Guerrero Deal Happened Quickly

Get this:

It’s last Wednesday afternoon, and Angel General Manager Bill Stoneman, still searching for a first baseman, makes a call to agent Fernando Cuza to see if free agent Rafael Palmeiro’s asking price has gone down.

Cuza isn’t available, but colleague Pat Rooney takes the call and tells Stoneman that Palmeiro is about to sign (with the Baltimore Orioles, as it turns out).

That, of course, might have been the end of the conversation, thank you, but it’s Stoneman’s nickel, so Rooney decides to ask if the Angels have any interest in Vladimir Guerrero, and that’s how it happened.

That’s how Stoneman and his boss, Arte Moreno, two guys who have proved they don’t have to hear opportunity knock twice, converted an inquiry about the aging Palmeiro into the acquisition of the prime-time Guerrero -- and needed only 48 hours to do it.

By Friday at 5 p.m., having made their first offer on Thursday while operating under the radar of publicized Guerrero offers by the Orioles and New York Mets, Stoneman and Moreno had beat the ticking clock and completed a transaction that would be called historic and the biggest in club history during an Angel Stadium news conference introducing their new right fielder Monday.

Hyperbolic?

Who could blame the Angels for being a little excited?

What’s not to like about the way the new owner and his GM have aggressively gone about their winter business?

Having previously invested $75.75 million in Bartolo Colon, Kelvim Escobar and Jose Guillen, Moreno didn’t hesitate when Stoneman called to tell him about the conversation with Rooney and to ask if there was enough money left to make a quick pursuit of Guerrero.

“It was one of those wow deals like meeting Roger Clemens last year,” Moreno said of learning that the Angels could have Guerrero for the right price. “I mean, he’s one of the best talents in baseball. I told Bill we’d be crazy not to be involved.”

The Angels have guaranteed Guerrero $70 million for five years and $82 million if they pick up a sixth-year option. Moreno even volunteered Monday to help him out of his sports jacket and into a club jersey.

Of course, the atmosphere may be far less cordial during a meeting of major league owners in Arizona this week.

Moreno knows that his winter shopping spree has probably made him a target.

“I’m going to look like Custer with a bunch of arrows in my back,” he said, but so be it. “I mean, what would the reaction have been when people learned I had Vladimir Guerrero in my hands and let him go. I’ve got to live with my fans and writers. It won’t be the last time I’ll be beat down by my peers.”

Besides, Moreno added, most people would have considered $70 million for Guerrero a bargain going into the winter, and at 27 he’s simply another cornerstone in creation of a solid foundation -- another “capital investment in the short-term to supplement a championship team and create long-term stability.”

Some investments require days, weeks or months to ponder.

In Guerrero’s case, Moreno said, there were other offers on the table and “he was not going to be there the next day, and I was told he might not have been there even a half-hour later.”

Many, of course, would never have believed that the premier player in the 2003-04 free-agent crop would still be available in mid-January.

However, a stagnant market in which the New York Yankees opted for Gary Sheffield rather than setting a bull-market scale for Guerrero contributed to his availability.

So did the speculation -- misguided as it has turned out to be -- that he didn’t want to play on the West Coast or switch leagues, and, to a larger extent, so did concern about the herniated disk that sidelined him for six weeks last year.

His initial asking price -- reportedly $145 million for seven or eight years -- generated no interest.

“We had some early conversations.... “ Stoneman said, “but we were focused on pitching, and with the numbers being tossed around then, I just didn’t think we could be a player.”

Ultimately, when offered to the Angels again Wednesday, Guerrero’s numbers had changed dramatically and his options were a six-year, $78-million offer from the Orioles and a three-year, $30-million guarantee from the Mets, part of an incentive-laden proposal generating $71 million over five years.

Agents Rooney and Cuza wouldn’t discuss the Oriole or Met specifics while attending Monday’s news conference, but the absence of a sizable Dominican population in Baltimore concerned the family-oriented Guerrero, according to sources, and the three-year Met guarantee was considered insulting.

“Look,” said Rooney, “the bottom line is that Vladi saw an opportunity to win quicker with the Angels, and that’s where his focus is. The fact that his brother [former Dodger Wilton Guerrero] was familiar with the area and the growth of the Spanish population was simply an added value.”

So was the signing of fellow Dominicans Colon and Guillen, along with the fact that the Angel owner speaks Spanish, although Moreno and Guerrero didn’t talk before the contract agreement.

“The makeup of the club was important to Vladi in several ways,” Rooney said, “but we told the Angels that we were down the road with a couple clubs and it had to happen soon if it was going to happen.”

Stoneman didn’t have to be convinced.

He was a Montreal Expo official in Guerrero’s first spring with the team and knew then he was something special.

“He was a tall, skinny 17-year-old kid who had unbelievable strength and bat speed,” Stoneman said.

“The way the ball came off his bat, I remember telling myself, ‘This kid is different, you better pay attention.’ ”

It’s clear that the GM was definitely paying attention when Rooney gave him the bad news about Palmeiro on Wednesday.