Dodgers Seem to Be Losing Fans, Big Time

The instant message read: “It’s not fun being a dodger fan right now.”

The background was the Dodgers logo, the icon was the Dodgers logo, the screen name was something very close to BigTimeDodgersFan.

And the mood was universal in Dodgerdom on Friday.

The Los Angeles Dodgers have not been cursed with a string of crushing defeats and inexplicable bad luck. They aren’t cursed at all. But what their fans have to bear -- with increasing frequency -- are bewildering front office decisions.

On Friday the sports pages were filled with bad news, the airwaves brimming with hate, the chat rooms loaded with so many expletives it’s amazing the servers didn’t crash. Adrian Beltre was a free-agent casualty, Shawn Green’s name was a part of a big trade rumor and the Dodgers appeared to be in a state of disarray.

It was the worst feeling since the Mike Piazza trade. Or maybe the mid-season deal that sent Paul Lo Duca packing. How about the trade that sent Eric Karros to the Cubs and brought Todd Hundley in exchange?

At this rate, there won’t be any soul of the Dodgers left to shred.

The Dodgers will say that it’s still early in the off-season, there are moves to be made, they’re gaining flexibility.

Who knows, something miraculous could happen and they could sign the likes of a Carlos Delgado. They could easily point to the numbers since 1998 (Delgado: 231 home runs, 725 RBIs. Beltre: 147 home runs, 510 RBIs) and say, “See?”.

Perhaps owner Frank McCourt and General Manager Paul DePodesta can put together a good group of players. The fans don’t just want a good group of players. They want the Dodgers.

No one expects to see the same four faces around the infield for eight seasons, as we did with Steve Garvey, Davey Lopes, Bill Russell and Ron Cey. But is a little continuity too much to ask? How about for just one year?

The Dodgers finally put together a satisfying season and now the player who was the backbone of the team, the batter who hit the division-clinching grand slam and the pitcher who got the team’s first postseason victory since 1988 are all gone.

Steve Finley and Jose Lima were gone just when Dodger fans were getting to know them. Beltre’s departure hits them harder.

This was a player they’d followed since he was rushed to the majors in 1998, in the middle of a round of organizational upheaval that saw the team change the ownership, manager and general manager.

They knew Beltre’s pattern, the flawed first halves followed by the torrid finishes that whet the appetite for what could happen next year. This season, they finally found out, when Beltre led the majors with 48 home runs and finished second in the National League with a .334 batting average.

This was the guy the Dodgers had to sign. They had to show the players and the fans that they would take care of their own, reward the homegrown products, even if it meant paying a premium price. I firmly believe if they kept him and did nothing else, it could be considered a successful off-season.

At least it would be a start. And then, in a year, when they no longer were committed to the more than $26 million due to Darren Dreifort and Green, they could have some flexibility to build around Beltre.

Instead, McCourt failed his first test, failed to reward the goodwill (not to mention revenue) generated by that National League-leading attendance figure of 3,488,283 at Dodger Stadium last season.

“There were no limitations whatsoever imposed by me,” he told The Times’ Tim Brown.

But was there a mandate sent down by McCourt? An order to sign Beltre at all costs? Apparently not.

Beltre’s agent, Scott Boras, didn’t lay the blame on any individual, even if McCourt’s comments did hang DePodesta out on the laundry line.

“DePodesta and I had numerous conversations,” Boras said. “Adrian instructed me to make sure I contacted Paul. Paul always returned the calls.

“I was able to give him the message about the market, I conveyed the sense of urgency of what we were doing.”

Ultimately, “It was a decision everyone made at the time it had to be made.”

The Dodgers didn’t decide to match the $13 million a year the Seattle Mariners offered to Beltre, loaded with a $17-million starting salary next season.

They decided to go in a different direction at third base.

BWING. Instant message

BigTimeDodgersFan [6:46 PM]: Jose Valentin????? OMG you’ve got to be joking! Me [6:46 PM]: you just found out? BigTimeDodgersFan [6:47 PM]: yeah, I’ve been too depressed to listen to the radio

And so it goes in Dodgerdom. That was the news Friday, that Valentin (30 home runs last season, but also a batting average that has been “trending down”, as the corporate types say, to .216 last year) was in. Jeff Kent’s already aboard. J.D. Drew could be in the mix.

Those are some pretty good players they’re talking about. They just aren’t Dodgers.

They could still get one thing right this off-season and offer a peace gesture to the fans. They could lock up Eric Gagne with a long-term contract.

Otherwise, the only alternative is the three words another exasperated Dodger fan said to me Thursday night: “Los Angeles Angels.”

Until then, might as well look for a shred of good news.

Milton Bradley gets out of jail today.

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J.A. Adande can be reached at j.a.adande@latimes.com. To read previous columns, go to latimes.com/adande.