HE’S IN A : Show-Me State : Angels’ Whitey Herzog, Who Still Lives in Missouri, Takes Scouting Duties Personally

This is the first spring training he can recall being out of a baseball uniform since 1967, so habit probably led Whitey Herzog to devise a civilian uniform for himself this spring.

Wearing the sunglasses and broad-brimmed straw hat that are his new trademark, Herzog absorbs the sights and sounds of each Angel exhibition game from the tunnel behind home plate. He takes no notes, but remembers every nuance of every inning.

In his six months as the Angels’ senior vice president for player personnel, Herzog has seen enough to know he needs to see more before deciding on a definite course. He worries that the Angels risk too much in counting so heavily on pitchers Chuck Finley, Mark Langston and Jim Abbott, because to lose one to injury “would leave us in a shambles,” he said. And while impressed with infielders Bobby Rose and Gary DiSarcina and outfielder Chad Curtis, who are competing for jobs this spring, Herzog isn’t sure how many other future major leaguers the farm system holds.

“Everybody’s going to say we’re doormats because we finished last last year,” he said. “Hell, a lot of people in baseball would be glad to finish at .500. A lot of people say, ‘You won’t finish at .500.’ We might and we might not. Five teams in both leagues finished around 84-78, three games ahead of us, and they think they had great years.

“Despite what I’ve heard from a lot of people, that the Angels have no talent in their farm system, I’d have to disagree.”

Determining the extent of that talent will be his mission this summer, when he crisscrosses the continent to evaluate players. Later, he will scout potential free agents and revisit minor league clubs to ensure he doesn’t lose a good prospect in the expansion draft.

“By the time we have our (June amateur) draft meeting, I’ll probably have seen everybody pitch twice, and then I should have a little better idea of what direction we should go,” he said. “Not that I’m the only one, but I feel better if I see them for myself. If I tell Buck (Rodgers, Angel manager), ‘I’ve seen this guy and he can go into the rotation,’ he trusts my judgment.”

Herzog will have an apartment in Anaheim but keep his residence in a suburb of St. Louis, as he requested during negotiations for the job. To enable him to work at home, he installed extra phone lines and a fax machine; he also has the assistance of Dan O’Brien, the senior vice president for baseball operations, who handles most of the paperwork in Anaheim.

“There’s never been a time when I attempted to get in touch with him and could not,” said club President Richard Brown, who estimated that he spoke to Herzog twice a day during the winter. “The uniqueness of his job allows this. If I felt he needed an office, one of two things would have happened: He wouldn’t have accepted the job or he would have accepted the job and remained in Anaheim.

“Whitey doesn’t want to be an office person and he doesn’t have to be. My exact words to him were, ‘If I see you in Anaheim in the office, you’re not doing your job.’ He has to be on the road a lot. I’m going to be relying on him constantly to evaluate our young players, and I don’t want him reading scouting reports. I want him evaluating what he saw.”

In his preliminary evaluation, Herzog found he needs another starting pitcher and a precise assessment of his minor league resources. Beefing up the offense can wait, because he bought time in acquiring veterans Von Hayes and Hubie Brooks. If they don’t drive in runs at the pace of departed free agents Wally Joyner and Dave Winfield, Herzog believes that Finley, Langston and Abbott will allow few enough runs to keep the team competitive in the games they start. Rodgers hopes he can produce runs through aggressive baserunning, an option not available to his predecessor, Doug Rader, when his power-oriented team stagnated last July and August.

“If I could start putting more depth into the pitching staff, I’d do it,” Herzog said. “I’d also like to find out about some of the kids. I really want to see if Lee Stevens can do what some of our people have been saying he can do. Bobby Rose, I didn’t see last year because he was hurt. I want to see if (catcher) John Orton can play. We’ve got to help ourselves in a lot of areas, like offense and speed.

“I don’t think the three left-handers are going to win as many games as last year because of our attack, but we’re certainly going to get more wins from our number four and five starters. Can we get as much out of (setup man) Mark Eichhorn? We don’t have to worry about (closer) Bryan Harvey. Is our left-hand bullpen situation OK? Scott Bailes is the middle guy, but we want a guy to come in and face left-handers. That could be Cliff Young or Tim Fortugno.

“I think our offense will have more movement. Maybe we’re going to fool a few people as far as runs (go), and not because I managed 15 years and had a lot of teams that didn’t hit 100 home runs. Von Hayes should hit 15 to 20, Brooks 15 to 20. . . . I had clubs win pennants with 60 home runs. But we had speed, and this club doesn’t.”

