Arizona goes with a budget that pays off

PHOENIX -- When Ken Kendrick took over as managing general partner of the Arizona Diamondbacks in the summer of 2004, the franchise was over $100 million in debt, three of its top six minor league affiliates were stumbling to the finish line a combined 66 games under .500 and the major league team was in the throes of a 100-loss season.

“111 losses,” Kendrick corrected helpfully.

Three years later, with the fifth-lowest payroll in baseball and a National League Championship Series roster that includes 14 players developed by its farm system, Kendrick’s team not only posted the best record in the National League, but it’s also playing for its second trip to World Series since 2001.

“It’s working,” Kendrick said of his plan to balance the budget while remaining competitive. “The top of the mountain isn’t there yet. But we’re feeling good about it.”

The Diamondbacks bought their first world championship -- and paid for it later by going deep into the red. By 2004 former managing general partner Jerry Colangelo had committed more than $270 million in deferred salary to 18 players, which led the rest of the ownership group to stage a coup and push him aside in favor of Kendrick.

And under Kendrick, Arizona went to work slashing payroll and rebuilding its roster around homegrown prospects instead of free agents.

“Financially where our organization is, we’ve kind of had to do it,” said Manager Bob Melvin, a coach during the free-spending World Series days. “Payroll has been reduced significantly since the last playoff days here in ’01 and 2002. I think we may be a little less than half where we were.

“So it’s one, by design. Two, out of necessity. But it also works well for us that we do have a lot of good young players in the system, and a lot of them have come up together.”

Among major league parks, Arizona’s Chase Field, at 1,100 feet above sea level, ranks behind only the Rockies’ mile-high Coors Field in altitude. And according to the Arizona Republic, that means more offense because a ball hit 400 feet at Yankee Stadium, which sits roughly at sea level, would travel about 408 feet at Chase Field.

The park becomes even more hitter friendly when its retractable roof is open, although you couldn’t tell from the first two games of this series. Although the Diamondbacks do not keep detailed stats of how the park plays with the roof open or closed, a detailed Republic study looked at the first 700 games played at the stadium and found high temperatures and wind led to an extra 1.17 runs a game being scored when the roof was open.

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kevin.baxter@latimes.com