It’s Crucial Winter for Free Agency in Major Leagues

A comparatively attractive group of baseball free agents will be eligible soon to test a market that was closed almost all of last winter.

Will it be reopening now?

Will there be competitive bidding?

Or will the owners maintain their unprecedented solidarity of last winter, effectively destroying the concept of free agency through what the Major League Players Assn. calls conspiracy, collusion and a violation of the collective bargaining agreement?

It is too early for definitive answers, but it seems likely that:

--The owners’ approach will not vary much from last winter, when only 5 of 62 free agents changed teams, almost a third were not signed at all and the union ultimately filed a grievance charging that the owners had conspired to restrict free-agent movement.

--The indiscriminate spending that drove the average major league salary from $51,107 in 1976, the first year of free agency, to $431,521 in 1986 will never be repeated--on a wide scale, at least.

Could there be isolated weakening in the owners’ new resolve?

The class and depth of the 1986 eligibility list creates that possibility.

It includes:

Montreal star Tim Raines and his outfield associate, Andre Dawson; Detroit pitcher Jack Morris and his catcher, Lance Parrish; Atlanta first baseman Bob Horner; Toronto pitcher Jim Clancy; Boston catcher Rich Gedman, pitcher Tom Seaver and outfielder Tony Armas; New York Yankees second baseman Willie Randolph and pitcher Ron Guidry; Texas outfielder Gary Ward; Oakland pitchers Moose Haas and Dave Stewart; Baltimore pitcher Mike Flanagan; Dodger pitcher Bob Welch, and a now familiar list of Angels, including outfielders Brian Downing and Reggie Jackson, third baseman Doug DeCinces and catcher Bob Boone.

Last year, by contrast, Angel relief pitcher Donnie Moore and Detroit outfielder Kirk Gibson represented the only real quality.

Neither received even one offer from another team before the Jan. 8 deadline for signing with their previous teams, which they did on the eve of the deadline, fearing the continued frigidity of the once open market. Moore got a three-year, $3-million contract from the Angels. Gibson got a three-year, $4-million contract from the Tigers.

“Name me any other market where a Kirk Gibson is worth $1.3 million a year to one team and zero to 25 others,” Don Fehr, executive director of the players’ association, said Thursday. “What happened last year wasn’t by accident or coincidence. The owners acted in concert to change the rules. When a general manager says, ‘I won’t talk to a free agent until his own team is through talking with him,’ he’s making a decision based on the decision of another club.

“Now we’re going to see whether the conspiracy continues.”

Fehr was reached at a Los Angeles hotel, where he is attending an arbitration hearing on the union’s conspiracy grievance.

“We’ve heard a lot of testimony (from owners and club officials) alleging that last year’s free-agent crop wasn’t a good one,” he said. “No one can say that this year’s crop, if that’s the right word, isn’t outstanding. It would be brazen for any club to say it couldn’t use Tim Raines. And if the market returns to normal? The owners will have a tough time explaining last year.”

Attorney Tom Reich, whose list of 90 clients includes Raines, Downing, Parrish and Ward, said the current off-season may be the most significant since free agency began. He said his early talks indicate that the clubs are again taking a conservative posture.

“But I don’t see a freeze-out happening again, though that’s not to say it won’t be very difficult and even impossible again for fringe players. The 24-man rosters alone have dealt an excruciating blow to those players. My feeling is that the market will never be what it once was, but I do believe there will be some free-agent movement this winter, including that of some megastars.”

Given the new austerity, however, the question is: Who will pay the price for Raines, already making $1.5 million a year; or Horner, making $1.8 million; or Dawson, making just over $1 million; or Morris, making $850,000?

The line heard from virtually every club last year was that it would not negotiate with a player still negotiating with his own team. The line has changed somewhat, but it still resembles an echo.

What you hear from the Yankees is what you hear from the Mets.

What you hear from the Angels is what you hear from the Dodgers.

Asked specifically about Raines, who would fit the Dodgers perfectly, Vice President Al Campanis said: “It’s very, very doubtful we would go after any big-money guys, but we may sign somebody with value in the other (financial) direction.”

There have been other indications that it will be a cold winter:

--The Atlanta Braves, rather than exercising an option on Ted Simmons and paying him $1 million next year, paid a $50,000 buyout fee and then re-signed him at a reported $400,000.

--The San Diego Padres, rather than exercising their option and renewing Jerry Royster at $350,000, paid a $75,000 buyout fee, which made him eligible for free agency.

--The Boston Red Sox, rather than exercising their option and renewing Armas at $1 million, paid a $50,000 buyout fee, making him eligible for free agency.

Then, rather than renewing the option on Seaver and paying him $1.2 million next season, the Red Sox took advantage of the absence of a buyout clause and simply released him, making him eligible for free agency.

The beat goes on.

In Montreal, where there has been media, fan and player concern that Raines and Dawson will depart amid no effort to retain them, the Expos held a press conference last week to announce that they have offered Raines $4.8 million for three years--which is a $100,000-a-year raise over his current $1.5 million a year--and Dawson $2 million for two years, slightly less than he had been making.

The press conference served two purposes. It showed critics that the Expos were operating in good faith, and it gave the 25 other clubs an official feel for the bidding level.

