Dodgers’ Kemp doesn’t want to be traded

Maybe the kids do get it.

A day after speculation swirled that the Dodgers would potentially be willing to part with promising outfielder Matt Kemp in an off-season deal, Kemp said he hoped to develop into a star with the club.

“I love it here in L.A.,” Kemp said before the Dodgers’ 2-0 loss to the Colorado Rockies on Wednesday night, the first game the Dodgers have taken the field knowing they were removed from playoff contention. “There’s no other place I’d rather be.”

Near this year’s trade deadline, many of the Dodgers’ prospects were ruled untouchable in deals that could have brought the team a veteran bat.

But that thinking may have changed within the last week because of a generational divide in the clubhouse.

Veteran infielder Jeff Kent publicly stated his dissatisfaction with how some of the team’s younger players handled themselves in preparing for games.

Kemp and first baseman James Loney, both 23, were among the most vocal in questioning Kent’s comments. Kemp responded: “If you take the younger guys away, do you have a team?”

On Wednesday, Kemp, who is hitting .331, seemed ready to put the rift and the gossip behind.

“Rumors are rumors,” he said. “They are going to be untrue until they happen and whatever happens, happens.”

Manager Grady Little also brushed aside the trade rumblings, but praised Kemp’s development the last year.

“He’s nowhere near the finished product, but he’s made a lot of progress,” Little said.

While Kemp professed his desire to remain a Dodger, outfielder Luis Gonzalez, who expressed frustration at seeing his playing time doled out to younger players, confirmed what had been talked about for weeks.

“I’m not coming back,” said Gonzalez, 40, a clubhouse favorite and big league mainstay for nearly two decades. “You can write that down. It’s no secret.”

Asked if there would be any mixed feelings leaving the franchise, Gonzalez said, “Nope. Just moving on. Cutting the cord.”

In his only season as a Dodger, Gonzalez is hitting .275 with 15 home runs and 67 runs batted in.

Meanwhile, Dave Stewart, a former Dodgers and Oakland Athletics pitcher and a four-time 20-game winner, threw more fuel into the Dodgers’ volatile clubhouse situation.

Stewart, now an agent for Kemp and pitcher Chad Billingsley and known for his intimidating glare at batters from the mound, said the organization should have started playing its younger players earlier after some of the veterans faltered.

But he reserved his harshest criticism for Kent.

“I think the way Kent handled this whole situation is complete garbage,” Stewart wrote in a blog. “I wasn’t in that clubhouse, but chances are he didn’t say a damn thing all year long and waited until they got eliminated to criticize and cry like a baby.

“Furthermore, if a veteran player doesn’t want to play a leadership role, that’s obviously their choice. However, if you don’t want to be a leader then you need to shut up.”

Kent, who did not play after leaving Tuesday’s game in the fifth inning after a collision at the plate, said after Wednesday’s game that it was easy for Stewart to “sit and blog behind a desk” and “he has no idea what’s going on,” in the Dodgers clubhouse.

“His comments don’t hold any weight,” Kent said.

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