Beyond Manny And A-Rod: Other Baseball Moves

Charles Johnson, Mark Grace, Darren Driefort And Fernando Tatis Top The Hit List Today

Ed Dykhuizen, Staff Writer

Well, last week I zipped through my reactions on some of the biggest deals that went down during the winter meetings. I tried to look at the acquisitions in a way that others wouldn't: in terms of the real, long-term benefits that these players would provide to their new teams. I figured others would better cover the other issues involved, such as the damage all this may have on baseball as a whole.

And they did, believe you me. But by way of a quick postscript, I wouldn't feel right if I didn't weigh in a wee bit on the issue. It has been readily apparent for awhile that baseball has a haves/have-nots problem that other sports do not. Maybe because it is the oldest sport, it is also the most conservative, and the slowest to understand the need for salary caps and revenue sharing.

It's all so frustrating because it's so freakin' simple. Simpler than it should be, really. Salary caps and revenue sharing. Salary caps and revenue sharing. Next time someone bellyaches about baseball's difficult economic climate as if it's a tragic fact of life, tell him "salary caps and revenue sharing." Next time an owner says that the team isn't solvent and needs a new stadium, tell him, "salary caps and revenue sharing."

And that's all I really need to say on the subject. Salary caps and revenue sharing.

Other Deals:

They may not be as glamorous as the A-Rod and Ramirez signings, but many other interesting personnel moves went down recently.

Charles Johnson to the Florida Marlins: This just happened Monday. I'm really starting to like those Marlins. They went the stupid route at first, winning a World Championship behind a whole host of get-rich-quick signings. And then they discovered that the short-term strategy doesn't work -- building a perennial winner (or in owners' speak, a financially solvent commodity) is a much slower process.

So ever since, they've been going through that process, stocking up on prospects, gradually building a top-flight core. Luis Castillo is already one of the top five second basemen in baseball. Ryan Dempster is the kind of hard-throwing 23-year-old who begs comparisons to a young Roger Clemens. Cliff Floyd, Derrek Lee, Mike Lowell and Preston Wilson are young, powerful and getting better. Brad Penny, A.J. Burnett -- fantasy leaguers, these are young pitchers to watch.

And most astoundingly of all, all of these guys are 27 or younger. They will only get better as they reach their peak years.

Considering the talent on this team, it's surprising that they only won 79 games. But they had two gaping holes, gaping like the Grand Canyon "gapes." At catcher and shortstop they had probably the worst production in the majors.

At shortstop they have a good prospect, Pablo Ozuna, who is about ready to step in and erase memories of Alex Gonzalez' ungodly .229 OBP. And now they've filled the other hole with one of the better, more experienced catchers in the majors, Mr. Charles Johnson. His bat has been great some years and terrible in other ones, but he's an experienced anchor who can guide all those young pitchers. And he's pretty young himself, only 29 next year. A perfect match, methinks.

And all this while they sign a deal to build a new ballpark. Looks like the down years are over for Marlins fans. I don't know that I can find another organization in baseball with such a rosy future. If they play their cards right from here on out, the Marlins could be the Atlanta Braves of the Aughts.

Mark Grace to the Arizona Diamondbacks: In the aforementioned column last week, I got a little into the woes of this team. I'd like to expand on that now, since I don't have all the big important stuff to cover like I did last week. And I have to admit, I take a little sadistic pleasure in detailing Arizona's rapidly accelerating downfall.

You see, the D-backs have appeared to be one of the stupider organizations in history since their arrival on the scene. Granted, pitching-wise, they have been commendable, signing one of the best pitchers in baseball (Randy Johnson) and surrounding him with quality.

To that end, they're still doing smart things. It's probably a good idea to re-sign Curt Schilling for three years. Probably. I wouldn't be surprised if it works out well, but I also wouldn't be surprised if his arm falls off. He has logged an amazing number of innings the last few years. And he has a history of injuries.

But then again, he's only 34 next year, and is of the caliber that doesn't regress at that age. And he wasn't overworked before the age of 24, which is what killed the longevity of many great recent pitchers, from Dwight Gooden to Bret Saberhagen. He hasn't shown many signs of slowing down -- last year was a good one, despite the 11-12 record ? yeah, I think it's a good move.

But anyway, in terms of position players, most every move in the Diamondbacks' history has seemed ludicrous. Luis Gonzalez? A past-his-prime Jay Bell? A rapidly deteriorating Steve Finley? Tony freakin' Womack? After each acquisition I scoffed from my lofty high horse. I laughed loud and hearty, a bellowing, manly guffaw. HA HA HA HA! You see, as a rule, teams that sign on to mid-line talent who are in their 30s are teams that fail.

But the D-backs succeeded. And it made me mad, it stung my manly baseball-analyzing ego to see my reasonable and time-honored team-building strategies belied. They won 100 games in 1998 as Luis Gonzalez pretended that his first name was Juan and Matt Williams pretended his first name was Ted and Jay Bell pretended his first name was Albert (and his last name had another "e" on the end -- you get the idea) and Steve Finley pretended his name was ?um ? Reggie Jackson.

Now their offense is floundering, and I couldn't be happier. I was right, I was rii-iight. Nya nya, n-nya nya. The latest news shows that they don't now how to recover from a slight downturn.

