Dodgers Reach Long-Term Contract Extension With GM Colletti

Colletti Says He Will Be With Dodgers "For A Long Time"

Dodgers Owner Frank McCourt yesterday announced that the team has reached a long-term contract extension with GM Ned Colletti. The Dodgers have reached the postseason three times in Colletti's four seasons with the team, making him one of three active MLB GMs to have achieved the feat (Dodgers). Colletti: "I'll be here for a long time and I might be here for longer than a long time." Terms of the extension were not disclosed, and Dodgers President & COO Dennis Mannion said, "Once you start naming terms, you're creating an organizational distraction that starts two years outside of the end of the guy's deal and continues on. We agreed to agree to keep it secret" (L.A. TIMES, 10/21). SI.com's Jon Heyman cited a Dodgers source as speculating that the McCourts "were originally thinking they could keep Colletti's pay down if the team failed to make the playoffs," but with the Dodgers reaching the NLCS for the second consecutive year, that plan went "out the window" (SI.com, 10/19).

DIAMOND IN THE ROUGH: In Boston, Peter Abraham writes the extension adds "stability to an organization facing upheaval in the wake" of Frank McCourt separating from his wife, Dodgers CEO Jamie McCourt, and "facing a battle for control of the club" (BOSTON GLOBE, 10/21). Baseball writer Murray Chass wrote the McCourts' divorce "will be bigger and more dramatic" than the divorce of Padres Majority Owner John Moores and his wife, Becky, which led to the sale of the Padres. A source said he has known "for a long time" that the McCourts' separation was coming, and added this is "going to be a messy divorce." The source said the situation is "nasty." The source added it is a "fair statement that [Frank McCourt] is the sole owner" of the Dodgers, but that "has nothing to do with what happens in court"  (MURRAYCHASS.com, 10/18).