Outfield of the Future? : Youth Might Not Be Enough to Keep Martinez, McReynolds and Gwynn Together for Very Long

Padre left fielder Carmelo Martinez, desperately seeking eloquence, nearly walked into the Padre offices this spring to demand that his uniform number be changed from 14 to 17.

This way, the outfield would be in order. Martinez, wearing No. 17, would be in left. Kevin McReynolds, already No. 18, would be in center, and Tony Gwynn, already No. 19, would be in right.

Alas, Martinez, also desperately seeking excellence, never made the request. He’d had a fine 1984 wearing No. 14 and feared a change would bring bad luck. Besides, even though the 17, 18, 19 combination sounded eloquent, anyone might be able to guess that the three won’t make up the Padre outfield for long.

While 1984 (their first full season together) was a honeymoon, 1985 has shown that they could soon be separated.

Martinez, his head often attuned more to rumors than to the game, has spent much of this season concerned about a possible trade. Jack McKeon, the Padre general manager, personally told him to stop worrying, and only now has Martinez seemed to have overcome this awful phobia. Still, he has not overcome his desire to play first base, his boyhood position, his favorite position and the place he’ll likely end up if Steve Garvey ever gets old and retires.

Once this season, Martinez played first late in a game, and, although he hadn’t done so in more than a year, he scooped up a low throw expertly. One Padre official, marveling, said, “It was like he’d been living there. He seemed so natural. He felt at home. You could see the look on his face.”

Said Martinez, bluntly: “First is my position. For sure. It’s the only thing I want to play. But you take what they give you.”

McReynolds, 5 for 57 (.088) since the All-Star break, says he’s in the worst slump of his major league career. He has been moved to seventh in the batting order. Obviously, that’s no reason to take him out of center field, but, privately, Padre officials think he’d be better off in left. Many times, they feel he gets late starts on fly balls, and they worry about his laid-back personality in a position that requires someone with a take-charge attitude.

And, on top of that, McReynolds’ relationship with Manager Dick Williams is perilous, and his agent’s relationship with the Padre front office is bitter, according to the agent, Tom Selakovich.

Why is there bitterness? McReynolds and Selakovich turned down a reported six-year, $4.5-million contract in spring training. And, while the Padres renewed McReynolds’ salary at $150,000 (“If anything started this season on a bad note, it’s that,” Selakovich said), Selakovich threatened to take the Padres to arbitration after this season.

McKeon said he’d prefer not to get into a war of words with Selakovich, adding, “We have nothing against any agent.”

Still, McReynolds laughed when asked how the Padres perceive him as a player.

“I wish I knew,” he said. “I really wish I knew what’s in their minds. I guess I’ll find out at the end of the season what they think of me.”

Though he’s convinced he’s been awful this year, Tony Gwynn is not hated. How could he be? He came up in the organization as a center fielder, moved to left when they asked him to and moved to right when they asked again. He won a batting title last season (though his average is down more than 40 points this year). He signed a long-term contract over the winter. He just bought a house. His wife is expecting the couple’s second child.

He’ll probably stay in the outfield, although perhaps not in right.

“All three of us are playing out of position if you ask scouts,” Gwynn said.

“I’d like to think we’ll all be together a while. But in this game, you can be here today, gone tomorrow. I’m signed until 1990, but that doesn’t mean I’ll be here until 1990.”

Carmelo Martinez--Give him a position.

It has been one position after another since he began playing the game. In Puerto Rico, where baseball is the only professional sport, you play a lot of places because you just want to play.

“In little league, you want to play so bad,” Martinez said. “They ask you: ‘Ever played shortstop?’ You haven’t, but you say, ‘Sure.’ ”

He’s the same way now. The other night in Atlanta, Bruce Bochy was about to pinch-hit in the 12th inning. If he had reached base, the Padres would have sent in a pinch-runner, but there would have been no other catchers available since Terry Kennedy had left the game.

Martinez turned his hat around and approached Deacon Jones, a Padre coach.

“I’ll catch,” he said.

“He would’ve, too,” Jones said, although Bochy never got to pinch-hit.

Martinez’s career has been one big position switch:

Growing Up--First base. “I was 16 1/2 when I signed my first pro contract. It was a Puerto Rican league. I made 20 bucks a game.”

