Don Mattingly expects to be back with the Los Angeles Dodgers as their manager next year and also believes general manager Ned Colletti will keep his job.
Dodgers president Stan Kasten held organizational meetings Thursday that included Mattingly and Colletti.
“I came to work today like every other meeting,” Mattingly said. “Nobody’s told me anything differently.”
Colletti didn’t comment afterward.
With a major league-record $235 million payroll, the Dodgers were projected as a World Series contender this year but bowed out in the National League Division Series to the St. Louis Cardinals.
“‘World Series or bust’ is kind of tough,” Mattingly said. “I don’t mind the mentality, but then again you have to have reality, too, I think, where you get unemotional and say, ‘Were we good enough? Did we play good enough?’ Any time you get into the postseason, you get into short series and you get into anything can happen.”
Mattingly signed a three-year contract extension last winter. He has a 354-293 record in four years on the job. The Dodgers finished 94-68 this season.
“I’m proud of what we’ve accomplished this year,” Mattingly said. “You always hear the talk of the payroll and stuff. To me, this is part of a building process for us. This was a different season from last year.
“Even looking at the playoffs, I don’t think we made an error in the series. They got the key hit, made the key pitch. We didn’t get the key hit or make the key pitch. We got beat. We didn’t beat ourselves. The year before, we were throwing the ball all over. This year, we got beat.”
The 53-year-old Mattingly said that during the offseason he will become a father. His wife, Lori, is expecting the couple’s first child, a boy, in December. They married nearly four years ago.
Mattingly has three grown sons from a previous marriage.