Baseball

Chan Ho Is Ho-hum
Dodger Chan Ho Park's fizzle could cost him big in the free-agent market

Earlier this season agent Scott Boras predicted that one of his clients, Dodgers righthander Chan Ho Park, would command a contract worth $20 million per year on the free-agent market this winter. Such a deal would make Park the highest-paid pitcher in baseball, and that possibility essentially transformed Park's season into a series of auditions for the role of high-priced ace while he has tried to help pitch Los Angeles into the playoffs. As the year winds down, however, Park appears to be falling short on both fronts.

With 12 games to play, the Dodgers, who had lost seven of their last nine, trailed the Diamondbacks by four games in the National League West and the Cardinals by five in the wild-card race. After starting 11-6 with a 2.85 ERA, Park had dropped to 13-11 and 3.30, and he had won only twice since the beginning of August.

Seven innings into his start against Arizona last Thursday, Park left with stiffness in his pitching elbow. That followed a disastrous relief outing three days earlier, in L.A.'s first game after baseball's six-day hiatus in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks. Park was summoned in the seventh of a 1-1 game against the Padres and failed to retire any of the five hitters he faced. He took the loss after getting booed off the mound at Dodger Stadium.

That debacle sparked criticism from Boras of the way LA was using Park, 28, and from others it rekindled the questions about Park's tenacity and toughness that have dogged him through much of his eight-year career. "Twenty million for a guy who's 20 games over .500 in his career?" scoffs one National League advance scout, pointing to Park's 78-54 record. "That's exactly what's wrong with this game."

"I don't think the Dodgers will make the same mistake they made with [Darren] Dreifort," says one National League general manager, referring to the five-year, $55 million deal L.A. gave 29-year-old righthander Dreifort to re-sign last winter. Dreifort, another Boras client, was 4-7 with a 5.13 ERA before undergoing surgery to repair a torn elbow ligament in early July; he could be sidelined until the start of the 2003 season. "As for the rest of the clubs, I don't think the money's out there."

Not that Park will want for suitors. He is still the cream of what will be a thin crop of free-agent starters (chart). His 95-mph fastball and sharp curve are ace quality, and through Sunday he was third in the National League in strikeouts (211) and opponents' batting average (.212). Still, Boras may find the going slow if he begins negotiations with the $20 million mark in mind. "Park has the potential to be great," says Diamondbacks manager Bob Brenly, "but he hasn't done what some others have."

Players Likely to Leave
Pack Up Your Cares and Woes

Six months ago the Reds approached Pokey Reese, their 28-year-old second baseman, with an offer of a four-year, $21 million deal that would have kept Reese, a two-time Gold Glove winner and an accomplished base stealer, in Cincinnati through the prime of his career. The Reds saw him as a core player in their plan to build a contender in time for the opening of their new ballpark in 2003. How highly did the club dunk of Reese? He was the player whom general manager Jim Bowden refused to part with to get Ken Griffey Jr., a stance that nearly put the kibosh on Cincy's trade talks with the Mariners in December 1999.

What a difference a season makes. Through Sunday Reese was batting .226, had tied his career-high in errors (15, including 10 in 78 games at shortstop) and, frustrated by the Reds' disappointing performance, had spent much of the year bickering with management. In May, as Cincinnati fell into the National League Central cellar, he called Bowden a liar—in response to trade minors and disputed reports of contract negotiations—and indicated more than once that he wanted to be traded. Bowden has spent much of the season trying to accommodate Reese and nearly completed a deal that would have sent him to the Yankees. Instead of being a key part of the Reds' future, Reese appears headed out of Cincinnati in the off-season.