- 6/18/2025
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00:00Welcome out to the River Islands guest line to chat with Ned Coletti, former exec with the Giants, Dodgers as well.
00:07He's been in this kind of position. Really thankful to have you today, Ned. How you been, man?
00:11Hey, I'm doing great. Thank you for having me on today.
00:14Yeah, we appreciate it, man. What is your initial reaction to a deal like this?
00:20And I mean it from this perspective. Like Jim Bowden said yesterday,
00:24a deal like this should never happen from the Red Sox perspective.
00:28Do you agree with that? What's your take here?
00:31Well, I agree. I think the Giants made themselves a great deal.
00:35I think they really changed the franchise. I think it'll pay dividends for a long time.
00:41Look, they're not getting a gold glove player, but they're getting a legit middle-of-the-order bet.
00:45Guys that they've been pursuing for a few years in free agency and weren't able to sign, but they got one now.
00:51I think it was a tremendous deal for San Francisco.
00:54How rare is it to have this sort of a blockbuster happen this early before the trade deadline even comes?
01:00Well, it is rare, but when the circumstances that Boston had with Devers, I mean, it's almost the sooner it happens for them, the better, in a weird kind of way.
01:12You know, did they get value for value? I don't think so.
01:15But they couldn't keep the situation going the way it was going.
01:18It was continuing to shred the clubhouse a little bit.
01:22So, you know, you've got to make the move when you can make the move.
01:25Something else that surprised me is that the way the media works today and the way there's so much information always floating around, nobody knew this.
01:34Nobody knew this until it was announced.
01:36It surprised the entire baseball world and sporting world, which I give a lot of credit to both organizations for keeping it quiet.
01:44But it also tells you it probably came together fairly quickly.
01:47And Jack and Buster, you know, they saw something that could help them, and they weren't going to wait to make it a better deal.
01:53They made a good deal as it was.
01:55Ned Coletti with us on Willard and Devers, 95.7 The Game.
01:58Ned, I'm really interested in that comment, like that both organizations deserve credit for keeping it quiet.
02:03But does that also mean that Boston didn't necessarily shop him around?
02:09And therefore, did they get the best deal?
02:13Well, you know, you don't just shop.
02:16You know, you wait for teams to call you, too, because you're talking about a big-money player.
02:21This player's owed over $300 million.
02:24He's making $30-some a year.
02:26So this isn't somebody that you can easily shop.
02:29Any team that had an interest in them, there's only a few teams, A, that can afford them.
02:34And any team in that group that had interest probably had to make a call and say,
02:38hey, would you think about moving Devers?
02:40I mean, we've done that before in my career where, hey, you think something's impossible until you make the call,
02:46and then you know you've got a chance.
02:49But when you think about picking up this type of salary, there's only so many franchises that could do it.
02:54And then when you probably list the limited number of franchises that could afford to do this financially,
03:01and then you whittle it down to who needs this type of player, who needs this type of player who's going to play first base
03:07and end up being a DH at some point in time.
03:10You know, you're kind of limited in really your scope of where you can do it.
03:15And I think that they, you know, obviously they like the left-handed pitching,
03:20and they're getting a good relief pitcher out of it, and they get another good prospect out of it.
03:25You know, it reminds me a little bit, and I think the players that San Francisco gave up are better than the players
03:30that Dodgers gave up for bets.
03:33But it kind of reminds me of that deal a little bit.
03:35You know, how do you give up somebody that is, that you've made the face of the franchise?
03:40That was Mookie Dutch for a long time.
03:42And he ended up getting traded for two guys that never panned out, and Alex Verdugo,
03:46which you can, no disrespect to Alex, I actually drafted him.
03:49But, you know, you can find Alex Verdugos.
03:52Yeah.
03:52And this is the same thing with Devers.
03:54Exactly.
03:54It's hard to find Mookie Betts as well.
03:57Ned Coletti here on 95.7 The Game.
03:58So you talked about the secrecy aspect of this.
04:02How challenging was that for you in the front office?
04:05And is it something that you had to explicitly express to the GM on the other side
04:10to make sure that there were no leaks going around?
04:13Well, you kind of know who you're dealing with at the beginning.
04:16And you know who's got the tenacity to make a deal.
04:20And you also know who's going to have to, you know, float it, so to speak,
04:24before they're going to do it.
04:25But I think the best group that I was ever around was a group in San Francisco
04:29with Saves and the Lake Dick Tickrow.
04:31Nope.
