$6.4 Million Gets Gross to Dodgers for Three Years

Kevin Gross, a free-agent pitcher with workhorse credentials and an enigmatic inability to win with acknowledged talent, joined the Dodger rotation Monday.

Illustrative of a market out of control, Gross, 29, received a three-year, $6.4-million contract despite an 80-90 career record, including 9-12 with the Montreal Expos in 1990.

The contract calls for a $650,000 signing bonus and salaries of $2 million in 1991 and ’92 and $1.75 million in 1993.

“The one thing you can’t say about him is that he doesn’t have talent,” Manager Tom Lasorda said at the winter baseball meetings. “I watched him at Montreal and Philadelphia and said to myself, ‘This guy should be a winner.’ The challenge is to make him believe that, to find out why he doesn’t win more.”

Lasorda said Gross definitely would be a starter in a rotation that includes Ramon Martinez and Tim Belcher, but which is otherwise uncertain.

Presuming that Fernando Valenzuela will not be re-signed and that Orel Hershiser will not be ready for opening day, the other candidates include Mike Morgan, Mike Hartley, Jim Neidlinger and Dennis Cook.

It could be a totally right-handed rotation, but executive vice president Fred Claire said he was only concerned with the talent and not how it balances.

Claire has spent $26.65 million on two players--Gross and Darryl Strawberry--and still lacks the proven left-handed reliever and second baseman he considers among the Dodger needs.

While Claire wasn’t specific, club sources said he has ruled out free-agent left-handers Dave Righetti and Juan Agosto, but not second baseman Bill Doran, whom he has offered $5 million for three years.

It is still uncertain, they said, if Kal Daniels will be moved, but the likelihood is that the Dodgers will attempt to use a prospect or some of the newly improved pitching depth for a left-handed reliever of less renown than Righetti or Agosto.

“I don’t see it as a desperate situation,” Claire said, citing his own array of left-handers--Ray Searage, Dave Walsh, Jim Poole and Cook.

Gross said his hope was to join a West Coast team, and that he is excited that it turned out to be the Dodgers. He is a resident of Chino who grew up in Fillmore and Oxnard and went to Cal Lutheran.

“The Dodgers were the farthest thing from my mind because I didn’t think they needed help and I had some vibes from other teams,” he said.

“I’m overwhelmed. I’ve always considered Tom Lasorda to be an aggressive and inspirational manager and Dodger Stadium to be the best place in the world to play. Coming from Montreal it will be a major difference. It will be nice playing again in real baseball circumstances.”

A 6-foot-5, 215-pounder, Gross had his best season with the Phillies in 1985, going 15-13. He has not been over .500 since, though he had pitched 200 or more innings in each of the last five seasons before this year, when he missed more than three weeks with a broken middle finger on his right hand. He was 1-7 when he came back, marring an 8-5 start.

“There’s no doubt that I’m better than a .500 pitcher,” he said. “Last season I came back too soon. I always want the ball, but I wasn’t ready. It turned my season around.”

Of Gross, Montreal Manager Buck Rodgers said: “He’s a horse. He gives you a lot of innings and is a good guy on the team. But his stuff is too good to be a sub-.500, pitcher and I’ve told him that.”

His new manager will, too.