BASEBALL PLAYOFFS : BASEBALL : Leyland’s Advice: Don’t Worry, Be Happy

It is not only small-market, payroll-conscious Pittsburgh. It is the nature of baseball everywhere now.

Issues of transition and finance are seldom out of mind--even amid the panoply and pressure of the postseason.

Pirate Manager Jim Leyland has been convinced that impending free agency has affected the focus and performance of his best pitcher, Doug Drabek, and best player, Barry Bonds. It was one aspect of a 90-minute meeting Leyland had with Bonds late Saturday night.

“I’ve told these guys, like I told Bobby (Bonilla) last year, that this should be the time of their lives,” Leyland said. “I told Barry, like I told Bobby, he ought to be the happiest guy in the world.

“He has a chance to play in a World Series, and then he’ll have a chance to make about $30 million. Why should he ever frown? Why should he worry?”

The Pirates’ worries are still there, but they had the satisfaction Sunday night of forcing the National League’s championship series back to Atlanta via a 7-1 victory over the Braves.

In what might have been his final game at Three Rivers Stadium, an admittedly relaxed Bonds shook his postseason blues and looked like the player Leyland considers him to be: the best in baseball.

He doubled to drive in one run in a four-run first. He singled, stole second and scored in the third. He took extra bases away from Ron Gant in the fourth with a breathtaking catch in the gap.

In the wake of a third consecutive MVP-caliber season, Bonds is three for 16 in this series and a career 10 for 61 in the postseason. The boos of a hitless Saturday night turned to cheers Sunday, but the numbers that will determine his future here relate to finance.

Can the Pirates, having lost Bonilla, traded 20-game winner John Smiley and released 1991 save leader Bill Landrum in economic decisions this year alone, afford to retain both Bonds and Drabek?

“No,” General Manager Ted Simmons said. “As marquee free agents they’re going to go where they can make the most money.

“I hope I’m wrong, but as a realist, I don’t think I am.”

The likely scenario is that the Pirates will make a big-bucks offer for Drabek, who earned $4.5 million this year, or pursue a similarly proven pitcher with similar financial demands if they lose him.

Bonds, who received $4.7 million this year, may return, but it would have to be for less than he is likely to be offered elsewhere, although it is not clear where he is going to find a five-year, $30-million-plus deal in a year in which Kirby Puckett, Ruben Sierra, Joe Carter and Dave Winfield are also among the free agent outfielders.

Leyland said he has never attempted to influence a player to stay with the Pirates.

“I want these guys to be happy,” he said. “Hopefully that would be in Pittsburgh, but their happiness is the main thing. I can’t tell Barry or Doug to stay in Pittsburgh just because the damn Allegheny and Monongahela come together here to form the damn Ohio.

“I have told them that the end of the rainbow isn’t green.”

Bonilla may have learned the truth of that during a tough year in New York. He was on the phone to Bonds for an hour after the latter’s meeting with Leyland Saturday night.

Bonilla then flew in as the Sunday night guest of Bonds’ wife. “Get that,” a smiling Bonds said. “He makes more than I do and I’m flying him in.”

For Bonds, his destination after Atlanta is uncertain. His grandparents were here for the first time to see what might have been his final game in Pittsburgh. So was his father, Bobby.

Bonds said his emotions have been festering. He cited the weight of his postseason slump and the possibility that these have been his final games here and said he needed to seek release in that long meeting with Leyland, a man he respects and admires deeply.

“I didn’t go to bed until six this morning,” he said. “If this was my last game here I wanted to end it on a positive note and feel I did.”

Simmons knows that Bonds is determined to test the market. Drabek, who will pitch Game 7 if the Pirates get that far, said he has successfully kept free agency out of his mind since the start of the season.

Despite the constant turnover, the Pirates have established a mini-dynasty with three division titles in a row. Can they remain competitive if Bonds and Drabek go?

“I’m certainly not writing off the playoffs, but I think our fans would say that they got more than they bargained for this year,” Simmons said.

“With Bonilla, Smiley and Landrum gone, people were burying us, but we’re still alive, and I feel we can do it again by making the right decisions.”

The general manager will be surprised, however, if those decisions return both Bonds and Drabek to Pittsburgh.