04:32Nothing got out.
04:33Nobody knew anything we were doing.
04:35We kept it.
04:36We had a small shop.
04:37We kept it in tight.
04:38And, you know, information is valuable.
04:41And so we respected it.
04:42We respected Brian and Dick Tickrow and I.
04:45We respected each other, so we never let anything out.
04:48And I had a little bit of an issue in L.A. when I first got there,
04:51but I saw that about a year later.
04:53Hey, if you want to be involved in conversations,
04:55you're going to have to be trusted to the utmost,
04:57not only in your evaluation, but in your ability to keep things locked up.
05:02So, you know, you hardly ever see that when you think about it.
05:06Ned Coletti with us.
05:07Ned, will you refresh my timeline?
05:10When did you leave the Giants to go to L.A.?
05:13I left at the end of the 05 season.
05:16I left in November of 2005.
05:18Okay.
05:19So, obviously, this predates a deal that has been discussed a lot lately
05:24because, I don't even know if you know this,
05:27Buster Posey publicly stated about a week ago
05:30that he really loved the Zach Wheeler-Carlos Beltran deal
05:35that the Giants pulled off.
05:37Even though fans look back on that as a failure,
05:40they didn't make the playoffs, and Wheeler became a star pitcher.
05:44But Buster was like,
05:45I love the aggressiveness that the front office showed
05:48because it told us they believed in us and they were going for it.
05:52So, in a way, you know, guys like you, Brian Sabian,
05:56who maybe, and I know Buster didn't come up until after you were gone,
06:00but I don't know.
06:01In a way, it feels like the former regime's fingerprints
06:05are on this a little bit.
06:07Well, it's a great, I thought it was a great thought process.
06:10And the way, when I came up in the game with the Cubs,
06:12with Dallas Green, who was our general manager,
06:15he would say, hey, look, you only get so many chances to win.
06:19And you only get so many chances to get to the World Series.
06:23And if you don't take those chances, shame on you.
06:26But I always felt that way, and Sabes always felt that way.
06:29I think in my L.A. tenure, which was almost a decade,
06:32I think there was one time where I traded a star player,
06:35Rafael Foucault, to give him a chance to play in the playoffs.
06:40We weren't going to make it that year.
06:41Other than that, it was always acquire, acquire, acquire.
06:44Any time of the year, June, July, late July, late August,
06:49there was a waiver deadline that meant that.
06:51Same thing with Sabes.
06:52That's how we went about it.
06:54And so I think that, you know, when you think about the Wheeler and Beltran deal,
06:57and yes, it looks today like it was one-sided,
07:01but at the time, the Giants had a chance to go for it.
07:05And Buster's right on.
07:06When the players see somebody walk in that room that they know is a player,
07:11that they know is a guy that can help them get better today, that is a huge boost.
07:17I go back a long time now.
07:18I go back maybe the year 2000, and I was with a team in Texas, and they're in Houston,
07:24and Sage calls, and he says, I got a chance to get on to his Galarraga.
07:30What do you think?
07:31I says, we need it.
07:32We need somebody to walk in that room that people know, that people know this guy's going to help us
07:36because the team has played as hard as it can play all the way through,
07:40and it gives everybody a joke.
07:42It told that giant clubhouse the other day that Buster and Zach and the front office
07:47and the ownership are paying attention to the effort that they're making,
07:51and I think that goes a long way.
07:53It's a long season.
07:53You're going to get mentally tired as well as physically tired,
07:56but when you've got a front office that does what Buster and Zach just did,
07:59that really rejuvenates the entire group.
08:03I think they've got a far better chance today than they had a week ago.
08:08Yeah, and the boost is going to hopefully be visible tonight here in just a couple hours
08:13when they get the first game with Devers as the DH.
08:16Ned, when you're going through this process of acquiring a player
08:20and having to part with prospects,
08:22what goes into the thought process of how do you deal a guy, a prospect,
08:27and how do you really know, especially with a really young player,
08:31whether or not they should be thrown into a deal?
08:34Well, that's a great question.
08:36I think one of the most important things for any general manager or president of baseball,
08:40or whatever you want to title it, is to really know your system
08:43and to know the players.
08:45And the Dodgers, the Giants, excuse me there,
08:49the Giants traded some good players.
08:50There's no doubt.
08:51They traded a bit of the future.
08:52But you're talking about a difference maker in the middle of the lineup,
08:57a guy that's going to play every day,
08:58not make a start every fifth day or come out of the pen every second or third day.