A scout from the Cubs, Pedro Zorrilla, saw him play and offered him a contract, but Seattle and Kansas City made offers, too. He chose Chicago because the Cubs had the worst team at the time.

He wanted to go to a team he could play for.

Rookie Ball--He played first base, but nobody cared. He couldn’t hit. He batted .203 with one home run.

Class-A--He played third base for the first time. But he tried shortstop and second base, too. He went to the instructional league after the season and played both third and first.

Double-A--He played the first five games at third base, but that was it. In one game, he committed five throwing errors.

“A couple went into the seats,” he said. “And two went into right field because I’d been throwing to second.”

His team’s right fielder was called up to Triple-A, so they sent Martinez to play right. But a young prospect named Joe Carter (now with Cleveland) was drafted to play right. Martinez went to left when the left fielder got hurt, but that lasted only 10 games.

He never played, it seemed. He went to the manager and said, “I want to play. If I can’t, why don’t you send me to A ball?”

They put him at designated hitter that night. He went 5 for 6 with two homers and four RBIs. He was the DH the rest of the way.

Double-A, again--The Cub management wanted him to play first base. He hit .334 with 27 homers.

From Triple-A to the Cubs--He played first base again and had 31 home runs by August, when the Cubs called him up to replace the injured Bill Buckner at first. He started his first day and hit a home run on his first at-bat.

“Frank Pastore . . . Two-balls, one-strike. High fastball. Think I’d forget that?”

He rarely played once Buckner returned. And the Cubs had him shag fly balls in the outfield because they planned to move Leon Durham to first. Martinez went down to winter ball in Puerto Rico, where he was instructed to play first base but take fly balls every day.

It just so happened that the Padre bullpen coach, Harry Dunlop, was his manager in Puerto Rico. He was hitting him the fly balls.

One day, McKeon saw him.

“Lose a few more pounds, and you’re gonna be in shape,” McKeon said.

Said Martinez: “I said to myself: ‘Why did he say that?’ ”

Two weeks later, he was traded to the Padres.

He brought his first baseman’s glove, his infielder’s glove and his outfielder’s glove. They hit him ground balls and fly balls. Eventually, Williams said, “You have a chance to be my left fielder.”

He was and is.

Yet, he still makes mental mistakes out there. Padre coaches are always telling him, “Keep your head in the game,” because his mind wanders much too much. That’s their biggest gripe.

“It’s hard to play left because not many balls are hit to you,” he said. “But, at first base, you’re always in the game. Sometimes in left field, no balls are hit toward me until the sixth inning. You sit there waiting, waiting, waiting, and when it happens, you don’t know what to do sometimes.”

In the first inning of a game against St. Louis, with Vince Coleman on third and Jack Clark at the plate, Martinez let a ball he could have caught drop in foul territory. It was a mistake. It’s a smart play late in a game if you can’t throw out a runner from the outfield, but not early in a game. He gave Clark another chance, and Clark blasted one.

He came back to the dugout and admitted his mistake.

The Padres like that. They say he’s coachable.

“I’m still learning,” he said. “But I’ll play where they want me to play. I just want to play.”

Kevin McReynolds--Give him a contract.

Before Friday night’s game in Houston, McReynolds, silent as usual, walked into the batting cage. Dick Williams, silent as usual, watched him.

Crack. Crack. Crack.

Williams spoke up: “Turn it loose, Mac. Turn that baby loose.”

Crack. Crack. Crack.

“Atta baby, Mac,” Williams said.

There was no response, as usual. They have not spoken in months.

“When Kevin McReynolds finally gets fed up with the way Dick Williams handles him, when Kevin McReynolds blows up, it’ll be a real volcano,” said Selakovich, his agent.

“It’s a terrible relationship. Neither will address each other face to face. A spiteful relationship.”

Said McReynolds of Williams: “We’ll never be the best off-field buddies, but we’ll work together on the field. We have to make a good situation out of it.”

Williams, however, would not bad-mouth McReynolds publicly, though he has questioned his ability from time to time, like the other night in Atlanta when McReynolds couldn’t carry out a suicide squeeze. Privately, though, it has been said that Williams doesn’t like McReynolds’ non-aggressive attitude.

