Friedman, who got a lucrative multiyear contract, is working to integrate his philosophies into the front office. He is having fun, he said, but he is not quite there.

“We’re still evolving on a number of fronts,” he said. “Some of it is building up our team and our systems. We’ll be significantly further ahead at this time next year than we are now, because in a lot of respects we were starting from scratch. I’m not patient by nature, but it takes time.”

In August, Friedman added second baseman Chase Utley — Rollins’s old double-play partner with the Philadelphia Phillies — and Justin Ruggiano, an outfielder he brought to the majors with Tampa Bay. At the nonwaiver trading deadline, in July, the Dodgers’ biggest move was a complicated three-team deal with Atlanta and Miami involving 13 players, a draft pick and a significant sunken cost.

The Dodgers had paid $62.5 million in May for Hector Olivera, a Cuban infielder. Before he even played a game for them, they sent him to the Braves and absorbed his $28 million signing bonus. They traded other players, too, and received a package that included four healthy pitchers (Luis Avilan, Jim Johnson, Mat Latos and Alex Wood), one injured pitcher (Bronson Arroyo) and a young infielder, Jose Peraza.

Better starters and relievers changed teams at the deadline, and the Dodgers have been criticized for not making sturdier upgrades. They still do not run the bases especially well — although Utley helps — and getting the game to Jansen can be an adventure. Yet they retained the jewels of a farm system rated by Bleacher Report as the best in the majors, post-trading deadline.

“Listen, at the deadline we had long talks,” Kasten said. “You know the names — the big guys out there. And those deals, if we had done them, would have taken three, four, five of our better people. We were tempted, and we kicked it around a lot. At the end we decided there were some things we would do and some things we would not do, having evaluated everything. But there was discipline, there was real scouting expertise plus real analytical expertise in the mix.”

He continued: “We’ll find out if those decisions are good, but we won’t find out in one year, because this is not a one-year project. That’s the mistake writers make: When you look at a payroll this year and you look at a number like 300, you’re just examining one column in one year, and that’s not the way businesses work. That number has a lot of components to it. Many don’t relate to this year; they relate to expenses for next year, and the year after, and the year after that.”