Old, New, Borrowed and Blue

No longer home-grown from the farm, the Dodgers have raided the pantries of three of their most competitive National League rivals for a tri-star outfield of Darryl Strawberry, Brett Butler and Eric Davis. They have gone shopping for baseball players the way Sunday drivers pull into roadside stands to buy fresh produce, and they are willing to pay top dollar.

The next thing the Dodgers should do is get Candy Maldonado back. At some point next summer, when a complete game is being pitched by the partnership of Tom Candiotti and John Candelaria, a game-winning pinch-hit by yet another guy called Candy would make a Dodger victory almost sickeningly sweet.

I mean, is organist Nancy Hefley going to be doing that Sammy Davis Jr. “Candy Man” number a lot next season, or what?

Two pitchers called Candy and an outfielder named Strawberry . . . What is this, a baseball club or a frozen-yogurt stand?

December’s Dodgers sure are different from October’s. No more Eddie Murray or Tim Belcher or Mike Morgan or Gary Carter. Presumably, no more Juan Samuel or Alfredo Griffin, either. Even Bill Russell will be in the dugout of another team next season. The Dodgers are playing musical dugout.

And remember, this team finished one game behind a team that lost the World Series by one game.

Fred Claire, though, has been punching all the buttons on his telephone, including redial, which is how he reaches the Cincinnati Reds. Sometimes it is confusing why a team that won the 1988 World Series would keep swapping players with a team that won the 1990 World Series, particularly when those teams occupy the same division, but the Dodgers keep sending the Reds pitchers, and the Reds keep sending them outfielders. Curious.

Having set free, through various transactions, such starting pitchers of once-great value as Bob Welch, Ken Howell, Tim Leary, John Wetteland, Belcher, Morgan and even Fernando Valenzuela, one would be led to believe that Los Angeles has had an extraordinary surplus of pitching throughout the late 1980s and early ‘90s, or that oodles of reinforcements are on their way from the minors.

By the end of last season, it turned out that the Dodgers had even parted with one of the hottest relief-pitching properties in baseball, Alejandro Pena. But there is no way of knowing for sure how pitchers will pitch; otherwise, the Dodger staff would still include arms ranging from Dave Stewart to John Franco.

Trading is a crapshoot, same as it is for collectors who swap rectangular scraps of cardboard. Claire not being clairvoyant, he cannot promise that Candiotti will win 20 games for the Dodgers while Morgan is winning 10 for the Cubs, any more than he could guarantee that Kal Daniels would play a full season while Hubie Brooks would be undone by an injury.

The Dodgers are gambling that Candiotti will make the absence of Morgan go unnoticed. Whatever motives might lie beneath the surface--say, something as simple as Dodger personnel simply not particularly liking Morgan--will remain unspoken, Dodger management being fairly diplomatic.

What they do know is that Candiotti goes to the post. As a knuckleballer, he is less inclined to have arm trouble, and any staff that counts on Orel Hershiser and Jay Howell as much as the Dodgers do, must always be leery of how troublesome arm trouble can be.

What the Dodgers don’t know is whether Mike Scioscia can comfortably catch a knuckleballer, or if every fourth pitch is going to roll to the shoetops of Mike Brito, the scout behind the backstop screen holding the radar gun. In a playoff game last October, Candiotti was masterful, but his Toronto catcher had about as much luck catching strike three as he would have had barehanding a bee.

Scioscia probably will hold up his end; if he can’t catch those knucklers, at least we know he can block them. Trickier questions could involve the other pitchers he handles. Is today’s Hershiser as strong as yesterday’s? Was Ramon Martinez’s second-half struggle an indicator of anything or merely a coincidence? Have we seen the last of Bob Ojeda or Jay Howell?

It is pointless to assess the Dodgers as currently constituted, because we don’t know what they might do next. I, for example, could easily live with Lenny Harris at third base and Mike Sharperson at second base full time, with that prodigy shortstop in between. Daniels is no loss in left field, but at first base he would handle many more chances, truly a scary prospect.

Eric Davis? Hey, I would put him in center field and move Butler to left, but everyone is so infatuated with Butler’s error-free play that I doubt this would happen. By the way, in case there’s any confusion next season, remember: Butler is the one in the outfield without the earring or his name shaved into his scalp.

Of course, this being still early December, there could be two or three new Dodgers by the time you finish reading this. For all we know, Juan Samuel will play first base.

* ANGELS: Free-agent first baseman Wally Joyner is given until 4 p.m. today to accept the team’s offer. C6