DePodesta’s Puzzle Is Almost Complete

The setting was the stately Dodger Stadium Club, but Paul DePodesta looked like a kid coming off a stomach-churning amusement park ride. He insisted everything was fine, but a hint of queasiness was detectable behind his calm demeanor.

Standing next to the Dodger general manager was left-handed pitcher Odalis Perez, whose eyes gleamed with the anticipation of someone at the front of the roller coaster line.

Such was the difference on a stormy January day between a suit-and-tie guy charged with building a winner during the winter and a glove-and-cap guy charged with winning ballgames during the summer.

DePodesta’s effort to retool the Dodgers is largely done for now, and Monday he reflected on the unexpected twists and turns of the off-season, claiming triumph but admitting he’d rather not take that ride again.

“I’d like things to settle down,” he said. “This isn’t enjoyable for me. It’s not enjoyable for the fans. But I want to put something in place our fans can identify with for a long time.”

A key component is Perez, who re-signed for three years at $24 million after testing free agency. He talked excitedly about the team’s makeover and his own new, lean look. A tad soft around the middle last season, he dropped 10 pounds by working with a personal trainer and plans to drop another 10 before spring training.

“It sounds like the team is going to be different, no Adrian Beltre, no Shawn Green, but we’ll be a good team anyway,” he said. “I’m doing whatever it takes to come to spring training in the best shape of my life.”

Bringing back Perez and adding proven starter Derek Lowe enabled DePodesta to state with conviction that the Dodger rotation is in better shape. It took some scrambling because so many top-tier free-agent pitchers signed early in the off-season for what the Dodgers believed were exorbitant sums. They went hard after Brad Radke and Matt Clement and lost out for reasons that went beyond dollars -- Radke wanted to return to Minnesota and Clement preferred to pitch on the East Coast.

DePodesta said in November that adding starting pitching was his top priority, but it was the last puzzle piece to fall in place besides acquiring a catcher, which is expected to happen today with the signing of free-agent journeyman Paul Bako for one year at $600,000.

Perez and Lowe were the last proven starters on the market, and the Dodgers nabbed both. Perez, 27, has been criticized for not pitching well in big games, but he was 10th in the National League with a 3.25 earned-run average last season and fourth in 2002 at 3.00.

“His track record is pretty remarkable,” DePodesta said. “Given his age and the fact he is left-handed, we felt like he was the most attractive guy on the free-agent market. We thought we would be in a pretty massive bidding war, and we certainly ended up in one.”

Perez, who made $5 million last season, said he had interest from nearly two dozen teams and that the Seattle Mariners came closest to the Dodger bid, offering three years at $22 million. The Dodgers will pay him a $3-million salary and $4.5-million signing bonus this year, $7.25 million in 2006 and $7.75 million in 2007 with a club option in 2008 for a salary of $9 million or a $1.5-million buyout.

“I was waiting and I was thinking about the Dodgers,” he said. “This is where I want to be.”

He downplayed concerns that he is a disruptive clubhouse presence. In September 2003, his desire was questioned when he skipped a start because of a chipped fingernail. Last season he criticized teammates for a lack of run support -- understandable because he set a franchise record with 18 no-decisions while going 7-6.

“I say the truth, and I know the truth hurts,” he said. “All that is behind me, everything is in the past. I won’t even want to try to tell the truth again because you know what happened.

“I believe I am a leader. I want to step up, and they know that.”

There is no doubting Lowe’s big-game ability, not after he won the deciding game in all three postseason series for the Boston Red Sox, including Game 4 of the World Series. Lowe, who passed a physical Monday in Los Angeles, is expected to be introduced Wednesday.

Bako, 32, could be onboard by then as well. A career backup, he is considered an excellent receiver and game-caller with a good arm and a weak bat. Bako, whose batting average is .239 in seven seasons, is a left-handed hitter and will platoon with right-handed hitting David Ross unless another catcher is added before opening day.

The eventual heir to the position is Dioner Navarro, who will become a Dodger when the trade sending Shawn Green to the Arizona Diamondbacks is made official today. Navarro, a switch-hitter, will begin the season in triple A. Navarro passed physicals with the Diamondbacks and Dodgers on Monday, and Green passed a physical in Arizona.

With the Green trade completed after three weeks of trying and Perez and Lowe signing, DePodesta can make a case that the busy off-season benefited the team. The lineup should generate about as many runs as last season despite the loss of Beltre, Green, Steve Finley and Alex Cora. The infield defense is the only area that clearly has suffered.

Second baseman Jeff Kent, who signed for two years, and third baseman Jose Valentin, who signed for one, are veteran power hitters and stop-gap solutions until the talent-rich Dodger farm system yields major league infielders. Otherwise, all the starting position players are under contract for at least three years.

Outfielders J.D. Drew, Milton Bradley and Jayson Werth, first baseman Hee-Seop Choi and shortstop Cesar Izturis are cornerstones of the future. Since DePodesta was hired 11 months ago, 24 players have left the organization and 20 players have been added to the 40-man roster.

“When the McCourts bought the team, the Dodgers held the rights of six of the eight position players only through 2004 or 2005,” DePodesta said. “So change was going to be inevitable. This wasn’t a team built for the long term.”

That might not explain to the satisfaction of many Dodger fans failing to re-sign Beltre, but it is an explanation. DePodesta fended off questions about an infield that has gotten weaker defensively with Kent at second rather than Cora, and with Valentin at third rather than Beltre, a circumstance that took on greater importance with the signing of ground-ball pitchers Lowe and Perez.

“Valentin has played shortstop his entire career; he’ll be fine at third,” DePodesta said. “The biggest discrepancy defensively is Cora to Kent, but what we’ve gained offensively there more than offsets it.

“We have three center fielders in the outfield. We have a Gold Glove shortstop. I still think we are a very strong defense team, one of the better ones in the league.”

DePodesta looked out the rain-spattered window of the Stadium Club, to the rivulets of water flowing across the warning track and deep puddles on the turf. He turned back and smiled, as if he had seen the first ray of sunshine in months.

“We have been through a turbulent off-season, and it has been with the purpose of building a foundation that is going to be here for a while,” he said. “I think our fans are going to embrace this team. They aren’t going to have to go through this anymore, and hopefully we’ll be successful.”