steps are only the first ones.

They can’t do anything with the contracts of Eric Karros or Mark Grudzielanek, or they would.

By midseason, however, there could be interest in another veteran named Kevin Brown. Yes, he has a no-trade clause in his contract. But, yes, he would probably forfeit that for a chance to return to a World Series.

Something the Dodgers feel isn’t happening here.

Explaining his moves, Evans said, “Without risk there is no reward.”

The risk here, though, is larger than that of 162 games.

It is a risk involving 3 million fans, the Dodgers’ magic attendance total that might not be equaled for the first time in a full season since 1992.

It is a risk involving 44 years of a Los Angeles tradition that dictates this team would never be known as the Bums.

Who knows, maybe we’ll buy it.

Maybe Gagne, a bespectacled grinder vaguely reminiscent of one of the Hanson brothers in the movie “Slap Shot,” will become a cult hero.

Maybe Izturis is the next Omar Vizquel.

Maybe Dave Roberts will work deep counts and catch deep drives and make us all wonder how we could be so shallow.

Maybe they’ll all play hard, and keep it close, and make change fun. Or maybe not.

Maybe they’ll behave like just another lousy, grumbling 80-win team.

Maybe we’ll turn our backs on them for it.

Maybe they’ll have to wait till next year without us. Who knows?

A first for Gagne, Izturis, Roberts, all of us.

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