Padres Ship Fernandez to Mets : Baseball: Wally Whitehurst, D.J. Dozier are the players received in exchange for the All-Star shortstop.

The penny-pinching Padres rang up the first transaction of what is expected to be an off-season clearance sale Monday by dealing All-Star shortstop Tony Fernandez to the New York Mets.

In return, the Padres received right-handed pitcher Wally Whitehurst, who was 3-9 for the Mets last season, and outfielder D.J. Dozier, who hit .197 in only 45 major league games. The Padres will also receive a Rookie League-level player to be named in December.

“We are obviously trying to operate within the parameters given to us (by ownership),” said Joe McIlvaine, Padre general manger. “We have to do that, and we’re trying to put our best foot forward. Through our own system, the players we bring up and the players we may be able to acquire, we hope to be able to do that.”

McIlvaine has been given a budget with which to work from Padre ownership, and Fernandez’s $2.3 million contract did not fit into its parameters.

Although Fernandez’s is the first salary to be dumped this winter, it surely will not be the last. All-Star catcher Benito Santiago and relievers Randy Myers and Larry Andersen all filed for free agency on Monday, the first day of the 15-day filing period, and pitcher Jim Deshaies is expected to file within the next two weeks.

None of the four are expected to return.

Others will depart, too.

“Yes, we’re going to have to trade some more players,” McIlvaine said. “Yes, there is going to be some housecleaning.

“We’ve had to make some hard choices. We have told teams that (Gary) Sheffield, (Fred) McGriff, (Tony) Gwynn and (Andy) Benes are guys who are certainly likely to be here, and we’ll go from there.

“Certainly, I’m not enamored with making this trade.”

The Fernandez situation was the most urgent for the Padres because of a clause in his contract that stipulated that the Padres had to exercise his option for 1993 by midnight EST Monday--48 hours after the conclusion of the World Series. Had they not exercised the option, Fernandez would have become an unrestricted free agent.

Given the Padres’ financial circumstances, the deal elicited little more than a yawn from John Davimos, Fernandez’s Los Angeles-based agent.

“They said they were going to trade him,” Davimos said. “You can’t question San Diego’s policy.

“He was an All-Star and his contract was reasonable. I was surprised they didn’t pick up his option, but you don’t know what people’s finances are.”

As for the Mets, they could not believe their good fortune.

“We really didn’t expect to go deeply into the free agent market this year, so to come up with a shortstop like Tony Fernandez is a godsend,” said Gerry Hunsicker, assistant vice president of baseball operations for the Mets.

Fernandez, 30, was at home in the Dominican Republic and could not be reached for comment. Davimos said that, as of Monday evening, he hadn’t been able to reach Fernandez, either, and was unsure whether Fernandez even knew about the trade.

McIlvaine said that he spoke with each major league organization about Fernandez and that, in the end, it came down to the Mets and one American League team. Davimos said McIlvaine led him to believe it was the Texas Rangers.

“In a way, it was a little like an auction,” McIlvaine said. “People knew what our situation was, and we tried to do the best we could. What we’re going to try to do is become more competitive but with a more realistic salary structure for this market.

“It’s difficult to say to the fans when you trade an All-Star shortstop, ‘Hey, hang with us,’ but that is all we can do.”

Fernandez, a switch-hitter and four-time All-Star, batted .275 but dropped dramatically in the season’s second half. He had been batting over .300 for much of the first half of the season and .297 at the All-Star break. He finished 1992 with four home runs, 37 RBIs and 20 steals in 40 attempts.

Fernandez also ranked third among NL shortstops with a .983 fielding percentage.

His departure leaves Kurt Stillwell (.227 in 1992), Craig Shipley (.248) and Paul Faries (career major league average of .248) to fill the Padre shortstop void. McIlvaine said that, unless a trade is made, shortstop may be a platoon position for the Padres in 1993.

Whitehurst, 28, has a career record of 11-22 with a 3.83 ERA. He compiled a 3.62 ERA in 1992 in 11 starts and 33 relief appearances. He had a problem with scar tissue in his elbow for part of the season.

“Part of the problem was that the Mets have high-profile starters,” McIlvaine said. “He’s always been a guy who has been shuttled back and forth between the starting rotation and the bullpen.

“He’s got a bellyful of guts. We can afford him the opportunity to get the ball every four or five days.”

Whitehurst’s salary was in the $200,000-range last year and, according to McIlvaine, he is eligible for arbitration this year.

Dozier, 27, batted only .234 in 64 games for triple-A Tidewater before his brief stint with the Mets in 1992. McIlvaine thinks that because Dozier’s baseball career was interrupted by football--he was a star running back for Penn State before playing for the Minnesota Vikings and Detroit Lions in the NFL--it has not yet blossomed.

“There’s a gap there,” McIlvaine said. “He didn’t play for six years. He still hasn’t given a full, complete season to playing baseball. He just turned 27 but in baseball experience, it’s like he is 21.”

McIlvaine said there is reason to believe Dozier will concentrate fully on baseball because he left to play in the Puerto Rican winter leagues on Monday.

So, in effect, McIlvaine’s Trade Heard ‘Round The Baseball World two winters ago--Roberto Alomar and Joe Carter to Toronto for Fred McGriff and Tony Fernandez--has had much of the luster removed.

“If we had kept those two, Joe Carter would be a free agent this year and Roberto Alomar would be one the following year,” McIlvaine said.

Still, Toronto won a world championship with those two players.

The closest the Padres have come to a World Series is watching their former players participate. And more marquee names promise to follow Fernandez out of town.

As for fan reaction to the Padres’ budget-tightening, McIlvaine said it has already been extensive, even before the Fernandez trade was consummated.

“I try to tell them to relate it to our life now,” McIlvaine said. “That’s life in the United States. These are difficult economic times for a lot of people.”

He recalled the last-minute Sheffield deal last March and promised that the Padres will continue looking for players--albeit cost-effective players--to fill in the gaps.

“This isn’t the end of what we’re trying to do,” McIlvaine said.

That’s what Padre fans are afraid of.