Pirates Will Try to Trade Bonds to One of Five California Teams

Reacting to the loss of Bobby Bonilla as a free agent and citing his belief that Barry Bonds will qualify for an even larger contract when he becomes a free agent after the 1992 season, Pittsburgh Pirate General Manager Larry Doughty said Tuesday he will attempt to trade Bonds immediately.

Reached by phone, Doughty acknowledged Bonds’ oft-stated interest in playing for the San Diego Padres or another team based in California and said he will contact the five California teams with the hope of completing a trade before baseball’s winter meetings begin in Miami this weekend.

“It’s easier to trade a player before he goes into the last year of his contract,” Doughty said. “We always felt we could sign Bonilla, or we would have attempted to trade him, too.

“It was ridiculous what he got (a $29-million deal over five years from the New York Mets), and it will have a serious impact throughout the game. I think there are 15 to 20 players who should make as much or more, and Bonds is one.

“I mean, Barry will tell you that. He’ll tell you he’s a better player than Bonilla.”

Doughty said Bonds will eventually crack the $6-million-a-year barrier, a figure the Pirates can’t afford. He criticized former Pirate president Carl Barger for not acting more aggressively in the Bonilla negotiations.

Bonilla has said he would have accepted the last Pittsburgh offer of $22.5 million for five years if it had been made in September or earlier.

Pirate Manager Jim Leyland said by phone that he was proud of the effort the club had made to sign Bonilla.

“It’s a shame,” he said. “You work your . . . off to develop a good team, then a team coming off a bad year comes in and raids your players. Something has to change. You can’t have the smaller markets serving as farm teams for the big markets.”