Angels’ Options Are Open

To become the richest player in the history of major league baseball, Bobby Bonilla in 1991:

--Batted three points lower than Felix Jose.

--Hit three fewer home runs than Darrin Jackson.

--Drove in two more runs than Greg Vaughn.

--Committed 15 errors, or three times as many as Luis Polonia.

For this kind of performance, the Angels were prepared to pay $27.5 million for five years.

They wound up getting out-bid by $1.5 million by the New York Mets.

And that’s not counting the first-round selection the Mets ceded to Bonilla’s former employers, the Pittsburgh Pirates, in the 1992 amateur draft.

Officially, the Angels were among the “losers” in the Bobby Bonilla Pay Until They Commit You stakes, but were they in reality? The Angels just saved $27.5 million by not signing a free agent who had roughly the same offensive numbers (.302, 18 home runs, 100 RBIs) as Wally Joyner (.301, 21 home runs, 96 RBIs), a free agent they can probably re-sign for $16 million. Instead of spending everything in one place--everything that Jackie Autry’s blue pencil will allow, at any rate--the Angels, with some creativity, now have the wherewithal to fill three holes in their lineup.

And you know how it goes with the Angels and holes in their lineup: The more, the scarier.

Technically, the Angels are without a first baseman, but that’s a shortfall the club can rectify soon, according to CEO Richard Brown. Tuesday, Brown said a new contract with Joyner is “about 97% agreed upon” and he expects a settlement “no later than Friday.” That last 3%, though, is substantial and apparently scattered among the Hawaiian Islands, where Joyner and family are vacationing through the end of this week.

Dramatically, the Angels are without a right fielder. Bonilla would have fit there--Brown called him “the Mercedes-Benz” of this year’s free-agent field--but now Bonilla fits alongside Vince Coleman, so the Angels prepare to step down to the next size sedan: Danny Tartabull.

Depending on where Junior Felix finds himself next season, provided he does find himself next season, the Angels also need a center fielder or a left fielder. Free-agent Otis Nixon is the center fielder du jour ; the Angels insist they can focus Nixon’s attention inside the white lines instead of in front of them. Buck Rodgers was Nixon’s manager in Montreal, Dan O’Brien was an official in the Indians’ front office when Nixon played in Cleveland. Both can attest to Nixon’s character, especially after observing that character steal 122 bases the past two seasons.

Left field?

Are you ready for something out of left field?

Are you ready for . . . Barry Bonds?

In Pittsburgh, the immediate reaction to Bonilla’s departure was a determination not to let it happen again. Bonds becomes a free agent after the 1992 season and has been just as subtle as Bonilla in hinting about future stopping grounds.

Hello, Pittsburgh?

Goodby, Pittsburgh.

Pirate General Manager Larry Doughty says he will arrive in Miami for this weekend’s winter meetings with anything but a hidden agenda. He wants to move Bonds for something in return and he knows Bonds wants to move back home to California. The Dodgers, with their newly celestial outfield, look like a dead end, but the Giants, A’s, Padres and Angels are likely to lend an ear.

If the Angels offer Chuck Finley and a prospect or two, they stand a chance of leasing both halves of the Bobby Bonds-Barry Bonds father-son combination--this time, the better half.

That concludes the dream sequence of this column. If the Angels set their sights within reason, they will see an excellent opportunity to retain Joyner through 1995 and a window ready to crack open for Tartabull.

For the record, Brown has sounded like a broken record in regard to Joyner. “From the start, he has been our highest priority,” Brown has said and said. Not everyone, however, has been sold on the sincerity of those words, so Brown Tuesday dusted off a role from his previous life--lawyer--and argued that the Bonilla-Mets accord is tangible evidence as to the Angels’ true intentions with Joyner.

“Basically, if a bidding war for Bonilla forced us to offer him more money, it would have been really difficult to sign Wally, too,” Brown said. “When we decided not to increase our offer to Bonilla, it was because we didn’t want to pass on Joyner. That was our rationale on staying where we were.”

It isn’t fair to call Tartabull a poor man’s Bonilla, although, once signed, he’ll be a poorer man than Bonilla. Tartabull had better offensive numbers than Bonilla in ’91 (.316, 31 home runs, 100 RBIs), but he struck out nearly twice as often (121 to 67) and doesn’t play nearly as often. Much of Bonilla’s appeal is his durability and drive; he’s missed 11 games in the past four seasons. Tartabull missed almost half a season in 1990 and 30 games in 1991.

Either the willingness or the ability to stay in the lineup--that is what separated Bonilla and Tartabull amid the first round of free-agent volleying. The Angels have had their fill of the rich and the lame, but Brown describes Tartabull as “extremely attractive to us.”

“He’s known as an ‘Athletics murderer’ and we went 1-12 against Oakland last year. Anybody who does the kind of damage he has done to Oakland certainly has high value to us.”

Bonilla is off the board, but options remain. Bonilla is the highest-paid player in baseball, not because he’s the best player in baseball, but because he has the best timing in baseball. If Bobby Bonilla--gamer, reliable hitter, so-so fielder--is worth $29 million, Brown wants to know, “Where do you put Canseco, the first 40-40 guy?”

Had Bonilla’s number come up next year instead, he’d have been swallowed up in a potential free-agent pool that resembles the waiting room to Cooperstown: Cal Ripken, Ryne Sandberg, Kirby Puckett, Ruben Sierra, Bonds, Joe Carter, Barry Larkin.

This year, Bonilla was the best of a shallow pool. He played it to the hilt, to the tune of $29 million.

He got his. The Angels can still get theirs. They still have three months and $27.5 million to play with.

Angels Were Bargaining Tool: It appears Angel bid to Bobby Bonilla was used to get Mets, Phils to boost their offers. C2