Outside Help Cost Padres, Agent Says

If Padre owner Joan Kroc had permitted the front office to handle the Mark Langston negotiations instead of retaining an outside attorney, Langston likely would have signed with the Padres instead of the Angels, agent Arn Tellem said Friday.

“Quite frankly, with everything being equal, Mark’s preference was to play for the San Diego Padres all along,” said Tellem, Langston’s agent. “If it had been left to the baseball people, he would have been a Padre already. But it’s quite obvious the baseball people there are not in charge, and it’s hurting that organization.”

Chicago-based attorney Fred Lane has been retained by the Padres to handle negotiations with Langston and reliever Mark Davis.

“There’s no doubt in my mind, none whatsoever,” Tellem said, “that if Dick Freeman (president), Tony Siegle (vice president, personnel) and Jack McKeon (manager) were involved, we’d already have had a press conference with Mark in a San Diego uniform.

“But when the non-baseball people got involved, it put another tone on the negotiations. That’s when it became apparent that nothing was going to get done with the Padres. And that’s what really disappointed Mark, because that’s where he wanted to go.”

Langston, the left-handed starter who was considered the prize of the free-agent sweepstakes, instead signed a five-year, $16-million contract Friday with the Angels. It is unknown whether the Padres would have paid that kind of money for a free agent, but Tellem suggested that Langston might have signed for considerably less if the front-office had handled the negotiations.

Members of the Padre front office refused comment, and Kroc was unavailable.

“I’m convinced Mark would have signed with San Diego,” Tellem said. “Mark just loves the area. He had a slight preference for staying in the National League because he liked to hit. He’s got great friends there. He just thinks the world of (Padre players) Tony Gwynn and Bruce Hurst. . . . It would have just been all so easy.”

Lane has worked extensively with Kroc involving the McDonald’s organization. Tellem said that although Lane probably is a fine lawyer, and certainly seemed quite competent, the fact that he has no baseball background sent a flare to Langston that the Padres were not going to be serious negotiators.

“It’s a shame, a real shame to see what’s happening to that organization. No one’s in charge, and the organization is suffering because of it. There’s no doubt in my mind that’s happening.

“If the front-office was involved, I think they would have had both Marks signed by now. As it is, they have a good chance of not having any.”

The other “Mark,” of course, is Davis, who won the Cy Young Award for the Padres last season with 44 saves. Davis, who was hoping to sign with the Padres just days after the end of the season, filed for free agency when negotiations stalled.

The Padres, according to sources, are prepared to offer Davis a four-year guaranteed contract for $8.8 million. It would be the first time since negotiations began that the Padres have offered a four-year contract and the first four-year contract offered to a reliever since 1985.

The Padres also offered Davis salary arbitration, a procedural step most clubs take with their unsigned free agents to protect negotiating rights until Jan. 8, when they would expire until May.

Davis and his agent, Alan Hendricks, are not expected to accept or reject the Padre offer until sifting all offers at the major league baseball winter meetings beginning Monday in Nashville, Tenn.

The Kansas City Royals already have made a lucrative offer in an attempt to acquire Davis, and the Angels and New York Yankees also have engaged in contract negotiations.

“Mark Davis proved that he’s the best reliever in the game right now,” Royals General Manager John Schuerholz said, “and we’d like to have him. We need to close the gap between us and Oakland, and having a guy like Mark Davis would help enable us to do that.”

Also on Friday, the Padres talked on the telephone with free-agent center fielder Robin Yount, 34, who was selected the Most Valuable Player of the American League this past season for the Brewers. Yount later met in person with Mike Port, general manager of the Angels. Others interested in Yount include the Dodgers, Chicago Cubs, Kansas City Royals, Atlanta Braves and Toronto Blue Jays.

And in an attempt to protect themselves in case they lose Davis to free agency, the Padres have offered free-agent left-handed reliever Craig Lefferts a two-year contract with an option year, according to sources. Lefferts, 32, who was traded by the Padres in a seven-player deal that was used to acquire Davis, saved 20 games for the San Francisco Giants this past season in a part-time role as the stopper.

“Mark Davis is our top priority,” Siegle said, “but we can’t sit back and wait for that. We’ve got to react before it’s too late.”

Steve Compte, the agent for Lefferts, said: “Right now we know we’re kind of in the shadow of Mark Davis, and rightly so. They had little or no interest in Craig at the beginning, but now, their interest really has increased.”

The Padres also will resume trade talks today, when Siegle and McKeon fly to Nashville for the winter meetings. They have a meeting scheduled Sunday with General Manager Hank Peters of the Cleveland Indians in which they hope to make a proposal for center fielder Joe Carter.

The Indians are interested in obtaining one of the Padres’ catchers, Benito Santiago or Sandy Alomar, Peters said, but have yet to come up with any other names in a possible trade package.

“We’re not going to do anything until we talk to everybody Sunday,” Peters said.

He also has meetings scheduled with the Angels, Kansas City, the Boston Red Sox, the St. Louis Cardinals and the New York Mets.

“There’s a tremendous amount of interest in Joe because he’s going to be an important player wherever he goes,” Peters said. “I’m not going to say that team will win the pennant, but whatever club gets him will have a tremendous chance.”

Of course, as Arn Tellem will tell you, the same held true for Langston.