Mattingly may be ready to step up to the plate in managerial position

Mattingly, the ex- Yankees great and currently the Dodgers’ hitting coach, was supposed to be the heir apparent to Torre in New York, but when Torre was fired, Mattingly was passed over for Joe Girardi. Now in Los Angeles, Mattingly again appears to be the heir apparent to Torre, who says he will manage the Dodgers through next year, the final year of his contract.

Under normal circumstances, there would be a natural transition to Mattingly, but all bets seem to be off because of what could be a lingering and bitter divorce between team owners Frank and Jamie McCourt.

Mattingly, 48, is expected to draw the interest of the Indians and perhaps Astros.

Asked if he would entertain job offers outside Los Angeles, Mattingly said, “Oh yeah, no question. It’s not something I really want to deal with at this time because my focus is here on the team right now. But there’s no question I want to manage. I hope it happens sooner rather than later, but the more you’re around this game as a coach, I feel, the more you learn.’’

Would he be picky about where he goes?

“It depends,’’ he said. “I don’t want to go anywhere that doesn’t want to win. I’ve been around this game now long enough and played for and coached some very good teams, so you want a team that’s on the verge of making the playoffs.

“It doesn’t mean you wouldn’t go manage a young club that’s building toward that. As long as the organization wants to get there, I’d be fine with that. I’d understand the situation from the standpoint of I know you have develop younger guys, but I would want a commitment from the organization to back where I’m trying to go.’’

Dodgers bench coach Bobby Schaefer said Mattingly is ready.

“Donnie played for me [in the minors] in 1980, and he’s still the same guy,’’ said Schaefer. “He’s very humble and he’s learned a lot.

“A lot of great hitters can’t be good hitting coaches, but he’s been both. He really relates well to the players. I think he’d do a great job if he gets the chance. He’s ready.

“He’s worked with some pretty outstanding people and learned from being around them. I think if the right thing came along, he’d take it.’’

Mattingly, the 1985 American League MVP (145 RBIs, 211 hits), would be an interesting mesh of several managers rolled into one.

“I think everybody you played for or worked with is your mentor,’’ he said. “I played for Lou [ Piniella], for Billy Martin, Yogi [ Berra], Buck Showalter, Dallas Green. It’s been a long list of guys, but Joe’s been the one, while coaching, he’s been the one I’ve been with. I’ve seen his side of managing more than anyone since I’ve been a coach, but even on our staff we have guys like Bobby Schaefer and Larry Bowa, guys who really know the game.

“Bowa sees so much in any given game, it’s just amazing what he sees. And being around him I’ve been able to start looking for the things he notices. These guys have been around the game so long.’’

How would Mattingly fall on the numbers and percentages and all the statistical material available to managers, particularly the “Moneyball’’ organizations that rely heavily on it to make personnel decisions?

“I fall into a little bit of everything,’’ he said. “As a player, I learned from guys I wanted to be like and I also learned what I didn’t want to be from certain guys. There were managers I’ve seen and I played for that I liked how they treated the team. And there were others I didn’t like as much.

“I use numbers, obviously, when I’m working on pitchers to get my hitters ready. I’m using numbers and percentages, but you also have to have some common sense in there. It’s a mixture of everything.

“Not everything can be a number. There’s also got to be information. At the end of the day, it’s still baseball. You’ve got to get good pitches to hit. You’ve got to take the information and make common-sense decisions with it.’’

Mattingly says he manages every game in his head. Picture the situation, think how you would handle it, then see how the manager does it.

“I’ve been doing it for a while,’’ he said. “There are times you can’t do it as much when you have a game going on and there’s a lot of stuff going on. You have to look at things from all angles. I don’t second-guess, but sometimes I say to myself, ‘Hey, I didn’t see that.’ That’s where guys like Bowa and Schaefer are really good.’’

Relating to players shouldn’t be a problem. He was one of the best. He made six All-Star teams and won nine consecutive Gold Gloves. His high strikeout total for a season was 43.

“I feel like I can relate,’’ Mattingly said. “I teach young guys and work with veteran guys. I came up with no fanfare and turned into a pretty good player. I’ve been through all the stages. You take your experiences and they form you.’’

At the time Torre was fired, Mattingly was pretty upset with the Yankees. That has passed.

“I’m not sad at all,’’ he said. “I understand what happened. Joe Girardi is a friend of mine. He’s got a great mind. I think he’s a good manager. Can’t fault them for what they did. They had success. That experience has been good for me.’’

Jaramillo was one of the highest-paid hitting coaches at $600,000 (though he trailed Kevin Long of the Yankees, who makes almost $1 million). He was offered only a one-year extension. During his tenure, the Rangers had four MVPs, one batting title, 17 Silver Sluggers, and three home run and RBI titles.

Jaramillo could have his pick of the litter, with Chicago being a possible landing spot because of his relationship with Piniella.

The Rays are likely to hire a hitting coach with a more modern approach, while the Giants will likely stick with a traditional hitting coach - someone like a Ron “Papa Jack’’ Jackson or Mike Easler. Jackson, who has recently been with the Triple A affiliate of the Astros, presided over one of the greatest offenses the Red Sox ever had in 2003, when the team scored 961 runs, the most since 1950 when the team scored a franchise-record 1,027. He is credited with turning David Ortiz into a great power hitter and he was also a big influence on Manny Ramirez, yet he has had problems getting a big league job since the Red Sox let him go.

