New Look This Season In Baseball Champions Dismantled, Expansion Teams Shore Up … Could Be Anybody’s Race
Welcome to baseball in the late 1990s, when spring training can begin with an expansion team looking every bit as imposing as the defending World Series champion.
Major league teams will begin opening spring training camps this week, and it has become clearer than ever that the six weeks spent in Florida and Arizona are not what they once were.
For decades, spring training was revered as that lazy time with little more to do than dream about this hitter batting .300, that pitcher winning 20 games or this club finding a way to capture the pennant. These days, spring training is the time when everyone in the sport catches his breath and tries to figure out how the pieces fit together now that the players are done scurrying from team to team.
The baseball landscape looks far different than it did 106 days ago, when the Florida Marlins won the World Series in only their fifth season.
The Marlins are defending champions in name only. They bought a World Series team last season on an $89 million free agent spending spree authorized by team owner Wayne Huizenga. And they raffled off a World Series team this winter. Victories on the field didn’t translate into success at the Pro Player Stadium turnstiles, and Huizenga ordered a payroll-slashing dismantling that general manager Dave Dombrowski carried out by trading, among others, pitchers Kevin Brown, Robb Nen and Al Leiter, outfielders Moises Alou and Devon White and first baseman Jeff Conine. Third baseman Bobby Bonilla and right fielder Gary Sheffield are likely to start only because of their too-hefty-to-trade contracts.
The Marlins are blessed with promising young players, and their lineup probably will remain dangerous. But manager Jim Leyland has been left to patch together a pitching staff with far too little help for 22-year-old postseason hero Livan Hernandez - who has all of nine regular season triumphs on his big league resume.
“I hear a lot of people saying that we’ll be non-competitive, and I don’t think that’s the case,” Dombrowski said. “Obviously, you don’t like to have to do what we did, but the financial realities of our situation dictated that. When it’s all said and done, we’ll have question marks. But we’ll also have a nucleus … I believe we can build around.”
It not only was an off-season in which the World Series champions were disassembled. It also was an off-season in which the American League manager of the year (Baltimore’s Davey Johnson) resigned and the National League Cy Young Award winner (Montreal’s Pedro Martinez) was traded.
It was an off-season in which the Boston Red Sox raised the salary bar yet again by acquiring Martinez and signing him to a six-year, $75 million contract that, with an option year, could be worth $90 million over seven seasons. It was an off-season in which the Arizona Diamondbacks assembled what promises to be the sport’s best expansion team ever.
The Diamondbacks and Tampa Bay Devil Rays become baseball’s 29th and 30th franchises, and neither was bashful about spending money this winter. The Diamondbacks, in particular, seem poised to be unusually competitive, especially after their recent signing of free-agent pitcher Andy Benes gave them a legitimate No. 1 starter.
Arizona will have a first-season player payroll of close to $30 million. The Diamondbacks will have a lineup that will include Matt Williams, Jay Bell, White and rookie of the year prospect Travis Lee. Benes will be the anchor of a starting rotation with Willie Blair, Brian Anderson, Jeff Suppan and Bob Wolcott.
But general manager Joe Garagiola Jr. played down talk his club could be a playoff contender in year one.
“We’re in a pretty tough situation,” Garagiola said. “I look around our division (the N.L. West), and I see some pretty good teams. We just want to be competitive every night. Our goal was that we didn’t want to be the soft spot on anyone’s schedule, not even in our first year.”
It should be an intriguing 1998 season. In a year with expansion-thinned pitching, will Mark McGwire or Ken Griffey Jr. reach Roger Maris’ season home run record? Will Tony Gwynn make an extended run at a .400 batting average?
Will baseball resolve its commissioner situation? Bud Selig has served as acting commissioner since September 1992. The owners have had a search committee working for months, but most baseball people say they believe Selig will accept the job on a permanent basis - perhaps as soon as next month.
Will there be further realignment? Selig’s Milwaukee Brewers become the first team this century to switch leagues with their move to the N.L. this season, but the owners have promised further shuffling. xxxx SPRING TRAINING Friday: First day pitchers, catchers and injured players may work out under supervision of team personnel. Feb. 19: First day all other players may work out under supervision of team personnel. Feb. 27: Mandatory reporting date.