As The Ned Turns

So here’s a last-minute change of plan. I had a big post all written up on resetting the 40-man roster, outlining free agents, arbitration cases, etc.,  and that was to go up this morning.

Now it’s not, and here’s why: All anyone wants to talk about right now is the job status of Ned Colletti, and while I’m not saying I have any particular inside info to share, it seems pretty clear that if anything is going to happen, it’s going to happen soon. It has to, for some pretty obvious reasons, because while we’re all still in a hangover after the NLDS disaster, the fact is that real-world baseball operations don’t work that way. 2015 planning can’t be delayed. Decisions must be made on free agents, staffing decisions — we don’t know who replaces De Jon Watson, for example — and that can’t happen without everyone knowing who’s really in charge.

For all the obvious issues we’ve had with Colletti, the fact is that his teams have made five postseasons in nine years, including three trips to the NLCS, and that’s an impressive record even before you consider how atrocious the ownership he worked for was during a good portion of that. I hate the “five trips in nine years,” for the record, because that 2006 team, other than Andre Ethier, was mostly Paul DePodesta’s doing, and all of these runs have been fueled by players drafted so many years ago. But for ownership, that’s a powerful track record.

But really, the point here is not about what I think should happen or what you think should happen. It’s about the fact that there’s so much speculation swirling that could very easily be quieted by Stan Kasten or Mark Walter simply saying “stop, this is dumb, of course he’ll be back.” That hasn’t happened, and if we’re wrong for reading too much into that, well, what could be expected?

The traditional end-of-year press conference should happen later today. (Update: it now appears it might not not.) We can’t say for certain who will be sitting at that table. So yeah, maybe we’ll hold off on talking about arbitration for a day or two. More pressing things could be happening.