The old-fashioned way

FORT MYERS, Fla. -- The Los Angeles Dodgers have a history of treating the National League's Rookie of the Year award like an in-house incentive.

From 1979-82, four consecutive Dodgers -- Rick Sutcliffe, Steve Howe, Fernando Valenzuela, and Steve Sax -- went home with trophies for their debut seasons, and improbably the Dodgers topped that feat in the '90s when Eric Karros, Mike Piazza, Raul Mondesi, Hideo Nomo, and Todd Hollandsworth were successively honored as the league's best rookies.

New general manager Ned Colletti, taking over a team that lost 91 games a year after winning the NL West, took a different tack, opting for some veteran help by adding free agents Rafael Furcal, Nomar Garciaparra, and Bill Mueller, among others, to bring stability.

But perhaps the finest service Colletti provided his new employers was not to trade from an array of prospects so impressive, Baseball America ranked the Dodgers' farm system No. 2 for the second straight year this spring, placing nine prospects among the top 100. That suggests another run of rookie awards could be headed toward Chavez Ravine, although another new NL West GM, ex-Red Sox aide Josh Byrnes, has inherited what Baseball America calls the best system, the Diamondbacks placing an unprecedented six players among the top 32.

''Part of our plan was to get to spring without wrecking our system, and we did that," said Colletti. ''We stayed out of our system for the most part while actually adding a guy from Oakland, outfielder Andre Ethier [in a trade for Milton Bradley].

''We had a huge bridge to cross, but before I did anything, I wanted to gain some familiarity with our kids, and with a big assist from the [World Baseball Classic], we got to see a lot of our kids."

None of them are breaking camp with the Dodgers, who were forced to use a major league-high 20 rookies last season to plug for injuries, but at least four players drafted by scouting director Logan White and developed by farm director Terry Collins could wind up in LA before the end of the season.

Chad Billingsley, a 21-year-old righthander who was a first-rounder out of high school in 2003, has been projected as a No. 2 or 3 starter who could be in the majors next season. Billingsley throws a slider and curveball to complement a fastball that consistently averages between 92 and 95 miles per hour.

Outfielder Matt Kemp, who broke Adrian Beltre's team record for home runs in Single A, has superstar potential, one evaluator said. Joel Guzman showed up in camp as a shortstop and is leaving as a left fielder after flashing terrific power and an aptitude for adjusting to offspeed stuff. Catcher Russell Martin impresses with his game-calling, leadership, and throwing arm, while Chin-Lung Hu, signed out of Taiwan, projects as a big-league shortstop. Third baseman Andy LaRoche, the brother of the Braves' Adam, will be in the wings for Mueller.

Both White and Colletti are scouting traditionalists, Colletti, wryly responding to a question about his use of sabermetrics, the statistical measuring tools used by some analysts.

''Do I use VORP?" Colletti said, referring to one such sabermetric tool, Value Over Replacement Player. ''I may be using it and not even know it, and if I am, it's nobody's business. There are a lot of different criteria in judging players. I think I use, um, esoteric qualitative mathematical review times five. That's one of them."

That was Colletti's way of saying he still does it the old-fashioned way. ''I like scouts with 20, 30, 40 years experience who can tell if a player knows how to play the game, who read how a guy's body works, who knows how he responds in big situations, who knows how to examine a medical history, who can take the measure of a guy's desire to be great."

The Diamondbacks paid dearly for their No. 1 status, shelling out a total of $11.6 million to sign shortstop Justin Upton, the first player taken in last June's draft, and another shortstop, Stephen Drew, their No. 1 pick in '04. Conor Jackson, who was the subject of considerable debate in the Red Sox' draft room in 2002 and was still there for the taking when the Sox took outfielder David Murphy, had a great spring and will start at first for the Diamondbacks, and outfielder Carlos Quentin, recovered from Tommy John surgery, is close.

LA's ''other" team, the Angels, have ranked in Baseball America's top five the last four years, and they weren't about to give up top shortstop prospect Brandon Wood, who hit 43 home runs last season, or pitcher Ervin ''Magic" Santana. Two power guys, Casey Kotchman and Dallas McPherson, are pushing their way into the Angels' everyday picture.

The Braves' dedication to scouting and player development is reflected two ways -- their 14 successive division titles and 15 straight years of finishing no lower than seventh in Baseball America's rankings. Last season, the Braves used 18 rookies. No wonder the Sox interviewed Dayton Moore, Atlanta's player personnel director, when GM Theo Epstein went on hiatus.

''The reason the Braves are successful is they have a stable big-league club," said Braves scout Bob Schaefer. ''They give guys a chance to develop. There are no shortcuts to the big leagues."