“How many people questioned my personality last year when I had a decent year?” McReynolds asked. “I ain’t going to change. I don’t have a reason to. I haven’t in the past, and I won’t in the future. That’s just the way I play.

“I try to keep my emotions to myself. I could come in and rack the helmet rack or beat my bat on the bench or cuss. But I don’t see what good that does. You just take a chance of hurting yourself.”

What about the contract? The biggest insult to McReynolds (and to Selakovich) came after the Padres offered him $175,000 for the first year of the proposed six-year contract. When he turned it down, the Padres had the right to set his 1985 salary at any figure, and they brought it down to $150,000.

“They offered a nice, six-year contract, and we almost signed,” Selakovich said. “Just because we didn’t sign, they became irritated. Because they don’t sign him, they punish him. He (Kevin) says it hasn’t hurt him, but it hurt me. And I’m sure it hurt him a small amount.”

“It’s an embarrassment. The disrespect they’ve paid me and Kevin in renewing his contract at $150,000. (It was $57,000 in 1984.) To be renewed at such an unprofessional and ridiculous salary. That started us off on the wrong foot this season.”

Padre officials say Selakovich started things wrong by saying he intended to take the club to arbitration. Yet, Selakovich says McReynolds “will probably become San Diego’s best player ever,” and because his client hit .278 with 20 homers and 75 RBIs and finished fourth in the gold glove balloting, Selakovich thinks he should be paid alongside other young players such as Darryl Strawberry, Dwight Gooden, Don Mattingly and Juan Samuel.

He does admit the Padres made a fair offer, but was upset when San Diego president Ballard Smith walked up to McReynolds’ wife, Jackie, after it was refused and said: “Do you believe your husband turned that down?”

Said McReynolds: “I said to her: ‘You don’t have to say anything. That’s between them and me and Tom.’ I don’t know if Ballard meant anything by it or not.

“When they were trying to sign me, they gave him (Selakovich) the blame. But I have the last say. People don’t realize that. I think I am (in the same class as Strawberry). If you look at me right now, I’d say no. But with the exception of the last six weeks, I’d say definitely. I wasn’t satisfied with the offer. Yeah, it was a little bit of an insult, but I’ll get over it.

“I want my fair share, and I don’t feel they’ve offered that.”

McReynolds is hitting .227 with 11 homers and 57 RBIs. This won’t help him in arbitration, although Selakovich, who took the Padres to arbitration with Tim Lollar, says it won’t hurt him, either. And it’s possible that a new collective bargaining agreement could rule out arbitration for second-year players, which would mean McReynolds would have to wait one more year.

“Personally, I hope it never comes down to arbitration,” McReynolds said. “That’s a last resort.”

Tony Gwynn--Give him a base hit.

The other day, Tony Gwynn, after lining out to the shortstop, came into the dugout and hurled his batting helmet.

He’s hitting .302.

That’s not enough.

Still, recently he made up his mind to wait for pitches he can hit to left field, and his average (once in the .290s) rose.

“Even if I get hot and end up .330, I won’t have been consistent,” he said. “It’s been like a roller coaster.”

But his defense and his throwing arm have never been better. Partly because he played basketball in college and didn’t train constantly for baseball, he says, “I don’t think I have what’s considered to be a big league arm.”

Still, he works hard every off-season, having people hit balls to the right-field power alley and right-field corner so he can practice crises. He says he’s comfortable in right, but must be considered a natural left fielder.

“He’s our best defensive outfielder,” McKeon said.

“Yeah,” Gwynn said, “but what about my ‘O’?”

Martinez just turned 25. McReynolds and Gwynn are 25, too.

Shouldn’t they constitute the Padre outfield in, say, 1990?

The question was directed to Williams.

“I think they’ll be much better all around players by then,” he said. “But whether it (the outfield) is the same or not depends on health or whether we have maneuvers. You can’t tell. Maybe Carmelo will be a first baseman by then. Maybe a kid center fielder will come in and be unbelievable.

“But I’d say they’ll be here a long, long time unless there’s a major trade. They are major factors in this ballclub’s future.”

But where?