BASEBALL / ROSS NEWHAN : Free Agency No Distraction to Cone

As the frustrations mount and the expectations fade for the New York Mets, as David Cone shoulders the burden of a rotation that has been without Dwight Gooden and Bret Saberhagen for long periods, one thing is clear:

The market looks brighter for Cone than for his disappointing team.

Cone isn’t happy about the apparent demise of the Mets, but he acknowledges that one of his aims this year was strictly personal.

“I had a disagreement with the Mets in arbitration last winter over where I fit in the market, so one of my goals this year was to redefine where I fit,” he said the other day.

“I have to be pleased to this point, but I want to guard against a letdown. I have 12 starts left. That’s almost a third of the season.”

The 29-year-old right-hander is 13-5 with a 2.80 earned-run average, seven complete games and a major league-leading 200 strikeouts. He is bidding to become the first pitcher since Warren Spahn in 1949-52 to lead the National League in strikeouts for three consecutive years and the first right-hander to do it since Dizzy Dean in 1932-35.

He is also having the premier year among a large group of quality pitchers eligible for free agency when the season ends.

Besides the pitchers, Kirby Puckett, Cal Ripken Jr., Barry Bonds and Ruben Sierra are among a large group of quality position players eligible for free agency.

Supply and demand. Can the market bear it? Will there even be a market as the owners contemplate reopening collective bargaining in another attempt to revamp the salary system?

Cone said he will face all that when the time comes. He was 20-3 in 1988, then won 14 games in each of the last three years, his ERA never higher than 3.52. The Mets filed in arbitration last year at $3 million. Cone won at $4.25 million, almost middle class on a team with a record payroll of $44 million.

Business is business. He knows that Greg Maddux already has rejected a $28.5 million offer from the Chicago Cubs, but Cone said he learned from the free-agent examples of Frank Viola and Darryl Strawberry the last two years how the contract issue can become a second-half distraction.

“I told the Mets that the lines of communication would be open but that I’d prefer not to negotiate during the season,” Cone said. “There’s been a lot of pressure (with Saberhagen and Gooden out and his future unresolved), but I’ve been able to block it out once I’m on the mound.

“I mean, it’s been a big year for me in a lot of ways, and maybe the most important has been that I feel like I’ve taken a step forward in learning to stay composed when I’m in a jam and make the big pitch when I have to.”

Cone also has prospered, despite an inconsistent offense that is last in the league in team batting and has been shut out a league-high 14 times. The Mets have played 109 games and used almost as many lineups.

Now, Bobby Bonilla, Howard Johnson and Dave Magadan are on the disabled list, and Vince Coleman, who has been on it five times in two years with the Mets, is sidelined again because of another leg injury.

“To have HoJo, Bonilla and Saberhagen go down in a 24-hour span after the way we’ve struggled all year was more than frustration,” Cone said. “I think we were all in shock for a while. The mentality is . . . what’s going to happen next? The frustration is so great that it’s hard to focus on the race.”

The Mets are still on the fringe of it, but only because of the deteriorating status of the National League East. They have nine games left with the leading Pittsburgh Pirates, but have lost eight of nine to them.

“The way the East is now, everyone has a shot,” Cone said. “I don’t even think the Phillies are out of it. It’s hard to fathom, being four or five games under .500 and still in the race, but we need offensive help.

“I mean, we still have the pitching to put together a drive, but we haven’t sustained any offensive continuity all year.

“It’s always been one step forward and two back. It’s a mystery. You look at our lineup and talk to players in the league and the feeling has always been we’re the team to beat, we’re bound to explode. But it hasn’t happened.”

It seldom does when a team tries to make as many changes as the Mets did, when it tries to create a puzzle out of mismatched pieces, when it tries to buy instant success.

Four of the five New York regulars came from other organizations this year--Bonilla, Eddie Murray, Willie Randolph and Dick Schofield. A rookie, Todd Hundley, took over at catcher. Magadan moved from first base to third before going on the disabled list Saturday, Johnson from left field to center.

“The thing that hurt most was losing Vince Coleman for so long,” Cone said. “You look at the successful Mets teams of the last six years and they always had good leadoff men, table setters like Lenny Dykstra and Wally Backman, taking pressure off everyone else.

“We haven’t had that on a consistent basis this year, and that’s put a lot of pressure on the big three in the middle of the lineup.”

He referred to Bonilla, Johnson and Murray, who were batting a composite .245 through Friday with 29 home runs, six behind Mark McGwire. Obviously, money isn’t everything, though it soon may be for David Cone.

MORE METS

Coleman appeared in only 37 of the Mets first 107 games this year and 72 of 162 last year after signing an $11.8-million contract as a free agent. The Mets have used 13 center fielders since Dykstra and Mookie Wilson left in 1989. Dave Gallagher and Daryl Boston are platooning now in the absence of Johnson and Coleman.

Coleman said he is tired of hearing about the void.

“People say we’ve had no real center fielders here since Dykstra and Mookie Wilson, but that’s a cut-down of me and Howard,” he said. “Those guys weren’t the best center fielders in baseball. It’s time to forget them.”

NO NAMES

During a season in which they have used the disabled list 19 times and have played 14 outfielders--including, in one game, rookies Scott Brosius, Tony Neel and Dann Howitt--the Oakland A’s have received help from unexpected sources.

Among them is Eric Fox, 28, a switch-hitting rookie from Capistrano Valley High and Fresno State. Fox was released by the Seattle Mariners in the spring of 1898, considered becoming an algebra teacher, signed with the A’s instead and was at double-A Huntsville, Ala., when called to the majors July 8. In his first 17 games with the A’s, Fox had three home runs, 10 runs batted in and a .283 average.