09:02You're talking about an everyday player that's going to affect your lineup on both sides.
09:07So you're going to have to pay for it.
09:09And the other teams are scouting, too.
09:11And so they know, Boston knows who they want to get out of the Giants
09:15if they're going to make this type of deal.
09:17And so it's just the way you've got to do it.
09:19And, yeah, you're going to part with some guys that you hate trading.
09:22I traded Nathan Eovaldi for handling the mirrors.
09:25I hated doing it.
09:27And Nathan was in the big leagues for maybe a couple of weeks by then.
09:31But I knew that he was going to be special.
09:34I knew he competed off the chart.
09:36I hated doing it.
09:37But you know what?
09:37At that place and time, I needed handling the mirrors.
09:40And so the Giants think the same way probably.
09:44Hey, you know, they've played hard.
09:45They may have played a little bit beyond what the expectation was.
09:50So if you're going to continue to have the expectation become the reality,
09:55you're going to have to add to it.
09:57And so you trade some quality.
09:59And nobody knows really what Harrison's going to be at the end of the day.
10:02Right now he's still a bit of a wish.
10:04You know, he hasn't established himself.
10:07And, you know, the old saying was, you know, in Boston, you know,
10:10you don't ever acquire a left-handed pitcher with Fenway Park because of the green
10:14monster and the shortness of the wall.
10:16So, you know, they're stepping out a little bit.
10:19He's got a lot of talent.
10:21What he does with it, time will tell.
10:23History will write how it goes.
10:25You know, but it's something that you've got to make that decision on.
10:29And nobody knows a player better.
10:31Nobody knows a player better than the team he's coming from.
10:35That's a statement right there for this deal for sure.
10:38Ned Coletti, the former Dodger GM, former assistant GM with the Giants,
10:42is with us here on 95.7 The Game.
10:43You're listening to 95.7 The Game, KGMZ, FM and HD1, San Francisco,
10:48an Odyssey sports station in the home of the Golden State Warriors and Valkyries,
10:51always live on the free Odyssey app,
10:53coming to you live from the Laughing Monk Studios.
10:55Ned, how do you handicap the West now after this deal?
11:00Well, I think the Dodgers are still a team to beat, obviously.
11:03I think Padres and the Giants and the Diamondbacks
11:07really almost missed their opportunity.
11:11You're talking about a team with 15 pitchers on the IL.
11:13They've got a pitching staff sitting on the IL.
11:16They've got over $100 million on the IL.
11:18They're not going to be there forever.
11:20That they've been able to sustain a lead,
11:22that they've been able to beat teams in key games,
11:24as we saw in San Diego last Wednesday,
11:28and other teams like the Giants lost in Colorado.
11:31They're a tough place to win all those games,
11:33but, you know, you've got a whole bad lead last Thursday.
11:36You know, Dodgers don't go through stretches like that,
11:39and I still think they are the team to beat.
11:41Now, you're getting to a three out of five later on
11:43or a best of seven later on, anything goes.
11:46We've seen that happen historically for many, many years.
11:49But as of right now, I think the teams that are chasing the Dodgers
11:54miss their opportunity.
11:55Dodgers are all the guys that are hurt,
11:57and with the schedule that they've had.
11:58They have had a very tough schedule for the last month,
12:02toughest schedule that they're going to have all year.
12:04From here, it gets easier.
12:06They've been able to maintain a lead playing teams
12:08that are over 500 playing teams in their division,
12:10playing teams that are at the top of other divisions,
12:14and they maintain, they help serve, so to speak.
12:17So I think they are still the team to beat.
12:19How much does a deal like this help to bolster the reputation
12:23not only of Buster Posey,
12:25but the entire Giants franchise around the league?
12:28Well, I think it's huge.
12:31I think that's another good point, too.
12:33You know, on different talk shows that I've been on,
12:35talking Giants baseball or podcasts in the last few months,
12:38and I love the Giants.
12:39You know, I left and I went to L.A., you know, the hated rival,
12:42but I'm from Chicago, so I didn't grow up with, you know,
12:45a diehard Giants fan, a diehard Dodgers fan.
12:48I grew up a diehard Cub fan, actually.
12:50So, you know, I see it.
12:51I see it for what it is, and I know what the destination is in L.A.
12:54There was just something in The Athletic the other day that pulled players
12:58on the best organization in the place that they wanted to play at.
13:02The Dodgers ran the field.
