Gibson: Dodgers Have Not Called : Baseball: He also says that he doesn’t feel he is in the club’s plans and hasn’t been for a long while.

The signing of Darryl Strawberry seemed to slam the door on the possibility of the Dodgers re-signing Kirk Gibson.

Gibson, however, doesn’t think the door was even ajar.

“I think they made their decision long before Strawberry signed,” Gibson said from his office in suburban Detroit.

“I mean, I don’t think I fit in the Dodger plans and I haven’t for some time, but I don’t know if I can really say that because the Dodgers haven’t called to tell me one way or another, and you would think they would.”

Fred Claire, the Dodgers’ executive vice president, has said that he is still considering all options, but he has yet to have substantive contract talks with any of the four Dodgers who are now free agents--Fernando Valenzuela, Juan Samuel, Mickey Hatcher and Gibson.

Gibson said that neither he nor his agent, Doug Baldwin, has had any communication with the Dodgers since the season ended.

Is he surprised by that?

“It doesn’t matter what I think about it,” Gibson said. “It’s just the way the business is.”

And the signing of Strawberry?

“I don’t really have any reaction to it,” he said. “It’s the Dodgers’ decision. I can only try and analyze my own situation.”

Gibson doesn’t seem to figure in the Dodger plans. Strawberry is ticketed to play center field, with Kal Daniels in left, Hubie Brooks in right and Stan Javier the insurance policy in center.

Gibson’s future as a Dodger, tenuous throughout 1990 because of the condition of his legs, is believed to have darkened considerably when he had a late-season shouting match with Claire over his role and position.

Gibson denied Friday that he ever asked the Dodgers to trade him back to the Detroit Tigers or an American League team in the Midwest, saying it was more a discussion than a demand.

“That was before I knew how I was, health-wise, and I thought I might be better suited to the American League (as a designated hitter),” he said. “I went on to find out I could play every day and I still can. I don’t think I’m limited. I don’t look at myself as an American League player.”

Gibson, however, is said to be encountering a skeptical market, with clubs leery of his legs. He is not expected to be signed quickly, by the Tigers or anyone else.

He would not discuss the market, saying only: “I’ll be all right. We’ll just have to wait and see.”

He also declined to speculate on how Strawberry will adapt to center field.

Would Gibson return to the Dodgers if asked?

“I haven’t ruled out any possibility, but I don’t expect to be asked,” he said.

Strawberry, through agent Eric Goldschmidt, declined to respond to statements by New York Met infielder Tim Teufel in the New York Post. Teufel was quoted as saying that Strawberry quit on the Mets during the final week of the season, when he missed seven of the last eight games because of back spasms.

“I don’t blame the Mets at all for taking a stand,” Teufel was quoted as saying of the contract issue. “The last two weeks of the season, the way Strawberry handled himself and didn’t want to play in a pennant race . . . you’re going to give a guy $20 million who wouldn’t go out there in those games?

“Obviously, he was not going to jeopardize anything, going into the off-season as a free agent. He wanted to be healthy. He was thinking totally of himself, not the team. We still had a chance to win, and Darryl just wouldn’t play. He said, ‘Enough is enough.’ ”

Said Goldschmidt: “Darryl has no interest in making a response. The Mets are behind him. It’s not important to him anymore, and we can’t even be sure Teufel said it. I mean, some people are going to be angry and some will realize this was the best thing for Darryl.”