DODGERS' MINOR REBIRTH FARM SYSTEM IS LOADED WITH TOP PROSPECTS.

Byline: Tony Jackson Staff Writer

There was a time, roughly a quarter century ago, when the Dodgers' player development system was the envy of baseball. There was another time, much more recently, when it became a bare cupboard, the result of too much mortgaging the future to win now and too many first-round draft picks lost as compensation for free-agent signings.

Today, the Dodgers are four years into a plan to rebuild, restock and retool that system. The plan, which spans the regimes of two general managers, is beginning to bare fruit.

One high-ranking official from another club recently told Dodgers assistant general manager Kim Ng that her club has the best farm system in the game.

``It's all the result of good scouting,'' Dodgers player development director Terry Collins said. ``That, and our minor-league coaches do a great job of developing these guys.''

Those guys include several of the top prospects in baseball. The club's top 10 prospects, as listed by Baseball America, include five pitchers: Chad Billingsley (No. 2), Edwin Jackson (No. 3), Greg Miller (No. 7), Jonathan Broxton (No. 9) and Chuck Tiffany (No. 10). It also includes infielders Joel Guzman (No. 1), James Loney (No. 4), Andy LaRoche (No. 5) and Blake DeWitt (No. 8) and catcher Russell Martin (No. 6).

To his credit, general manager Paul DePodesta didn't see fit to part with any of them - even when he knew he would be widely criticized for letting the deadline pass without making any significant moves.

The rebirth of the Dodgers' farm system began four years ago, when Dan Evans was named general manager. One of his first moves was to hire Ng as his top assistant, followed by the additions of Logan White as scouting director, Bill Bavasi as player development director, Collins as minor-league field coordinator and, a year later, Rene Francisco as international scouting director.

``That was Dan's biggest thing,'' Ng said. ``The first thing that really helped us was not re-signing Chan Ho Park.''

Park, an expensive veteran right-hander, left after that season, signing a five-year, $65 million deal with Texas. By losing Park the Dodgers received a compensatory, supplemental first-round pick in the 2002 draft. The following summer, with White directing his first draft for the Dodgers, they used that extra pick on Miller, giving them a left-handed complement to the highly touted Jackson.

After replacing Evans, DePodesta added another top catching prospect in Dioner Navarro, who is playing regularly in the big leagues now, through a January trade with Arizona. He also added some minor pieces such as Triple-A Las Vegas outfielder Cody Ross.

``When I first got here, our minor-league system was already outstanding, given what Logan and Terry Collins had already done,'' DePodesta said. ``The only thing really left to do was fill in some of the upper levels. Now, some of the kids have developed to the point where they're not that far away. Just look at the records of some of our minor-league teams.''

Most of the Dodgers' top prospects are at least two years away from gaining a permanent foothold in the big leagues. But some of them could get September callups beginning today, especially if the big club remains in striking distance of the playoffs.

The records of Jacksonville and Vero Beach aside, DePodesta says the true measure of the depth of a farm system isn't in how its clubs fare, even though part of development is teaching players to win. The only litmus test is how many of those players reach the majors, which means there really is no true means of quantifying an organization's talent pool until years after the fact.

Of course, players aren't developed solely for what they can bring to the big club when they finally get there. They also are developed for what they potentially can provide in terms of trade value. For that reason, Collins says the real measuring stick isn't how many of your prospects make it to the big leagues with your club, but how many of them make it there at all.

``If one of your minor-league players makes it to the big leagues, then you know your minor-league staff has done its job,'' Collins said. ``You hope they end up playing in Los Angeles. But even if they end up playing in the majors for somebody else, you can at least feel like you had something to do with it.''

Tony Jackson,[phone]

tony.jackson(at)dailynews.com

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Pitcher Edwin Jackson is one of several highly touted prospects in the Dodgers' farm system.

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- Tony Jackson