Easler has been out of baseball since he was the Dodgers’ half-season hitting coach while Mattingly was tending to personal issues. Easler has been personally instructing players, working with Frank Thomas and Jacques Jones and college players at his Las Vegas facility.

The Brewers, Reds, and Marlins are among teams looking for pitching coaches. Rick Peterson and Bryan Price, two coaches with great track records, have been interviewed by the Brewers, while Peterson had fielded calls from a few teams, including the Yankees, who are looking for a minor league pitching coordinator.

Peterson wants to go to a place where he can implement his pitching system, which stresses biomechanics and relies on a close relationship with Dr. James Andrews and his clinic to provide motion analysis of a pitcher’s delivery. Peterson designs physical and mental plans to improve a pitcher’s delivery and reduce his risk of injury. He did that this season with Scott Kazmir, turning his season around at midyear.

This year’s World Series will go into November because the World Baseball Classic pushed things back, but it needs to end in mid-October because football (college and pro) simply takes over in the minds of most Americans. Maybe not in the Northeast, but in most parts of the country fans lose interest in baseball by then.

Baseball should not reduce its regular season from 162 games - you wouldn’t want to compromise all the numbers associated with the modern era - but tweaking the postseason might create more excitement in shorter series.

One baseball official disagreed with me, saying, “People are always trying to change baseball and the rules and the way we do things, but quite frankly the way we do things works out quite well. A shorter playoff series would create almost a sudden-death, like the one-game playoff we had between Minnesota and Detroit this season. It would definitely create more of an urgency for teams to have their act together before they play in the playoffs, but to be honest, there’s nothing wrong with the playoff format.’’

Well, maybe. The one thing I would not want to see is adding more teams in the playoffs. As it is, there are weak division winners and wild cards, teams that sometimes have no business being in the postseason. Imagine adding more of them?

2. Stephen Drew, SS, Diamondbacks - He is expected to be shopped by the Diamondbacks, and there should be discussions with the Red Sox. Stephen is not the OPS machine that big brother J.D. is (.748 this season) but his other numbers weren’t bad for a shortstop: .261, 12 homers, 65 RBIs (only three fewer than J.D.). He also made only 11 errors. Who knows if hitting in a more patient lineup will help his OPS?

3. Victor Martinez, C, Red Sox - If he is the full-time, 100- to 110-game catcher next season, scouts believe he needs to shorten his release to be better at throwing out runners. Martinez, according to one scout, “long-arms his throws. It just takes him too long to get the ball down to second base. In order to combat that, you either have to have pitchers who can hold runners on base, which the Red Sox don’t, or have them do slide-steps and things of that nature, which they don’t like to do, either.’’ Gary Tuck supposedly is one of the best catching instructors in the game, so one would think he’d improve this with Martinez.

4. Mark Reynolds, 3B, Diamondbacks - The cutoff for the “Super 2’s’’ is 141 days of service time (last year it was 140). Reynolds has 138 days because he was brought up in mid-May of 2007. Instead of something close to a $5 million salary, Reynolds will get about a 10 percent raise to $425,000. Great bargain for the only guy in the majors who hit 40 homers, had 100 RBIs, and stole 20 bases this year.

5. Adrian Gonzalez, 1B, Padres - This is the fellow I suspect the Sox will go after. They would then move Kevin Youkilis to third, with Ortiz and Mike Lowell sharing DH duties. Gonzalez came very close to getting traded to the Mariners at the deadline in a five-for-one (Seattle wouldn’t give up a certain fifth minor leaguer). Only question is, do the Sox have enough players to give San Diego?

6. Ron Mahay, LHP, Twins - He would love to re-sign with the Twins but wouldn’t rule out a return to Boston, where he was a replacement outfielder in 1995 (.200 AB in 20 at-bats) and a pitcher in the late ’90s. “It was a long time ago, but I loved that place,’’ said Mahay. “I’ve played a lot of places in my career and lasted a long time, but I’ll never forget Boston.’’ Mahay appeared in 16 games for the Twins after being released by the Royals and had a 2.00 ERA. Among the hitters he dominates: Eric Chavez (0 for 17), Raul Ibanez (3 for 18, 9 K’s), Ichiro Suzuki (3 for 13), Joe Mauer (2 for 13), Justin Morneau (2 for 12), Alex Rodriguez (1 for 7), Jorge Posada (1 for 8), Ramirez (0 for 6).

7. Mike Hargrove, former manager - He is campaigning to manage the Indians again, but he might be too old school for them. Hargrove won five Central Division titles and two AL pennants from 1991-99, but that’s when ownership spent money and had good players. Whoever takes the Indians now will have little money and few players. He’ll have to be willing to struggle for a while.

8. Rob Johnson, C, Mariners - Don’t know if this is a record, but he could have as many as four surgeries this offseason. He has torn labrums in both hips, needs left wrist surgery, and has to have bone spurs removed from his right elbow. Other than that, he’s doing great. The amazing thing is, Johnson could be ready by spring training if all goes well.

9. Justin Verlander, RHP, Tigers - Research by Detroit Free Press writer John Lowe found that Verlander had 11 games of 120 pitches or more this season, four more than the combined staff of the next-closest team, Philadelphia. Verlander threw 3,940 pitches, 294 more than any other pitcher - more than any American League starter since Roger Clemens in 1997 with Toronto.

Nick Cafardo can be reached at cafardo@globe.com; material from personal interviews, wire services, other beat writers, and league and team sources was used in this report.