Barry Rona, legal counsel to the owners’ Player Relations Committee, cited the $1.3 million that Detroit was offering Gibson last winter and said it shouldn’t have been a surprise that other clubs dropped out of the bidding even before entering the market.

“To say from that there is no competitive bidding is ridiculous,” he said. “There was no collusion. What happened last winter was simply an evolution in common sense.”

Union officials disagree.

They say that the owners took their orders from the PRC, which gets them from the commissioner’s office. They say there were too many simultaneous decisions for it to have been coincidence or joint acquisition of common sense.

They cite the unanimous decision to limit all contracts to three years shortly after the PRC had circulated a negative analysis of player performance after signing long-term contracts; the unanimous decision to carry 24 players rather than 25; the absence of competitive bidding; the unanimous refusal to guarantee multiyear contracts unless they included a drug-testing clause, since ruled unenforceable and invalid; a letter sent by Commissioner Peter Ueberroth to four owners who had missed an October meeting at which he pleaded for economic sanity and, in the words of Yankee owner George Steinbrenner, “showed us how stupid we had been.”

What happens if the union wins its arbitration? There is no precedent.

The arbitrator could void the free-agent contracts of last winter and award cash settlements. He could order arbitration to establish fair market value for the players who were involved. He could warn the owners and then enable the involved players to test the market again as free agents.

There is no easy solution and no indication that any solution would force the owners to bid competitively.

A decision by arbitrator Tom Roberts is not expected until December at the earliest. In the meantime, the winter games begin, governed by the following deadlines:

--Players who are eligible for free agency have 15 days from the end of the World Series in which to file.

--Any free agent who remains unsigned by Dec. 7 must be offered arbitration by his own club or he cannot be re-signed by his own club until May 1.

--If the player elects to stay with his club and settle contract differences by arbitration, he must respond by Dec. 15.

If he doesn’t accept the arbitration offer, he can continue to negotiate with his own club until Jan. 8, after which he cannot be re-signed by his own club until May. 1.

Would the dam have cracked if Moore and Gibson had remained unsigned after Jan. 8?

Would they then have received competitive bids?

There is no way to tell, but it seems clear that in this pivotal winter of free agency, look for the dam to hold again until Jan. 8--at least.

FREE-AGENT LIST

The following players have become free agents either through the expiration of their contracts or their club’s refusal to exercise option clauses for 1987:

NATIONAL LEAGUE Atlanta--Bob Horner, Doyle Alexander, Chris Chambliss, David Palmer, Billy Sample.

Chicago--Chris Speier, Manny Trillo.

Cincinnati--Joe Price, Dave Concepcion, Bo Diaz, John Denny.

Dodgers--Bob Welch, Joe Beckwith, Enos Cabell.

Houston--Alan Ashby, Davey Lopes, Phil Garner, Larry Andersen, Dan Driessen, Matt Keough, Aurelio Lopez.

Montreal--Tim Raines, Andre Dawson, Wayne Krenchicki, Charlie Lea, Dave Tomlin, Dennis Martinez.

New York--Ray Knight, Danny Heep.

Philadelphia--Tom Hume.

Pittsburgh--None.

St. Louis--Bob Forsch, Clint Hurdle.

San Diego--Jerry Royster, Dane Iorg, Graig Nettles.

San Francisco--Vida Blue, Mike LaCoss, Harry Spilman.

AMERICAN LEAGUE Angels--Bob Boone, Rick Burleson, Doug DeCinces, Brian Downing, Reggie Jackson, Doug Corbett, Ruppert Jones.

Baltimore--Mike Flanagan, Juan Beniquez, Rick Dempsey, Jim Dwyer.

Boston--Rich Gedman, Tony Armas, Tom Seaver, Sammy Stewart, Glenn Hoffman, Joe Sambito, Dave Stapleton.

Chicago--Steve Carlton, Luis Salazar.

Cleveland--Dickie Noles.

Detroit--Jack Morris, Lance Parrish, Larry Herndon, Darrell Evans, John Grubb, Dave Collins, Bill Campbell, Jim Slaton.

Kansas City--Rudy Law, Jamie Quirk, Lynn Jones, Dennis Leonard, Lonnie Smith.

Milwaukee--Charlie Moore, Rick Cerone, *Robin Yount, Gorman Thomas, Pete Vuckovich, Ben Oglivie, John Henry Johnson.

Minnesota--Frank Pastore, Roy Lee Jackson.

New York--Ron Guidry, Willie Randolph, Rod Scurry, Gary Roenicke, Mike Fischlin, Claudell Washington, Tommy John, Britt Burns.

Oakland--Moose Haas, Dave Stewart, Dave Kingman, Dusty Baker, Doug Bair, Lenn Sakata, Wayne Gross.

Seattle--Steve Yeager, Jim Beattie.

Texas--Gary Ward, Darrell Porter, Toby Harrah, Tom Paciorek, Charlie Hough.

Toronto--Jim Clancy, Ernie Whitt, Buck Martinez, Cliff Johnson.

* Yount holds the option for 1987 and can become a free agent if he doesn’t choose to play for the Brewers. He would forfeit a $1 million salary, $2 million loan and new car by refusing to exercise the option.