Ned Colletti: players use disabled list as “a couple weeks’ vacation”

Ned Colletti was on KABC radio in Los Angeles yesterday, and seemed to question the legitimacy of some Dodgers’ players recent trips to the disabled list:

“Sometimes you wonder what the thought process is too. The disabled list used to be some place a player never wanted to go. And now it might be a safe haven, it might be a couple of weeks’ vacation. You just hope everybody is doing everything they can to get back and play.”

He walked the comments back in the Los Angeles times, saying that, however those words came out, it wasn’t his intent to call anyone out.

I suppose tone mattered here: Colletti said the comment was made in jest, and if there was in fact some comic exasperation at the Dodgers’ injury woes here, it’s a pretty nothing comment. If he was a bit more serious, maybe it’s one of those Kinsley gaffes where a public figure actually -- accidentally! -- revealed what he was thinking instead of providing the politically or corporately-approved line. Which we simply cannot have.

Of course, Colletti isn’t the first person to suggest that players need and/or use the disabled list for simple rest. You’ll recall that Jayson Stark spoke to an anonymous general manager a few weeks ago who suggested that “players just couldn’t handle” the 162-game season and used the disabled list as a means of escape.

So: is Ned Colletti the anonymous GM, or is he simply saying here what a lot of people inside baseball think about the disabled list?