Ken Gurnick of MLB.com looks at Ned Colletti’s intriguing new front-office hire: director of contracts, research and operations Alex Tamin:

… “People view me as old-school, focused on scouting,” said Colletti. “But I’ve always used statistical analysis; we’ll use more of it now. That doesn’t mean every decision we make will now be based on statistical analysis. You’re still at the mercy of the market. So this doesn’t mean everybody we bring in will have a .400 on-base percentage or an .800 [on-base plus slugging percentage]. Sometimes, it’s just about who’s out there.”

One guy out there was Tamin. The attorney spent 14 years at the law firm Jeffer, Mangels, Butler & Marmaro, where he assisted on baseball arbitration cases with Mark Rosenthal, the primary hired gun for several Major League teams until his death from cancer in 2010.

Tamin, meanwhile, had been on his own for two years when Colletti called shortly after the departure of vice president and assistant GM Kim Ng, who had managed the Dodgers’ arbitration process for a decade before leaving in April for the Commissioner’s Office. Colletti said Tamin hit his radar during the Joe Beimel arbitration case, which the Dodgers won in 2007.

“Alex was always the quiet second guy with Mark Rosenthal in the hearing. Then he gave a rebuttal and I thought, ‘Who is this guy?'” said Colletti. “It was so powerful and thorough. When Kim left, it was even more important to make sure we kept Alex on. He was thinking about working for a club. As the year went on we stayed in touch, and near the end of the season we struck a deal.” …

… “I don’t belong to SABR — I’m not a statistician,” Tamin said of the Society for American Baseball Research. “I’ve read Bill James and I come at it with a larger perspective. As a kid, I tried to play as far as my talent allowed. I was a devotee of the Strat-O-Matic game, an early follower of STATS Inc. The Baseball-Reference.com website was like finding the Holy Grail, and I watched it blossom. It’s pretty phenomenal.” …