When your team is slipping from getting too old, the first thing to not do is make it older by signing Mark Grace. Grace is about a league-average first baseman, but more importantly, he'll be 37 next year. When you're in such financial trouble that you need to take out a loan from major league baseball, you don't throw $6 million at two years of decelerating production from an old player whose best years wouldn't be as good as the in-house solution.

The in-house solution of which I speak would be a platoon of Greg Colbrunn and Erubiel Durazo. Neither has proven, on his own, to be a major-league starter, but Colbrunn is a great platoon player and Durazo is a youngster who just needs some experience to develop into a slugger with a long career. Together they would make for more power than Grace, if a slightly lower OBP.

Instead the D-backs are doing what bad teams do when they start to fall off, i.e., graft on a few short-term patches with quick and dirty free-agent signings instead of building for the long haul. The Grace signing should speed up their trajectory towards last place.

But then, keep in mind that the D-backs have made me look the fool before. If all goes according to precedent with this team, Mark Grace will hit 50 home runs and Arizona will win the World Series.

Darren Dreifort re-signs with the Dodgers for $55 million: Oh, come on, Dodgers. Granted, Dreifort has long been a good prospect -- too long, in fact. He'll be 29 next year, and it's not a good bet that he'll get much better than he is, which is very, very average. And average starters don't deserve five-year contracts worth $55 million. Especially when you already have a good pitching staff, stocked with Kevin Brown, Chan Ho Park and, just recently, Andy Ashby.

Time was, the Dodgers were the epitome of smart organizations. They developed from within so well that they dominated the Rookie of the Year voting and ended up with a long, storied history of success that rivals only the Cardinals among N.L. teams.

Heck, ever since the Branch Rickey days, they've been the best team in the NL, hands down. Twenty playoff appearances since Jackie Robinson signed on in 1947 -- that leaves everyone but the Yankees in the dust. All due to a terrific farm system and exemplary player development.

So why would you change something that's been working for fifty years? Well, the long green came in, in the form of new owner Rupert Murdoch. And, dizzy with money and overblown notions that it takes cash-hemorrhaging to succeed in the big bad new baseball world, they turned their back on their history of sane, mannered, confident winning.

They reverted to short-term strategies and bloated expectations, which have yielded fair-to-middlin' results. They're far from the worst team in the majors, with an 86-76 record last year and only one losing record in the last eight years. But if you read any baseball commentary in Los Angeles towards the end of last season, you'd think they were the 1962 Mets.

And the unreasonable pressure is probably making the front office panic, making them think that they just need to throw more money at the problem. When, in reality, what they need is to replace overrated, overpaid players like Mark Grudzielanek, Todd Hollandsworth, Devon White, Jeff Shaw and Eric Karros with some young talent. Karros may turn in a good season in 2001, but the rest ain't getting any better any time soon.

And they need to sit on their hands and let Adrian Beltre and Eric Gagne develop. But most of all they need to calm the hell down. Go back to the old system of bringing up youngsters, teaching them how to play right, and then going to the beach and chilling out. Ignore Murdoch's impatient answering machine messages demanding why you haven't won the World Series yet. He doesn't know baseball. The Dodgers do. Or they used to, anyway.

Fernando Tatis and Britt Reames to the Expos, Dustin Hermanson and Steve Kline to the Cardinals: One of the two major trades amongst all the signings. Trades are so much more fun to hear about. I miss trades ? :-(

God, I never thought I'd put a frowny face in one of these columns. But I also never thought the Cardinals would trade an established 25-year-old slugger with a great future. And I never ever thought third base would be manned in 2001 by a platoon of 25th men, Craig Paquette and Placido Polanco.

I'm thinking that because Tony La Russa's managerial strategy is so intractable (see previous column for the full tirade) that he can't manage without a top-flight situational lefty in the bullpen with which to play meaningless percentage games. And because of his inflexibility, they had to sacrifice one of their young, shining hopes.

One that reportedly had a bad attitude, and La Russa is one of these managers who would rather have a good-natured, humble .240 hitter than a testy .320 hitter. For as we all know, games are won and lost by Goshdarn Hard-Workin' Efforts Per Game (GHWEPG), and not silly, irrelevant things like "talent" and "ability."

But I'll stop myself there, lest I allow my partisan colors to show. Dustin Hermanson should provide an adequate replacement for Pat Hentgen in the rotation, since both are mediocre. And the Cards have enough offense elsewhere to cover the loss of Tatis until youngster Albert Pujols is ready to take over third.

Mostly, it seems like a coup for the Expos. In Tatis, they get a great young talent, experienced and ready to rock, already one of the four or five best in the majors at his position. As a bonus they get a kid in Reames who should do serviceable work in the rotation for a few years (probably not too many, though -- after all, he is 27 years old).

And yes, they lose a good reliever -- but I'm of the opinion that no reliever is as valuable as a starter or position player. The Expos shouldn't have too much difficulty picking up the slack; there are thousands of relievers out there. And if they don't, who cares? It's just one relief spot.

OK, that's plenty for one column. Any comments or questions? I'll respond to anything. I'm not proud.

Previous Diatribes . . . I Mean, Columns: