EVENTS
 Sportsman of the Year
 Heisman Trophy
 Swimsuit 2001

3. Los Angeles Dodgers

Having added a touch of Green, L.A. believes it has chased away the blues

By Ian Thomsan

Offense Defense Starting Pitching Bullpen Manager 1999 Record 77-85 (third in NL West) Batting Order CF Devon White 2B Mark Grudzielanek LF Gary Sheffield RF Shawn Green 1B Eric Karros C Todd Hundley 3B Adrian Beltre SS Alex Cora OF Todd Hollandsworth Bench OF F.P. Santangelo 1F Jose Vizcaino C Chad Kreuter 1F Dave Hansen Starters RH Kevin Brown RH Chan Ho Park RH Darren Dreifort RH Eric Gagne LH Carlos Perez Bullpen RH Jeff Shaw RH Gregg Olson RH Terry Adams LH Onan Masaoka RH Mike Fetters RH Orel Hershiser Next Up... Manager Davey Johnson calls 24-year-old Eric Gagne "the best French-speaking pitcher I've ever seen." The Dodgers found Gagne (pronounced gahn-YAY) in high school in Montreal, where he grew up playing baseball and hockey. "I was a goon, just protecting the better players," he says of his on-ice persona. "I've always been a better baseball player." L.A. signed Gagne in 1995 as a 19-year-old undrafted free agent and then waited for him to recover from Tommy John elbow surgery two years later. He arrived at spring training in '99 with prescription goggles, a vestige of his hockey days. "I couldn't wear contacts anymore because of all the scratches in my eyes," he says. Over the past two years Gagne is 22-12 with a 3.03 ERA and 349 strikeouts in 338 1/3 innings, including five impressive starts (1-1, 2.10) with the Dodgers last season. Warning to hitters: Think twice before charging him on the mound, eh? The Book An opposing team's scout sizes up the Dodgers: "The Dodgers should be improved over last year. They may even compete for the wild card. But some things are definitely missing.... Despite some improvement, Todd Hundley still can't throw. I saw the Cardinals steal four bases on him in a spring training game, and his throws weren't even close. His release is 2.1 to 2.2 seconds. Unless it's below two seconds, a catcher's not doing well.... Alex Cora is an above-average defensive shortstop, but I've seen teams throw so-so fastballs right by him. He'll be overmatched at the plate.... Third baseman Adrian Beltre is a coming star. He can turn a fastball around better than any young guy I've seen. He still tries to pull everything, but he'll learn.... Devon White is a problem in centerfield. He doesn't dive for balls or come to play every day. When he was younger, he could outrun everything, and he had a pretty quick bat. Now he's lazy, and it shows.... Carlos Perez doesn't throw as hard as he used to. His changeup used to have some down action, but no more. If he was an inexpensive free agent, I don't know if I'd advise a team to take him."

Gary Sheffield says the mood in the Dodgers' clubhouse last season was the worst he has experienced in his 12-year career. At least a half-dozen Los Angeles players had squabbles with manager Davey Johnson. "I could see Davey wasn't enjoying the game last year," Sheffield says. "He was making moves based on what guys were going to feel and how they were going to react."

But Sheffield thinks a new calm is about to prevail in L.A. His first clue came in January -- after an off-season filled with trades and free-agent signings by the Dodgers -- when he hosted Johnson at a party in St. Petersburg celebrating Gary's and wife DeLeon's recent marriage. "It was like this big sense of relief," Gary says. "Davey was dancing so much, I think he was embarrassing his wife. He was doing Elvis on the dance floor, kicking his legs out."

The biggest pickup in a busy off-season in Shawn Green gives the Dodgers just what they need: a big lefthanded bat in the heart of the order.Bob Rosato

Johnson agrees that his spirits have improved, and he thinks that the Dodgers' will follow suit. "We have options now," he says. "Last year we didn't. Last year, it was almost like you just had to stick your chin out and take it."

Much has been made of November's trade of Raul Mondesi to the Blue Jays for $84 million rightfielder Shawn Green, who should fill L.A.'s need for lefthanded power. The Dodgers may benefit even more from their subsequent purgings of second baseman Eric Young and righthander Ismael Valdes, who were traded to the Cubs for reliever Terry Adams and two minor league pitchers. Los Angeles was hammered for the apparent one-sidedness of the deal, but Young, like Mondesi, was a clubhouse troublemaker. Though Sheffield and Eric Karros each hit 34 home runs last year, 38 of them came with no one on base. L.A. is counting on 37-year-old Devon White to be a more productive leadoff man, but White hit just .268 last year, has never been a good on-base percentage guy and hasn't broken the 22-stolen base or 84-run mark since 1993.

As for Valdes, he had a well-established habit of losing the close ones -- the Dodgers were 2-13 in the one-run games he started last year. Of the 33 active starting pitchers in the major leagues with 1,000 or more innings and an ERA lower than 4.00, Valdes ranks last in victories and 25th in winning percentage (61-54, .530).

With 24-year-old Alex Cora expected to beat out Jose Vizcaino and Juan Castro at shortstop, the Los Angeles infield is deep enough to permit Johnson to exercise some options. The bullpen has been upgraded with three setup men who have closer's experience: Adams, Gregg Olson and Mike Fetters. They should form a better bridge to Jeff Shaw, whose 124 saves over the last three seasons are second in the National League only to Trevor Hoffman's 130. "This year we've given Davey a lot of choices," says general manager Kevin Malone.

But the Dodgers haven't gotten to the heart of the problem. In recent years L.A. has been a preseason favorite and a postseason no-show. The Dodgers haven't won a playoff game since 1988 -- when Orel Hershiser was SI's Sportsman of the Year after ending the season by pitching a record 59 consecutive scoreless innings. After having been away for five years, the free agent Hershiser has returned like the ghost of greatness past to find that the O'Malleys had sold the club to television people, that L.A. was on its third manager in three years (whereas Walter Alston and Tommy Lasorda had managed for the previous 42) and that there was talk of the Dodgers abandoning Vero Beach, their spring training site since '48, for ... Las Vegas.

Rather than be horrified, Hershiser suggests that this period of transition was almost inevitable. "In some ways the Dodgers organization fell slightly behind others in baseball," he says. "I wouldn't automatically take the word change as a negative."

One place where change would almost certainly be a positive is the starting rotation. Beyond stopper Kevin Brown, this group remains downright unpredictable. The one promising new face is rookie Eric Gagne, who takes over for Valdes. The Dodgers can only hope that Chan Ho Park and Darren Dreifort build on their improvements in the second half of last year, when they went a combined 14-9, 3.79. Carlos Perez signed a three-year deal worth $15.5 million before last season, started off 2-10 with a 7.43 ERA and was demoted to Triple A Albuquerque. If he doesn't pan out, the 41-year-old Hershiser will take his place.

The most important change, however, would be in attitude, and Sheffield thinks that will happen. "When you have a team as talented as ours, you have to learn how to do things as a unit," he says. "Probably half of our lineup had bad years last year. If we work together, that can change."

Issue date: March 27, 2000

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