Angels’ Howell Loses Arbitration

Third baseman Jack Howell lost his salary case Friday, giving the Angels a 1991 arbitration record of 1-1.

Arbitrator Anthony Sinicropi, who heard arguments Thursday in Chicago, picked the Angels’ figure of $652,500 for this season over the figure of $835,000. Howell earned $652,500 last season, when he hit .228 with eight home runs and 33 runs batted in.

The other Angel to have a hearing this winter, first baseman Wally Joyner, won a salary of $2.1 million instead of the Angels’ figure of $1.65 million.

“This is a moment of financial sanity in a general sense, not to say so at the expense of one of our players,” Angel General Manager Mike Port said of the Howell case. “This decision restores a correlation to performance. . . . Arbitration has gone over the edge. What started out as an attempt at parity has transcended to a matter of comparability, an action-reaction thing.”