Piniella Scores With Off-Season Game Plan While Short On ‘Big-Ticket’ Free Agents, Mariners Manage ‘Productive’ Week

When you don’t have as much money in your wallet as the New York Yankees or the Toronto Blue Jays, you have to be a thrifty buyer.

“You have to have a game plan, you really do,” Seattle Mariners manager Lou Piniella said Sunday. “We’ve had a game plan in motion basically since last October.”

There’s no way Piniella and the Mariners had enough cash to come up with the likes of Orel Hershiser, Larry Walker, David Cone or Jim Abbott, some of the big names who have changed clubs since the end of baseball’s 232-day strike.

So the Mariners settled for free-agent pickups Joey Cora and Chad Kreuter, signing them to one-year contracts.

“The people that we’ve added here haven’t been big-ticket guys,” Piniella admitted.

The Mariners gambled following the end of the strike when they said they wouldn’t wind up in salary arbitration with first baseman Tino Martinez and left-hander Dave Fleming. Martinez signed a one-year contract for $1 million and Fleming got a oneyear deal for $850,000.

“We’ve had a very productive week,” Piniella said. “We’ve done all right. We’ve done very well.”

Cora, who was with the Chicago White Sox the past four years, may become Piniella’s starting second baseman. And Kreuter, in Detroit the last three seasons, will split time with Dan Wilson, the Mariners’ regular catcher last season.

Both are switch-hitters, giving Piniella more flexibility.

“Cora came from a winning situation in Chicago,” Piniella said. “He gives us some speed and he gives us a good contact-type bat in the first or second hole. He’s got experience. He’s going to be a valuable addition.

“Kreuter gives us another lefthanded bat. And remember this team struggled against right-handed pitching last season.”

Felix Fermin, who finished last season as Seattle’s second baseman, may return to shortstop this season. It depends on the play of Luis Sojo, who was at shortstop when the strike began.

During the winter, the Mariners were able to sign Jay Buhner, although he could have left as a free agent to Baltimore. They also kept Fermin, who could have gone as a free agent.

“We’ve had a pretty good idea of what we wanted to have,” Piniella said. “I think it’s worked out quite well.”

Because of a spring training shortened to three weeks by the late end of the strike, 19-year-old Alex Rodriguez likely will report to Class AAA Tacoma after spring training.

Rodriguez was the first player picked in the 1993 amateur draft and played 17 games with the Mariners last season. He is regarded as the Mariners’ shortstop of the future.

“Alex has got a lot of talent,” Piniella said. “He’s going to be an outstanding major-league player. I’m not sure that this will be his spring.”

Mariners owners have told general manager Woody Woodward to get rid of $5 million in salary to get the team down to a payroll of $30 million.