Angels Lose McCaskill to Chicago : Baseball: Pitcher signs three-year deal with White Sox that will pay between $6 million and $7 million.

Continuing a curious but unmistakable trend, pitcher Kirk McCaskill spurned a lucrative offer from the Angels to accept a lesser bid from another team.

McCaskill, who led the major leagues with 19 losses last season, Saturday agreed to a three-year deal with the Chicago White Sox that will pay him between $6 million and $7 million. The Angels’ proposal “was better financially,” the 30-year-old right-hander said, but not enough for him to overlook the team’s shaky prospects on the field.

“I just needed a change,” McCaskill said. “I don’t play the game specifically for money. Sure, I’m going to get what I’m worth. But I really want to win the World Series, and the White Sox have a fantastic team.”

McCaskill’s departure is another blow to the Angels’ hopes of rebounding from their 1991 last-place finish in the American League West. It comes less than three weeks after the exit of first baseman Wally Joyner, who rejected a four-year, $15.75-million offer for a one-year, $4.2-million contract with the Kansas City Royals, and brings to mind Bobby Bonilla’s use of a five-year, $27.5-million Angel bid to get a better deal from the New York Mets.

“Nobody wants to be an Angel,” Whitey Herzog, a senior vice president of the club, said from his suburban St. Louis home. “It’s back to the drawing board. Again.”

After buying out Dave Winfield’s contract and failing to sign Joyner or Bonilla, Herzog planned to build the team around its starting pitching and reliever Bryan Harvey. Herzog signed 18-game winner Chuck Finley to a four-year, $18.5-million contract, but that remains Herzog’s only major success.

Herzog expected McCaskill to return as the fourth starter, behind Finley, Jim Abbott and Mark Langston, but by the time he realized McCaskill might leave, Herzog’s options had vanished.

Rick Sutcliffe, whom Herzog considered his first alternative, signed with the Orioles last week. Tom Candiotti, Frank Viola, Jack Morris and Mike Morgan also signed with other teams while the Angels negotiated with McCaskill.

Complicating the Angels’ pitching woes is an elbow injury suffered by right-hander Scott Lewis while pitching in Venezuela this winter. Lewis was expected to compete with Joe Grahe for the fifth starting spot, but Grahe might be pushed into the rotation.

“We’ve got to go look for a pitcher,” Herzog said. “I had talked to some people, but I held off until this was resolved, and in the meantime, Sutcliffe signed,” Herzog said. “I’d rather go ahead and make a trade (than sign a free agent). There’s a lot of places we can go, but we were hoping to have Kirk back. . . . We traded Kyle Abbott to get Von Hayes (from Philadelphia) because we thought we’d keep McCaskill.”

McCaskill said he was affected by Joyner’s departure. “I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t paying attention to what the Angels were doing,” said McCaskill, whose 78 victories ranks fifth among the club’s career leaders. “There isn’t one thing specifically. In my opinion, the White Sox have a very good team.”

Asked if he thought the Angels wouldn’t be contenders, he said: “Maybe not this year. Maybe in a few years. These things are a crapshoot. . . . This was an extremely difficult decision.”

White Sox General Manager Ron Schueler said McCaskill’s diligence impressed him. “He’s a great competitor, he’s got a great pickoff move and is a good fielder. We were a little concerned about his elbow, but our scouts say it’s nothing to worry about.”

In seven seasons with the Angels, McCaskill is 78-74 with a 3.86 earned-run average. He was 10-19 with a 4.26 ERA last season.

Herzog said the Angels are still in the hunt for free-agent outfielder Danny Tartabull. But he said conversations between Tartabull’s agent, Dennis Gilbert, and Angel President Richard Brown have been preliminary and are unlikely to progress until after the New Year’s holiday.