While some A’s have seemed to question the motivation of other A’s--Willie Wilson noted the other day that the players have become immune to the lack of hustle by Rickey Henderson and Jose Canseco--Manager Tony LaRussa said of Fox:

“It’s refreshing to watch a player who is hungry make his mark. He’s going out and playing every day literally like it’s his last one.”

IMPROBABILITY

A 26-year-old former first baseman who batted .188 in 1988, his last year at the position, Tim Wakefield has allowed only two earned runs in the 17 innings of his first two major league starts for the Pittsburgh Pirates, knuckleballing victories over the Mets and St. Louis Cardinals.

Wakefield developed the knuckler by accident, fooling around with it while still a first baseman. He won 15 games at Carolina of the Southern League last year and learned some refinements this spring from Chicago White Sox veteran Charlie Hough, who said of Wakefield, “He’s got the knack.”

Hough, a former infielder himself, learned the knuckler out of desperation when a sore arm threatened his career in the Dodger organization. He believes every seemingly washed up player should be given a chance to throw the pitch before being released.

“If he’s in the rotation next year, he’ll be a 200-inning guy for 10 years and the Pirates will have just saved themselves millions of dollars finding and developing a pitcher,” Hough said of Wakefield.

The new Pittsburgh starter struck out 17 Cardinals and Mets, walked nine and scattered 13 hits. Of his edge-of-the-seat control combined with the risk of passed balls, Manager Jim Leyland said:

“If they want me to manage a knuckler, they’ll have to extend my contract another five years. If this keeps up I’m going to look like Telly Savalas.”

GIANTS’ MOVE

An American League general manager said Saturday that he believes his league will approve the transfer of the San Francisco Giants to the Tampa Bay area, enabling the National League to sew up Florida.

“When people talk about saving the dome there for the American League, it’s purely speculative,” he said. “I mean, save it for how long and for which team? The American League is not going to expand again in this decade, and there’s no American League club on the verge of moving. If this is in the best interest of baseball, so be it.”

If this is truly a time of economic peril in baseball, how come people are so eager to buy in? The Tampa Bay group reportedly will pay $110 million for the Giants. Owner Robert Lurie bought the team for $8 million in 1976 and advertised it for $35 million in 1985. Tom Monaghan bought the Detroit Tigers for $40 million in 1983 and is in the process of selling to pizza rival Mike Ilitch for more than double that.

In the department of trivia, the Giants could become the third team to have been based in three cities (New York, San Francisco, St. Petersburg). The others: The A’s (Philadelphia, Kansas City, Oakland) and the Braves (Boston, Milwaukee, Atlanta).

NAMES AND NUMBERS

The battle for rookie of the year in the American League between Cleveland Indian center fielder Kenny Lofton and Milwaukee Brewer shortstop Pat Listach could be won on the basepaths.

Listach entered Saturday tied with Luis Polonia of the Angels for the stolen-base lead with 37. Lofton had 36. The only rookies to win an American League stolen-base title were Luis Aparicio of the Chicago White Sox in 1956 and Minnie Minoso of the same team in 1951.

The Orioles might have it tough as they continue their dogged pursuit of the Toronto Blue Jays in the American East. They have only two games left with the Detroit Tigers, against whom they are 7-0 in Camden Yards and 9-2 this season, having completed a three-game sweep Wednesday.

After tying the major league record with his seventh consecutive walk Wednesday night in Texas, Jose Canseco of the Oakland A’s went to a 3-and-0 count against the Rangers’ Bobby Witt before taking two strikes and then striking out on a pitch in the dirt. In the first three games of that series, Canseco drew eight walks, struck out four times and did not hit a ball fair until grounding out in his 13th trip to the plate.

“I’m the king of the walks,” said Canseco, who would draw even more if he didn’t chase bad pitches in frustration over constantly being pitched around. “Tony (LaRussa) should bat me ninth. I’d walk all the time,” Canseco added.

How close knit is the major league knuckleball fraternity of Tom Candiotti, Charlie Hough and new member Tim Wakefield of the Pittsburgh Pirates? All wear No. 49.

Cleaning house finally as he did while general manager of the Chicago White Sox, Larry Himes, new general manager of the Chicago Cubs, fired Scouting Director Dick Balderson and Minor League Director Bill Harford the other day.

Balderson is expected to become farm director of the Colorado Rockies. In fact, Himes coldly and inexplicably waited until he had fired Balderson before telling him that the Rockies had called 10 days earlier for permission to talk with him. Al Goldis, a vice president with the Milwaukee Brewers and a scouting associate of Himes with both the Angels and White Sox, is expected to rejoin Himes with the Cubs.

In losing three in a row at Atlanta this week, the Cincinnati Reds also lost two of their best clutch hitters. Hal Morris, batting .333 with runners on base, pulled a hamstring stretching in the on-deck circle and was put on the disabled list. Bip Roberts, with 30 steals and a .371 average with runners on base, suffered a strained neck and slight concussion in a collision with the outfield fence and is day to day.

Sales Pitches

A look at some of the top pitchers who will be eligible for free agency at the end of the season.

Pitcher, Team W-L ERA CG SO David Cone, Mets 13-5 2.80 7 200 Greg Maddux, Cubs 14-9 2.26 6 133 Greg Swindell, Reds 10-5 2.77 4 104 Doug Drabek, Pirates 9-8 2.54 6 131 John Smiley, Twins 11-6 3.51 1 108 Bill Gullickson, Tigers 13-7 3.56 4 46 Chris Bosio, Brewers 9-5 3.72 3 74 Jimmy Key, Blue Jays 7-9 3.73 3 68 Ron Darling, A’s 10-8 3.77 4 64 Dave Stewart, A’s 8-5 3.88 1 83 Mark Gubicza, Royals 7-6 3.72 2 81