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Inside Baseball
Posted: Tuesday January 18, 2000 01:57 PM Red Sox Get Everett | Separated at Worth? It may take a sinister plan to beat the Yankees By Tom Verducci
The three American League playoff clubs that did not reach last year's World Series asked themselves the same question this off-season: How do you stop the Yankees? They all came up with the same answer: lefthanded starting pitching. The only wonder is why the Red Sox, who added Jeff Fassero; the Indians, who signed Chuck Finley; and the Rangers, who added Darren Oliver, Kenny Rogers and Justin Thompson, didn't try this tack sooner.
"When all five of your starters are righthanded, you're bound to have look-alikes, like Charles Nagy and Dave Burba," Indians general manager John Hart says. "That's why I wanted a lefthanded starter. And yes, it doesn't hurt that our guy [Finley] has a good track record [15-9] against the team we're all chasing. Our goal was to have more balance." That's one reason Red Sox general manager Dan Duquette took a flier on Fassero rather than on Dwight Gooden, a righthander who signed with the Astros. Duquette believes Fassero, who last year had a career-worst 7.20 ERA with Seattle and Texas, can -- with the help of Red Sox pitching coach Joe Kerrigan, his mentor in Montreal -- return to the form that brought him 15 wins with the Expos in 1996. Hart says there is a reason teams haven't thrown more lefties against the Yankees: "They're hard to find." The dearth of lefties has been more acute in the American League than in the National. The lefty shortage is so dire that: The Yankees have been so ferocious in October that the lefthanded pitching they've seen from the National League in the World Series hasn't bothered them either. They are 4-0 in those games since 1996, winning against the Braves' Tom Glavine (twice) and Denny Neagle and the Padres' Sterling Hitchcock. Still, the American League contenders are now better armed than they have been during this Yankees run. "We take nothing for granted," says Hart, "but there's no question that with the emergence of [Bartolo] Colon and the addition of Finley, we look more formidable in a short series. Of the teams in the playoffs last year, we all feel that we've gotten better and the Yankees have stayed the same. That's not bad."
Mid-Market Pitching: A gaggle of unspectacular pitchers looking for spectacular money hit the free-agent market this winter dreaming of the kind of pay dirt found by kindred hurlers Todd Stottlemyre and Al Leiter a year ago. (Each signed for $32 million over four years, Stottlemyre with the Diamondbacks, Leiter with the Mets.) That kind of funny money never materialized. Kenny Rogers ($22.5 million from the Rangers), Darren Oliver ($19 million, Rangers) and Andy Benes ($18 million, Cardinals) signed for three guaranteed years, while Aaron Sele ($15 million, Mariners), Juan Guzman ($12.5 million, Devil Rays) and Omar Olivares ($8 million, A's) took two. Steve Trachsel ($1 million, Devil Rays) got only one year. What happened? Did the owners at last show some admirable restraint in signing pitchers who don't sell tickets or win pennants, or was there something more fiendish at work? It depends on whom you ask. The management side: "Nobody in the group stood out," says the Red Sox' Dan Duquette. "If you didn't sign one of them, you could move on to the next. The demand wasn't high." The players' side: "It's that C word," one agent says. "It was a collusive market. I believe they got together, decided where the market was and let these pitchers fall where they may." That's an odd claim, considering that no one dared apply the C word to the rest of the market, which saw setup relievers such as Mike Trombley, Arthur Rhodes and Graeme Lloyd hit it big. In any case, several pitchers were burned by the market after rejecting more lucrative offers from their former teams: Benes (approximately $25 million over three years), Oliver ($24 million over four years), Sele ($28 million over four years) and Trachsel (about $6 million in arbitration). Hideo Nomo, who wasn't interested in $9 million over three years from the Brewers during the season, is still looking. Sele did have a $29 million, four-year offer in hand from Baltimore, but that disappeared after Orioles owner Peter Angelos took a look at the report on Sele from the team physician. Angelos, who already had asked that $8 million be deferred, then asked Sele to cut the average annual value of the deal and reduce the guaranteed years to three. Adam Katz, Sele's agent, says three other doctors had found nothing but normal wear in Sele's shoulder. Angelos's concerns sent Sele sailing to the Mariners.
Red Sox Get Everett: When the Red Sox obtained centerfielder Carl Everett from the Astros last month for prospects Adam Everett and Greg Miller, Houston manager Larry Dierker told Boston, "You just got the best clutch hitter in our league from the seventh inning on." Red Sox G.M. Dan Duquette, referring to his shortstop, Nomar Garciaparra, says, "We already have the best clutch hitter in our league." The switch-hitting Everett batted .341 in the late innings of close games, 11th best in the National League. Garciaparra, who hits righthanded, ranked third in the American League in that situation (.385). Now it's up to manager Jimy Williams to figure out where each will hit in the batting order. So far he's not saying. Garciaparra, the American League batting champ (.357) while hitting cleanup, and Everett, the third-best number 5 hitter in the National League while protecting MVP runner-up Jeff Bagwell, say they have no preference. "We have a righthanded hitter, a switch-hitter and a lefthanded hitter [leftfielder Troy O'Leary] in the middle of the lineup," Duquette says. "It's an ideal situation no matter how it works out."
Issue date: January 24, 2000
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