I arrived here at ringside for the 85th annual winter baseball convention in good time, eager and ready to report significant happenings. But I am concerned. Peter Ueberroth, baseball`s czar, has taken the baby and cut it in half. The meetings have customarily run from Monday morning until midnight Friday, but the commissioner must be in a hurry to play golf because he has condensed the meetings to three days. The official departure time is Wednesday night.
This may not provide enough time to do much business. But many of the general managers will stay on with the hope of swinging deals.
”I don`t plan to leave until Friday or Saturday,” declared the Cubs`
Dallas Green, who is on the prowl in the lobby of the Diplomat Hotel, convention headquarters.
”Me, too! I`m staying,” announced Jack McKeon, the general manager of the San Diego Padres. The husky, cigar-chomping McKeon has earned the nickname of ”Trader Jack.” He is the Frank Lane of these times, a realist who understands the vagaries of professional sports. He is also expert, perhaps even better than Lane, at swinging the three-club deal.
As long as Trader Jack is on the scene, a blockbuster deal is always a possibility, and especially now because he is shopping Kevin McReynolds, a hard-hitting outfielder coveted by more than a half-dozen clubs.
Frank Cashen, the front-office boss of the New York Mets, appears to be another of the new realists. The Mets won the World Series, but Cashen, nonetheless, is anxious to make changes. Or so he says.
”All you have to do is look at what happened to the other championship clubs,” he said. ”They made the mistake of standing pat.”
Green agreed. ”We can`t hide under a rock,” he observed. ”But we can`t spend too much money, either.”
Green insists he has closed his purse. He is not alone. More than ever before, the owners and their administrators appear intent on holding the salary line. The average 1986 salary, for players on the 24-man major-league rosters, was $410,000, up from $368,000 in 1985. That`s an 11 percent increase, modest in comparison to the players` gains of four and five years ago.
Whether player compensation will continue to rise is the question that nobody can answer, not even Barry Rona, the executive director of the owners` Player Relations Committee. As such, Rona is management`s principal strategist and negotiator with the players` union.
Rona, who holds periodic meetings with owners and general managers, is an expert on the financial perils of high salaries and long-term contracts. In 1986, according to Rona, the 26 big-league clubs paid $22 million to players who had been released; the year before it was $13 million.
He said that ”by and large a significant number of clubs have wearied of playing the stalking horse for player agents.”
Translated, this means that the owners aren`t likely to bid blind and against each other for the premier free agents such as pitchers Jack Morris, Ron Guidry and Jim Clancy; catchers Lance Parrish and Rich Gedman; first baseman Bob Horner; and outfielders Tim Raines, Andre Dawson and Brian Downing.
Five of the 80 players who filed for free agency last month have re-signed with their former clubs, and at least two dozen may do the same before midnight Sunday, the first of several deadlines affecting free agents.
Impartial arbitration will be available to some, but certainly not to all, of the unsigned free agents. The player`s previous club has the option of offering the opportunity of going to arbitration. If it doesn`t, it can`t re- sign the player until May 1. If it does offer it, the player has until Dec. 19 to decide. If the answer is yes, he, in effect, has re-signed because the arbitrator`s decision is final.
This procedure was in place for the first time last year but was not significant. Of the 62 free agents, only 15 were given an arbitration opportunity. Twelve did not accept, and the other three signed before the actual hearing date. There is one more kicker: If the player rejects arbitration and the former club has not signed him by Jan. 8, it cannot reopen negotiations with him until May 1. So if the player doesn`t hook on with another club, he must sit out the first three weeks of the season.
These complications could diminish the likelihood of player deals here. The Detroit Tigers, for example, still don`t have a good fix on whether or not Morris or Parrish, or both, will roll over. They aren`t likely to know until the first week in January. As a result, they could be timid in regard to a major deal.
The elimination of the winter trading deadline also could lessen the possibility of many deals. Until recently, the deadline was midnight on the Friday of the winter convention. As Green has said: ”All this has done is make for more indecision. Why decide now when you can decide later?”
Still, this rule was in effect last year when there were 13 deals involving 28 players.
Although most, if not all, of the fan interest centers on player deals, other business is conducted. The owners are expected to approve unanimously the transfer of ownership of the Indians and the Mets.
There also will be the annual winter draft of the many fringe players who have been left unprotected by the major-league clubs. Last year nine of these players were chosen by rival clubs at a cost of $50,000 each.
