Maybe the Dodgers Did Have a Plan

So the Dodgers took the first little steps away from the malfunction in the Adrian Beltre negotiations Thursday afternoon.

They gathered in a sun-swept room by Dodger Stadium’s right-field foul pole, coincidentally above the side of the baseball field Beltre discovered just last season, making him the National League’s most valuable player (Non-Flaxseed Oil Division).

Most of the principals were present -- General Manager Paul DePodesta, Vice President Lon Rosen, even Beltre’s agent, Scott Boras.

Except Boras did not bring Adrian Beltre.

He brought J.D. Drew, also a fine player, and perhaps, over time, as fine as Beltre.

But not Adrian Beltre.

An upstanding fellow, Drew, along with his wife, Sheigh, encountered all matters of weather and discomfort on their journey from Hahira, Ga., then pretty normal traffic concerns in Los Angeles to arrive at their news conference close to on time.

A $55-million contract is sufficient motivation for a cross-country trip, even at Christmastime. But the truth is, it would have been his had he gotten on an airplane or not, and he did, and he was quite pleasant.

Really, what everyone wanted to know, or everyone who wasn’t massed at the hors d’oeuvre table wanted to know, was what J.D. Drew was doing here.

Other than standing at the microphone right in the middle of Adrian Beltre’s news conference.

“You know what, I went into Atlanta last year with the understanding of replacing [Gary] Sheffield,” he said.

Hardly anybody goes to Brave games, though. And Atlanta didn’t raise Sheffield. The Braves didn’t teach Sheffield to hit. They didn’t know him when he was 16, and coddle him, and push him. The Braves just gave him a uniform.

No problem, Drew said. It wasn’t as if he tried to be Sheffield anyway. He just got healthy and got back to baseball and -- what do you know? -- he was fifth in the NL MVP voting (Non-Arthritic Balm Division).

Had he tried to be Sheffield, Drew said, he would have failed, and then the inevitable would have arrived.

“People would have run me out of the city in a heartbeat,” he said.

A year later, he has the paycheck most believed would have Beltre’s name on it, $11 million a year, and Beltre’s near future, a semi-permanent place in Los Angeles.

“It’s impossible to replace him in the first place,” the outfielder said, smiling, “because I couldn’t play third base to save my life.”

Which brings us back to the original point.

The Dodgers had six weeks to sign Beltre and didn’t come close, the Seattle Mariners’ final offer having inched ahead of the Dodgers’ by ... $3 million a year.

If the Norwegian authorities were searching for “The Scream” as of late last week, they needed look no further than the nearest Dodger fan.

Out his best hitter, DePodesta went back to Boras. They got Drew’s contract done in ... about four days.

And what do we draw from this?

The young general manager learned a lot -- fast -- about negotiating a big-time free-agent contract.

Or, the new owner was happier with spending $55 million over five years than $64 million over five years. Like, $9 million happier. Over five years.

Or, this J.D. Drew was the player they all wanted all along.

And wouldn’t that be a kick in the polyesters?

Drew, who is 3 1/2 years older than Beltre, hits for power, hits for average and draws walks. Beltre hit for power, hit for average and walked 65 times fewer than Drew. Their on-base percentage plus slugging percentage numbers were virtually identical.

DePodesta liked Beltre. He was shocked when Boras told him he was out of those negotiations.

That said, Drew sounds more like DePodesta’s kind of player, and the rapidness in which they came to terms seems to speak to that.

The Dodgers have said they would have enhanced their offer to Beltre, but didn’t. They conducted the Drew negotiations with more conviction, in part because there no longer was a Drew to fall back on, and Boras certainly had a role in both outcomes.

Generally speaking, DePodesta said of his negotiating tack, “I think it depends. I’ve been different with a lot of different guys. Some of it is knowing what the pace is with individual guys. To some degree, we have to take our cue from the players too. Or the agent.”

The agent, Boras, said the Dodgers simply followed a well-trampled path, from Beltre to Drew, and that Drew came to the Dodgers despite better offers.

“Free agency is so much about timing,” he said. “The Dodgers obviously paid attention to Adrian.

“But certain things hit a critical point at a particular time. In Adrian’s situation, the timetable came, we had three offers, two of them with very strict timetables. Adrian had to make a rather quick decision.

“There’s no question Adrian wanted to seriously look into L.A., which we did. But one offer was gone. Another was about to go. We had to make a call.”

And so, two days before Christmas, J.D. Drew was a Dodger, Adrian Beltre wasn’t, and maybe that’s the way it was planned.