13:04The Dodgers were so far ahead of every team,
13:06including the second-place team on the server.
13:09And the Giants, I looked, you know, they were pretty far down the list.
13:12That hasn't always been there.
13:14For a long time, the Giants were a destination,
13:17and the Giants need to become a destination again in my mind.
13:20You look at who they've chased free agent-wise the last few years,
13:24and they can't get them in the house unless they're going to overpay them.
13:27And so I think that this really will give a lot of players,
13:32a lot of potential free agents a chance to say, hey, these guys are back.
13:36These guys are real.
13:37They know what they're doing.
13:38Look what they just did.
13:39I think it caught the baseball world by surprise,
13:41but I think everything that you're going to see about it will pay dividends
13:44for the Giants for years to come, both on the field and in their performance,
13:48especially with their lineup, but also with the aura of being a San Francisco Giant.
13:54It had great value for 20-some, 30 years, but it lost some luster.
14:01And while it was losing luster, L.A. was gaining luster.
14:05And, you know, competing with the Dodgers is never going to be easy.
14:08Their ownership will always spend.
14:10They will always do whatever they think they need to do to get to the top.
14:15And the Giants' ownership, I know many of them well still,
14:18and they're still the same caliber.
14:20They're still excellent at what they do,
14:21but they haven't been able to convince a lot of free agents that this was the place
14:25that they should be.
14:27There's a short list of high-end guys, and you probably know it, you know,
14:31that said, you know what, thanks, but no thanks.
14:34And so this, I think, will help change that a bit.
14:38Still got to do more.
14:39Still got to put a run on.
14:40Still maybe got to do something at the deadline.
14:41Still got to compete to the utmost and win the run in the playoffs if you get there.
14:46It would be another good thing to get the organization back to the point
14:49where people can't wait to get to that ballpark, beautiful ballpark,
14:52and can't wait to play in a great city.
14:54Ned Coletti with us here on 95.7 The Game.
14:57Great stuff.
14:58And what you're talking about there, Ned,
15:00I think because the early returns on big names and big money
15:05have been so quick with Buster Posey,
15:08there are a lot of fans right now going, man, why did it look one way with Farhan Zaidi
15:14and so quickly and seemingly so easy it changes with Buster Posey taking over.
15:20So I know you know these guys.
15:22Like, what is your perception of the differences between a Farhan Zaidi-run club
15:28and a Buster Posey-run club?
15:30Well, it would be unfair for me to chime in on that,
15:33having not worked with either person.
15:36You know, I know Farhan a little bit.
15:37I know Buster very, very little.
15:40I just know him more as a player than as an executive.
15:43But, you know, I think that it's a general statement.
15:48It's not meant to reflect on anybody.
15:51That when you take, if you take the human element out,
15:55you're going to have a tough time.
15:57And I don't know if the human element was out or not,
16:00but I do know that Buster Posey's got the human element.
16:03Okay, I don't know if Farhan, the extent that Farhan had it.
16:07Maybe he had it as great as Buster.
16:09I can't talk about that.
16:11Don't know it.
16:12But I think when you do that, and, you know, analytics has got value.
16:18There's no doubt it has value.
16:19Does it have the value that knowing somebody does?
16:23I don't think so.
16:25I think it's like hiring somebody off a resume without an interview.
16:28But I think that, you know, you've got somebody that's a Hall of Fame player
16:32that didn't have to do this, did not have to get involved to the extent
16:37that he's gotten involved.
16:39He's got a young family.
16:40He's a great family guy.
16:41He could have just sat back, went to a few games, took it easy.
16:44But, no, he's passionate about this organization.
16:48And I think that statement alone draws attention to it.
16:53And the players who play and the people who manage and coach see that, understand that,
16:58and I think suddenly everything is turned up a notch, maybe two notches.
17:03And I think it's, you know, they're on their way.
17:05How far they're going to go this year, we'll have to wait and see.
17:09But I think this deal will be looked upon as a turning point.
17:13Sure, it can go wrong.
17:14Devers can get hurt.
17:15Who knows what the future holds.
17:17But on paper today, I think this trade will go down, perhaps in history,
17:23as a turning point type of deal for the organization.
17:28Who knows?
17:30But that's how I would see it as I'm right here, right now.
17:33Yeah, no, I think there are a lot of people nodding their head as they listen to you talk, man.
17:37Thank you so much for coming on.
17:39That was a great conversation.
17:41All right, anytime.
17:42Always a pleasure, guys.
17:43Okay.
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