Rodgers says he admires Herzog’s frankness, as well as his baseball philosophy. “There’s no gray area. You know exactly what’s on his mind, and he doesn’t sugarcoat anything, which is good,” Rodgers said. “He’s been there, and he knows all the things a manager has to put up with.

“He’s a 360-degree change from what I’ve had. David (Dombrowski) in Montreal was more of an executive and dealt with paperwork. There were things we couldn’t relate because he was a front-office guy. I’m not saying he didn’t do a good job, but we had different backgrounds. I say something to Whitey, there’s instant recognition. He knows how I manage, and I’m not going to change. Fortunately, we have the same ideas. You can’t make greyhounds out of donkeys. The ideal thing is a blend of power, speed and good pitching. I think it will be a good working relationship.”

Herzog isn’t promising miracles. Nor can he promise major changes through multiplayer trades, for which he became renowned in St. Louis. With salaries escalating and clubs unwilling to acquire players the year before they are eligible for free agency, “you’re not talking ability as much as you’re talking money,” he said, adding: “It was the same thing when I was GM in St. Louis, but it seems now with the enormous amounts of money involved, you hear it more. Every team’s got a budget. They’ve always operated here on the idea, ‘If we can sign this guy we can win.’ That’s Langston, (Dave) Parker. . . .

“The way the rules are now, you have to get players signed in September and October. It’s a quick game now, to try and get your plan in shape. It’s tough. The situation is always changing. People think, ‘You gave Finley all that money, Harvey all that money, and you let so many others go?’ ”

He was referring to the $18.5-million contract signed last winter by Finley, the $15.5-million deal given Harvey and a $27.5-million offer rejected by Bobby Bonilla.

“If we hadn’t signed Chuck Finley, we would have had to pay him $25 million later and pay Bryan Harvey $24 million to $25 million,” Herzog said. “It sounds like reverse psychology, but we probably saved the Autrys and the California Angels $10 million by signing them when we did.”

The rules have changed, but O’Brien believes that Herzog can be as successful as he was in St. Louis.

“You can’t do things in this business in 1992 as you did in 1990 because it’s in a constant state of change,” said O’Brien, formerly general manager of the Texas Rangers and executive with the Seattle Mariners and Cleveland Indians. “Contracts, more than anything else, keep getting in the way. The talent is probably now one of the easier things to analyze.

“With his background and experience, of course, he can still do the job. It will take a little longer because of the circumstances. It’s very difficult (to make multiplayer deals). The blends aren’t as easy to come up with in making a trade. It may not be seven for five. It may be three for two. But that doesn’t make the trade less effective.”

Herzog probably will trade Dick Schofield if DiSarcina wins the shortstop job. “You don’t want to just give him away, but if you don’t trade him now and get somebody who can help you, what do you do?” Herzog said. “I really have been impressed with the way he’s gone about his job this spring. . . .

“The ideal thing is to stay away from free agency and build through the farm system as much as you can. If you need to fill in with one free agent, you do it with a guy who’s on the upside of his career. That’s why Bonilla was so important. He’s a 158-game player a year and so important to the ballclub. There’s no letup with him.

“I really hope that when I go through the farm system I’ll see some guys who can play for us in the future. I did see a couple of outfielders in the winter instructional league. Now we have to see if they’re one year away or two years away or a lifetime away.”

Whichever route Herzog goes, he said he is not conceding this season and waiting for the bonanza that looms next winter, when Ruben Sierra, Cal Ripken Jr. and Barry Bonds are eligible for free agency.

“I will say that I’ve been picked to finish last, and won pennants,” Herzog said. “I’ve been down that road. I would never write off a season, because in baseball you can get lucky. But we are in a situation where we have to find out what some of your people can do. In ‘85, I won a pennant because Tito Landrum hurt his back and I brought up Vince Coleman for 10 days to be a pinch-runner. He became our spark plug. In ‘82, David Green was hurt and I brought up Willie McGee and he hit .400 for two months.

“It could backfire. Maybe all of them will (fail). . . . But I also know, as a manager I never had three quality starters like Finley, Langston and Abbott except in St. Louis when I had (Joaquin) Andujar, (John) Tudor and (Danny) Cox in ’85. Supposing we can get a center fielder that can give us a little zip and supposing Von Hayes comes back. Don’t write us off until you see. I think people, if they give us a chance, will enjoy us.”