Guarantees

I don't think the Casey Blake acquisition guarantees October baseball for the dodgers.  There's still a lot of baseball left (58 more games worth).  I think it does guarantee a bit more offensive production from the third base position.  
There is strong speculation that Ned's job is in jeopardy.  Perhaps making the playoffs staves off his axing.  I don't know if anyone or any outcome could seal his fate one way or another, but the calls for his head made me think about the things that the media were complaining about when the dodgers were losing badly and not seeming like they'd be in the hunt for a playoff spot. 
DL'd payroll is a big sore spot.  It's not so focused under the microscope now that some of the DL'd payroll is back on the field and the dodgers are kind of winning. In the case of Andruw Jones, he's back on the field but performing badly.  Nomar was out for most of the season and is now the starting shortstop, but may be injured yet again.  Schmidt hasn't pitched since '07 and only then pitched 25 2/3 innings in a whopping 6 starts.  Loaiza's useless and overpaid rear end spent some titme on the DL before being DFA'd.  He's now unemployed, but he can still roll around in the 7.5 million dollars he's still getting paid by the dodgers.  I think they'll still have to pay 375 grand to buy out his '09 option.  Furcal, the straw that stirred the dodgers' offense drink is sidelined with no timetable to return in the walk year of his three year contract.  I don't think anyone is really mad at Ned for that signing.  The payroll of this season's team is huge...bloated even with a lot of it not playing.
So how is the team set up for the future should things not work out this year?  How bad is this GM at cutting the hamstrings of the team's future?  Surprisingly not that bad.  There is only about 65 million in guaranteed salary, bonus payouts, and options to be paid out for '09 and about 35 million for 2010.  Those numbers don't include pay raises for the younger players that are pre-arbitration or are arbitration eligible.  The team seems pretty flexible going forward. Andruw Jones and Jason Schmidt are the biggest ticket items in the '09 salary basket followed by Kuroda, Pierre, and Penny.  Free agents are risky business.  They don't all work out.  Ask other big market teams like the Mets and Yankees.  Assuming McCourt is comfortable with about 110 million payroll or less for a "contending" team, Colletti's commitments in '09 and '10 don't make his free agent signing failures don't seem crippling enough to hurt the team's ability to add star, in prime, talent to their awesome, emerging nucleus of young players.  Whether or not it causes McCourt to fire Colletti is another matter.  I can't guarantee Colletti's job either way for reasons unrelated to how many McCourt dollars are being paid to people rehabbing injuries.