Not that the Dodgers went about this all wrong, or anything.

First, they lowballed the Cleveland Indians to the point that the Indians sent ace left-hander Cliff Lee to the Philadelphia Phillies for not, apparently, not much of anything. I like keeping top prospects around, but it turns out Lee was available for something less than top prospects, and the Dodgers were asleep at the switch, and Lee ended up with one of the Dodgers’ main rivals to win the National League pennant.

Yeah. Oops.

Realizing their pitching situation remained dire, given the latest (and presumably last) failed comeback by game-but-broken-down $47-million disaster Jason Schmidt … the Dodgers then decided to resolve their problems by letting Ned Colletti do what he seems to like best.

Dumpster-diving.

When Ned climbed back out, he had Vicente Padilla. Who not only isn’t a very good pitcher, he apparently isn’t a very good guy, either. Which is why the Texas Rangers waived him back on Aug. 8 — even while they still owed him about $4 million of the $12 million they committed to him this season and $2 million to buy him out of his option for 2010.

The Rangers’ willingness to walk away from that kind of cash commitment should be a big, flashing red light. “Danger, Ned! Danger!” But, then, Vicente probably looked kinda shiny to Ned, like a trove of aluminum cans, maybe, while he was poking around the dumpster bottom.

Padilla has a career ERA of 4.36 and a lifetime record of 96-85, which aren’t horrible numbers. But they’re nothing special, either. His career WHIP is 1.40, which is anything but tidy, and he isn’t striking out people much any more … So there’s all that.

But a bigger problem seems to be … Vicente Padilla is a jerk.

The Rangers,  anyway, seemed glad he was gone.

“About time,” said cleanup hitter Marlon Byrd, who also played with Padilla in Philadelphia. “It’s absolutely a positive for this team. We have to get rid of the negatives to make a positive, and I believe this is a huge positive for this team.”

In this story from the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Rangers all-star second baseman Ian Kinsler is quoted as saying “congrats” to general manager Jon Daniels, after word of Padilla’s release got around.

Padilla is a head-hunter as a pitcher, apparently. Since 2002, he’s plunked/beaned 97 batters. And Texas teammates didn’t appreciate the inevitable retaliation inflicted on them by opposition pitchers.

According to the Star-Telegram, Daniels later said Padilla’s dumping “had as much to do with what he did in the clubhouse as it did with his on-field antics. Teammates said Padilla was often late for meetings, or didn’t attend them at all, and he would escape to the clubhouse during games to check e-mail and surf the Internet.”

Sure. Bring that guy on!

Joe Torre didn’t even defend Padilla, after the deal, instead saying the Dodgers are “far enough along that if someone’s a bad influence, it’s not going to affect other people.”

There’s a ringing endorsement.

The bigger point here is that the Dodgers, who used to be about “character” guys with long-term connections to the team, now are into the habit of picking up other people’s discards. Manny Ramirez is a ticking time bomb, and not just with the bat, and now they have Vicente Padilla, bad actor.

Given that the Dodgers wouldn’t trade for Cliff Lee or Roy Halladay … and given that Hiroki Kuroda is on the DL after being hit in the head by a line drive … I’d still rather have the Dodgers try to patch things up with what they had in the system. Jeff Weaver, Eric Stults, the Charlie Haeger kid … how much worse can they be as pitchers — or human beings — than Vicente Padilla?

But Ned has demonstrated he doesn’t really care who plays for him. Druggies, head-hunters, other teams’ detritus. Especially if he can get them for the major-league minimum, which is the Dodgers’ commitment to Padilla. About $100,000, that is.

Yes. This used to be a classy franchise. Hard to imagine.