Lombardi drew inspiration from Cleveland

If you’ve followed Dean Lombardi’s quotes about team-building over the years, you’ll pick up frequent references to Major League Baseball. Lombardi is a big Yankees fan, and some of my initial conversations with him, back in 2006, centered around the “Moneyball” theories that were still all the rage then, and how they might apply to the NHL in terms of identifying undervalued talent. The other night, when discussing Jack Johnson’s contract extension, and how it fit into the Kings’ long-term team-building plans, Lombardi shared the following thought. The general manager Lombardi is speaking of is John Hart, who took over the team after the 1991 season. The Indians hadn’t made the playoffs since 1954, but under Hart’s stewardship, the Indians went to the World Series twice and made the playoffs six times in 10 seasons.

LOMBARDI: “The first team that ever tried to lock up young players was the Cleveland Indians, 20 years ago. They locked up a number of young guys, and it made a lot of sense. They couldn’t beat the Yankees without locking up young guys. That was their theory. Trouble is, they locked up the wrong guys. Other than a couple, none of them were core players. The next GM came in and said, `You can’t do that, can’t do that.’ He inherits (Manny) Ramirez, (Sandy) Alomar and a couple hitters, and then they go out and reach the World Series and a couple years after that, it’s all gone. It’s a great example, but you have to put two and two together. Their system, their plan, was right. They just had the wrong players. Then they had the right players, but they weren’t using the right system. They were the originators in trying to do this.”