The Deal Is Padres Want to Bide Time

News Flash: Padre Manager Larry Bowa will be in town this morning to formally meet with the media. Padre President Chub Feeney and General Manager Jack McKeon also may drop in.

Oh come on. You remember. The Padres? The worst team in the National League? They threatened to become the worst team in baseball history, then cleaned up their act and lost only 9 of their last 10? A team whose No. 4 hitter hit only 15 home runs (Carmelo Martinez)? A team on which set-up reliever Lance McCullers won as many games (eight) as No. 1 starter Eric Show. A team that used as many second basemen as relief pitchers?

“What is going on out there?” said player agent Bill Goodstein of New York. “Nobody seems to know.”

The only thing quieter than the Padres this winter has been the air conditioner. No trades. No free-agent signings. No new faces or names or arms or bats or gloves. You want a good deal on a hot stove? Hardly been used.

Not counting Benito Santiago’s rookie-of-the-year celebration, the little gathering today will be the Padres’ first in nearly 3 1/2 months.

“The Padres have been the quietest team in baseball,” Goodstein said. “The front office must be in disarray or something. It’s terrible to see a once-flourishing franchise apparently dormant in last place.”

Feeney, with whom any final personnel decision has rested since he took over in the middle of last season, prefers not to think of it as dormancy.

He sees it as biding their time. “We have the makings of a good team for a lot of years,” Feeney said. “We aren’t going to panic.”

This decision wouldn’t seem so radical, except no other team in the National League West this winter has felt the same way.

First-place San Francisco was looking for a bona fide leadoff hitter. It found one in free agent Brett Butler.

Second-place Cincinnati was looking for pitching. It found some in trades in which they acquired Kansas City’s Danny Jackson and Oakland’s Jose Rijos and Tim Birtsas.

Third-place Houston needed a shortstop and another starting pitcher. It acquired shortstop Rafael Ramirez from Atlanta and then signed free-agent pitcher Joaquin Andujar.

The fourth-place Dodgers needed everything, and they pretty much got it. Through trades they acquired shortstop Alfredo Griffin and pitcher Jack Howell from Oakland, and pitcher Jesse Orosco from the New York Mets. From free agency, they grabbed outfielder Mike Davis from Oakland and pitcher Don Sutton from the Angels.

The fifth-place Braves needed to hang onto the game’s premier free agent, Dale Murphy. They had it done by Christmas. They signed Murphy to a three-year contract worth $2 million annually.

The sixth-place Padres? They needed a home run hitter. They needed middle infielders. They needed a veteran who knows something about cardiopulmonary resuscitation, otherwise known as breathing life into the team, and how to apply it to a clubhouse in the middle of August.

Yet, nothing.

They have been close on one deal, but it fell through. They may eventually sign free-agent second baseman Ron Oester, although he is injured. They are also one of several teams talking to free agent Don Baylor, but that’s it.

“We’ve talked, we’ve tried, but sometimes you just can’t do anything,” McKeon said.

Added Feeney: “Jack has worked hard. And we thought we were really close to one trade, and it fell through.”

That little-publicized deal would have sent pitcher Goose Gossage, Martinez and minor-league pitcher Ray Hayward to the Chicago Cubs for outfielder Keith Moreland, pitcher Jamie Moyer and second baseman Mike Brumley.

It evaporated when the Cubs changed their minds at the last minute, even though the Padres agreed to eat some of the last year of Gossage’s contract. That dead, the Padres refused to force a trade.

“We will never trade for publicity, that is the worst possible thing to do,” Feeney said. “And what the media doesn’t realize is, in the last eight months, we’ve made maybe more trades than anybody.”

The Padres may not have made more trades, but during that time, they have made two deals and acquired third baseman Chris Brown, first baseman Rob Nelson and pitchers Mark Grant, Mark Davis, Keith Comstock and Dave Lieper.

For now, then, it seems as if free agency is their only planned route. Their best chance is Oester, a 31-year-old, eight-year veteran who was Cincinnati’s starting second baseman last season until his left knee was crushed by a Mookie Wilson slide in a July 4 game with the New York Mets. He had reconstructive surgery the next day and says he hopes to be ready by spring training.

Oester, a switch-hitter, was hitting .253 when he went down last summer. But, he hit .295 with 34 RBIs in 1985, and he hit .258 with 8 home runs and 44 RBIs in 1986. The Reds have offered him a minor-league contract and invited him to their spring training camp, but according to Oester, the Padres may be willing to give him more assurance.

“My agent (Bill Landman) has been talking to them, and maybe something could be worked out,” Oester said Sunday from his home in Cincinnati. “I have always liked playing in San Diego, and it seems to me like a team that’s really coming.”

But how far, and how fast? Most agree that nothing needs to be done immediately at catcher (Benito Santiago), first base (John Kruk), third base (Chris Brown), right field (Tony Gwynn), and with their promising young starting pitchers.

But eyebrows were raised when free-agent outfielders Chili Davis, Mike Davis and Butler were not pursued. Neither was free-agent reliever Dave Smith, who lives in the San Diego area.

As it turns out, even a guy from St. Louis named Jack Clark could have been pursued.

The Padres’ inactivity--as one might expect with a Joan Kroc-owned team--was not because of money: “Money is absolutely never an issue around here with making the team better,” Feeney said.

The inactivity appears to be because of a philosophy toward free agency.

“I see so many problems with free agency,” Feeney said. “So many times you pay a guy a zillion dollars and he gets hurt. Look at a Bruce Sutter.

“We’re trying to build from within. We’re trying to create a baseball team that the city of San Diego can grow with.”

Feeney said he didn’t want to mess with the outfield, even though it looks as if they will open the season with Stanley Jefferson, who is young, in center and Martinez, who is erratic in left. Last season Bowa never let Martinez play in the late innings because of his fielding problems.

“I will not screw around with the outfield,” Feeney said. “There’s where most of our good young players are.”

Yet the best of those young players will probably start the season at their Triple-A Las Vegas team. This includes 21-year-old Shawn Abner, who as of Jan. 1 was fourth in the Puerto Rican winter league in RBIs (26) and total bases (74) in 179 at-bats. There also is 23-year-old Randell Bayers, who hit .313 in 10 games with the Padres last year, and 24-year-old Jerald Clark, who hit .313 with 18 homers and 95 RBIs for Double-A Wichita.

They’re all ready for Las Vegas, but all at least a half-season away. The same goes for the answer to the Padres’ middle-infield problems. The heir apparent to Garry Templeton, in the last year of his contract, is Roberto Alomar, who leads the Puerto Rican League with 60 hits and 86 total bases. He is second in runs with 30, third in stolen bases with 14 and fourth in batting average at .308. He hit .319 for Wichita last season, but will need some time in Triple-A.

“We’re going to have a heckuva team at Las Vegas,” Bowa said. “But I can’t worry about Las Vegas, I have to worry about what I have with the Padres. I just have to think that some of the young kids up here, after a year under their belts, will come out ready to play.

“Any player movement is up to our team president, and I am not expecting there to be any before spring training. I am planning to go in with the same team as last year, but a year older, and we will to do the best with what we have.”