Dodgers Need to Make One More Deal

Not that the Dodgers need my advice or my blessing, but I would like to volunteer both, beginning with an opinion on what they ought to do next, and ending with my sincere congratulation and appreciation for what they already have done.

No, on second thought, I believe I’ll take last things first.

We are mighty quick to scold and second-guess every gambit a baseball team makes, but often remiss in toasting them on their successes. Whether the expensive purchasing of Kirk Gibson and Mike Davis and the marketplace bartering for Jesse Orosco, Alfredo Griffin and Jay Howell are revealed by next October to be good moves or bad, the Dodgers deserve at least a patted back and a low-five for having had the guts to act.

It took nerve to trade Bobby Welch, when an injury to the heretofore invulnerable Fernando Valenzuela or Orel Hershiser could leave the Dodgers’ pitching rotation looking like Cleveland’s. And, it took a long gulp and a hard swallow to cough up all the money it took to hire Gibson and Davis, so much money that it took a lot more doing on General Manager Fred Claire’s part than to just--as the Rev. Bing Crosby once said--dial O, for O’Malley.

How easy it is for all of us to encourage Peter O’Malley to pull out his checkbook. We are very good at advising the wealthy where to invest. We have no qualms about telling him to sign a $4.5-million outfielder, simply because we would rather have that outfielder than not have him.

In any case, the Dodgers have responded, deliberately or otherwise, to public sentiment, and have taken steps to remedy two seasons worth of fifth-place finishes and crowds that dwindled beneath the 40,000 mark, which the Seattle Mariners, by the way, would be happy to have for a six-game home stand.

Well, what we need to do right now is tell the Dodgers what we think of them when we think well of them, as well as when we do not think well of them. So, that is what we are in the process of doing here today, as well as setting American records for the use of the word well in a single paragraph.

Well done, Dodgers, and way to go. To me, you no longer look like a fifth-place team. To some, you might now look like a sixth-place team, but to many of us, you look like a batting order that will keep Roger Craig, Hal Lanier, Pete Rose, Chuck Tanner and Larry Bowa awake nights, instead of like a lineup in which Valenzuela is the most dangerous hitter behind Pedro Guerrero.

OK, that aside, we now come to the big question these days at Chavez Ravine, the question that everybody is asking--including, probably, Chavez.

Namely: Do the Dodgers need to do anything else?

Some of us have taken it for granted that a game of musical chairs involving Guerrero, Gibson, Davis, Mike Marshall and John Shelby inevitably must leave somebody without a chair. Franchises from the National League, after all, use nine-player lineups, with three outfielders, one first baseman and zero designated hitters. Were this an American League club, the only glove Guerrero would need bring to the stadium is his batting glove.

Lo and behold, though, the Dodgers have launched an infield experiment, hitting some grounders in Marshall’s direction Monday in sort of a jam-session workout . . . at third base. Mike Marshall at third base! And we thought Steve Sax’s switch to third base was going to be risky.

There is no sense scoffing at the thought of Marshall at third base until he and the Dodgers see how comfortable he can make himself there. The idea itself is sort of outrageous, but, what the heck, at least Sax would be relieved of a duty he doesn’t want, and a drooling Tommy Lasorda would, indeed, be able to keep all his thunder bats in the same lineup.

However . . .

And, it’s a big however. It’s a however that I would rather not mention, seeing as how the Dodgers already have gone out of their way to do what we ask, but, if they promise not to take it personally, perhaps it is a however that will appeal to their logic.

The Dodgers, bless their hearts, did not lose as many games as they did merely because their hitting was eccentric, or because the firemen in their bullpen were, more often than not, guilty of arson. They lost games because, two years in a row, they were one of the worst defensive teams in the National League, a bunch of Dick Stuarts and Dave Kingmans whom Ozzie Smith could have out-fielded while wearing a batting glove.

The acquisition of Griffin to play shortstop was a short step in the right direction, but neither left fielder Gibson nor right fielder Davis has ever been confused in the field for Willie Mays. When it comes to putting gloves on, they are somewhat closer to Willie Pep.

Digesting that, along with the probable move of Guerrero to first base, and the possible move of either Marshall or Sax to third base, and it is entirely possible that the Dodgers’ 1988 team fielding percentage is going to resemble its team earned-run average. Either that, or Alfredo Griffin might have to handle every single baseball hit on the ground, to the point of turning 6-6-6 double plays.

It is, then, with a complete absence of malice toward Mike Marshall, and with full knowledge of the utmost regard and affection held for this player by Lasorda, that I say, if there is any chance in heck that a St. Louis would part with a Terry Pendleton, the Dodgers must once more do their Monty Hall impersonation, and say let’s make a deal.

The Dodgers have done some good stuff this winter, but I don’t happen to believe that any baseball team with inadequate fielding at third base, first base, left field and right field can have much of a summer.