I don’t see these Dodgers contending for anything. Aside of “worst team seen by the most people,” which they are close to clinching, before May 1.

Their slow start isn’t just a slow start, the sort of random sample of 9-13 you could pick out of most any ball team’s 162-game season. I believe their slow start is a preview of the whole season.

I believe they are a team that could lose 90 games. Oh, yeah. At the pace they are on (.409 winning percentage) … they will lose 96, actually.

And that sort of performance … doesn’t it have to land in the lap of general manager Ned Colletti?

Let’s see, No. 7 payroll in the majors ($118 million), by ESPN’s accounting … but maybe one of the worst seven teams in baseball?

That payroll includes what now appears to be three enormously expensive busts wrought by, yes, Ned Colletti.

Those three:

1. Andruw Jones, to whom Ned gave a contract worth $36.5 million for this season and next. The man who is hitting a buck-fifty with one homer 22 games into the season. Who is fat, out of shape and doesn’t seem to give a crap.

2. Juan Pierre, the singles-slugging out machine who can’t throw. He is getting $44 million for five years and this is (gulp) only Year 2. At least Joe Torre is smart enough not to start the guy, and how big a repudiation of Ned’s talent assessing is that?

3. Jason Schmidt, a broken-down right-hander who will clear $47 million from the Dodgers over three years. We are in Year 2 of this one, and Jason Schmidt’s total contribution to the Dodgers organization so far: 25.2 innings, a 6.31 ERA and a 1-4 record.

Colletti isn’t an evil man. Just an incompetent one.

Anybody is entitled to one mistake. Ned, however, is making them by the boatload. And these aren’t little mistakes. They’re whoppers of the sort that drive up ticket prices and the cost of concessions … while turning your franchise into a laughingstock.

Some other Ned disasters:

1. Nomar Garciaparra, a guy who is done, done, done … who is in Year 2 of a two-year, $18.5 million Ned giveaway.

2. Jeff Kent, the one-man clubhouse chemistry-wrecker, who re-upped for $9 million. Yes, the man is a future Hall of Famer, but not for what he brings to the table now — occasional power, no speed and an inability to adequately play the second-most important infield position.

This team is a mess. Too old and broken down in some spots, too young and inexperienced in the rest. Aside from Rafael Furcal, that is.

And how are the kids doing?

James Loney is going to hit for average it seems, but do you want a singles-hitter at first base for 10 years?

Matt Kemp … still waiting for him to do something. Do you know he’s 1-for-17 in his career with the bases loaded? Mentally shaky.

Russell Martin … most everyone loves the kid to death, but was 2007 one giant aberration? Almost a month into 2008, it’s beginning to look like he’s more Paul Lo Duca than Mike Piazza.

Chad Billingsley … still waiting for him to throw strikes often enough that 1) will miss bats and 2) enable him to get into the seventh inning with regularity, as opposed to the fifth.

Andy LaRoche … still waiting for him to do anything other than rehab an injury.

Jonathan Broxton. Well, he looks like a real pitcher, anyway.

Andre Ethier. Could be OK. Not superstar, OK, but a competent major-league outfielder. You need about two dozen guys just like him to win … or a half-dozen guys better than him to contend.

This is Ned’s third year. I would like to see him do well because, heck, he’s a former sports writer for the Philadelphia Journal. (Though he seems loath to admit it; it’s not mentioned in his Dodgers media-guide bio.) And because the Dodgers are the team I followed in my youth. A proud brand.

But this is his third season on the job, and we’re hard-pressed to come up with a major decision of his that went right — other than Rafael Furcal, who probably is worth the $39 million he’s getting for three years.

Meanwhile, we have lots of mistakes. Enormous mistakes. Blunders that many of us, simple fans and scribes, believed were mistakes from Day 1. Juan Pierre? Andruw Jones? And the worst of all, the Jason Schmidt who Ned could see with his own eyes was in the process of breaking down, with the Giants?

We can’t fire Frank McCourt, though we would love to. He owns the team for better or worse — or truly heinous.

But Frank can take another whack at getting this GM thing right. There must be some Red Sox junior exec Frank has yearned to hire … and who couldn’t be worse than Ned.

So, when does Ned get fired? I’m thinking November. Right after the playoffs are over. The playoffs the Dodgers will be watching on TV, same as usual.