Giants’ Addition Remains Enhanced by Subtraction

The performance of the San Francisco Giants in 1991 was enough to make anyone ill, but this went beyond that.

The chest pains and dizziness were too frequent to be ignored. So Roger Craig, the Giants’ manager, was admitted to Stanford hospital Sept. 3, had an angioplasty to clear an arterial blockage and was back on the job three days later.

This spring, watching his diet and exercising regularly, Craig, 62, says he has never felt better--a salute to modern medicine and the roster surgery performed by club President Al Rosen in December.

Rosen excised what he considered one problem and addressed another when he traded Kevin Mitchell to the Seattle Mariners for pitchers Bill Swift, Mike Jackson and Dave Burba during the winter meetings.

In his farewell to the National League’s most valuable player of 1989 and the major leagues’ cumulative home run leader during the last three years, Rosen said that Mitchell had played only when he wanted to, seemed unable to shake the troubling relationships of his gang-affiliated youth and was coming off a three-year performance slide.

Three months later, in his Scottsdale Stadium office, Rosen said of Mitchell that only his “weight and age are up.” Otherwise, he said, there has been a significant fall-off in production and games played since 1989.

“The Mariners are confident he’ll have a big year, and he may,” Rosen said. “They can use him as a designated hitter as well as in the field, but the fact remains he was the only player we could have traded to get the quality and quantity of pitching we needed.

“I’m asked if we can replace his offense. If you’re talking about the 47 home runs and 125 RBIs of ‘89, the answer is no. If you’re talking about the 27 home runs and 69 RBIs of last year, then the answer is yes.

“It won’t be easy, but it can be done by committee, with different combinations and platoons. The bottom line is that pitching has been a problem in the five years I’ve been here. We had to make a move.”

Mitchell said the other day that he did not want to discuss the Giant situation or Rosen’s remarks. He says he thanks Rosen for trading him to the Kingdome, where his home run potential is unlimited.

“I don’t know why Al did me like that,” he told the Seattle Post-Intelligencer on the day he reported to the Seattle camp, a reference to Rosen’s remarks at the winter meetings.

“I guess to justify the trade,” he said. “I had good years (with the Giants) and enjoyed my time there. I have things to prove to my new team, but not to Al Rosen. He saw what I could do.

“I hate the label of being a bad guy because I’m not. If I could get rid of that label, I would.”

San Francisco won the 1989 National League pennant with a recycled pitching staff, but age and injuries played havoc the last two years.

The Giants used a club-record 27 pitchers in 1990 and 19 last season, when they had the league’s worst earned-run average, 4.03, and finished sixth in the West with a 75-87 record, 19 games behind the Atlanta Braves.

Rick Reuschel, Mike LaCoss, Dave Dravecky and Don Robinson are among the pitchers gone from the ’89 staff. Scott Garrelts, 14-5 that year and 12-11 in 1990, started only three games last season and will be unavailable until midseason because of elbow surgery.

Craig, who will take a stronger role in the handling of the staff, as he did in his first few years with the Giants, says that the Mitchell trade will help provide the needed stability and depth.

Swift, who made 71 appearances in relief last year, will pitch Monday night’s season opener against the Dodgers, followed by Kelly Downs on Tuesday. Burba and John Burkett will start the first two games of a four-game series in San Diego.

Two potential starters, Bud Black, who has a back strain, and Trevor Wilson, who had a benign tumor removed from his rib cage, will open the season on the disabled list, evoking memories of the last two years, but Craig remains upbeat.

“I don’t have a Jose Rijo, Orel Hershiser or Tom Glavine in my rotation, but I think we now have four guys who can win 15 games or more,” said Craig, whose contract was extended through the 1993 season Tuesday. “I mean, this is not about rebuilding. We’re thinking about winning. Some managers might try to take pressure off their team by saying they’ll finish fourth or fifth, but I think we have the pitching now to win.”

The Pacific Sock Exchange has been reduced to Will Clark and Matt Williams, but Craig believes that:

--Kevin Bass, in the last year of his contract and operating on sound knees for the first time in three years with the Giants, can pick up some of the slack left by Mitchell’s departure.

--Outfielders Mark Leonard and Darren Lewis are expected to provide improved production with more playing time.

--Cory Snyder, who has shuttled from the Cleveland Indians to the Chicago White Sox to the Toronto Blue Jays to the Giants in the last two years, might still fulfill his potential.

--Shortstop Royce Clayton, the Giants’ No. 1 pick in the 1988 June draft from St. Bernard High in Playa del Rey, might, at 22, end the offensive drought at that position as he makes the jump from double A.

“The last few years, we really didn’t have many spots open, and everything was kind of laid back,” Clark said of the Giants’ spring approach.

“Some guys just went through the motions, and we never got out of the gate. I mean, people were picking us to win last spring, but the attitude and focus wasn’t there when the season started. We dug a hole (the Giants lost seven in a row in mid-May and were 11 1/2 games behind on May 24) and couldn’t climb out of it.

“There’s been more competition this spring and a lot more enthusiasm. People knock the trade because we didn’t get a big name in return, but we needed pitching and we got three guys who are top quality. I’m really excited about the ability and the attitude I see.”

Does some of that improved attitude stem from Mitchell’s departure?

“Al had his say at the time of the trade, but I’m not going to touch that other than to say too much is being made about the loss of one man,” said Clark, who had a say of sorts last summer when Rosen walked into the dugout before a game in Los Angeles and Clark snapped: “Your left fielder’s not playing today.”

Sidelined for three weeks of June because of a knee injury, Mitchell appeared in 113 games, down from 140 in 1990 and 154 in his MVP year.

Buses, planes and the lineup card waited for him. He gave Craig a $1,000 Rottweiler to keep mountain lions away from the manager’s home in Warner Springs, but he forced Craig into the dangerous business of bending rules.

“I was accused of having two sets--one for Kevin and one for the other players,” Craig said. “I’m not saying whether I did, but you can’t handle every player the same. My job is to get the most production out of them, and I think I got a lot out of Kevin.

“I mean, if a guy hits 40 home runs a year and by jumping on him it proves to be detrimental, you find other ways.”

Said pitcher Jeff Brantley: “Mitch played hard when he was on the field, but when you’ve got guys like Will, Matt and Robby Thompson coming to the park ready to play every day, no matter if they’re sick or not, you expect everybody to be that way. I think there were a lot of days Mitch didn’t play and the players questioned it. When you’ve got one guy often doing his own thing, it can become a distraction. That’s a distraction we won’t have this year.”

Robinson, now with the Angels, said too many of the Giants worried about what Mitchell was doing rather than worrying about themselves.

“I think that’s part of the reason they didn’t win more,” Robinson said. “What Mitch did didn’t bother me as long as he showed up. I had no problem with it, but a lot of the guys did. Those guys should have been worrying about themselves.”