MLB: Ranking the decade’s best general managers
By Bill Felber
MLB: Ranking the decade’s best general managers
9. Ned Colletti, +61.4 games (Los Angeles Dodgers 2010-2014)
The Dodgers have been so successful during the 2010s that it might be surprising their highest- ranking GM only stands ninth for the decade. Colletti supervised the team’s operations through 2014, taking them to the 2013 and 2014 post-season. His successor, Farhan Zaidi, had a higher profile, partly because LA never failed to make the post-season during Zaidi’s three seasons at the Dodgers’ front office helm. But Zaidi’s record, while good, lacked sufficient volume to make the top 10.
In four of Colletti’s five seasons during the decade, his combined short-term and long-term moves enhanced LA’s status by double digits. That included a 19.9 game impact in 2014 when the Dodgers won the NL West but lost to the Cardinals in the division series.
. Colletti came from a curious background for a highly successful general manager. A Northern Illinois University graduate in media, he landed a job in the Cubs’ media relations department in the mid-1980s, Colletti gravitated into management with a focus on arbitration and mediation cases. He was named director of baseball operations for the Giants in 1994 and was named assistant general manager under Brian Sabean in 1996. He was hired as GM of the Dodgers in November of 2005.