Angels Lose Harvey, Felix to Expansion : Baseball: Florida decides reliever is worth big salary. Marlins also take Felix. Dodgers get Reed from the Rockies.

The Dodgers on Tuesday traded for veteran second baseman Jody Reed, and the same medical reports and salary commitment that prompted the Angels to expose relief ace Bryan Harvey didn’t stop the Florida Marlins from selecting him in the first round of the National League expansion draft.

Whitey Herzog, the Angels’ senior vice president, called it a gamble for both teams but suggested it was one his team could afford to lose.

“When you score 500 or so runs, you don’t need a closer,” he said. “There were times we sent Joe Grahe (replacing an injured Harvey in the second half of last season) out strictly for exercise.

“We need three bats in our lineup. We need DiMaggio, Gehrig and Ruth, and I’m not sure that would be enough.”

That need didn’t influence the Angels to include center fielder Junior Felix, their 1992 runs-batted-in leader, among the eight players they protected after the first and second of Tuesday’s three rounds.

Felix also was selected by the Marlins in the third round after the Colorado Rockies had selected Angel pitching prospect Brett Merriman in the second round.

The Dodgers lost second base prospects Eric Young and Roberto Mejia to the Rockies in each of the first two rounds, then had pitcher Jamie McAndrew taken by the Marlins in the third round.

Young, who hit .258 in 49 late-season games with the Dodgers after batting .337 at Albuquerque, was the sixth player selected by the Rockies, who then drafted Reed from the Boston Red Sox to trade him to the Dodgers.

The prearranged trade--including a commitment by the Dodgers to leave the highly regarded Mejia unprotected in the second round--sent pitcher Rudy Seanez, out all of 1992 with a back injury, to the Rockies for the Reed, 30, who is coming off the worst of his five full seasons with the Red Sox.

Reed batted .247 after hitting .283 or more in the previous four years, but he made only 14 errors in 143 games, compared to nine by the shaky Young in his ’92 trial.

Fred Claire, Dodger executive vice president, said Young could develop into a full-time second baseman for Colorado, but that one of the Dodgers’ immediate needs was an experienced second baseman to help ease shortstop Jose Offerman’s growing pains and provide a measure of infield stability.

Reed made $1.6 million last year, but his acquisition alleviates the more costly possibilities of a trade for Pittsburgh Pirate second baseman Jose Lind or the free agent pursuit of Harold Reynolds.

“The draft gave us an opportunity to acquire an everyday infielder for a pitcher who didn’t pitch this year,” Claire said. “How often do you get that kind of opportunity?

“Jody Reed plays a lot of games and plays hard. His competitive makeup will be good for the club. He turns the double play well and has always been a good offensive player who should be able to bounce back from last year.”

Reached at his Tampa, Fla., home, Reed said no one seemed to escape a Boston season that was similar to that of the Dodgers.

“Injuries hurt early and then everything went downhill, affecting everyone,” Reed said. “I mean, it was difficult personally and difficult for the Red Sox. My wife and I also had our first child, and that was a distraction and adjustment.”

Reed said he was not surprised by Tuesday’s developments, because negotiations with Boston over a three-year contract have gone nowhere.

“I’m happy and excited,” he said. “The prospect of going to Los Angeles and playing for the Dodgers is very appealing. Given the option of staying in Boston with a three-year contract, I would have opted for this.”

Reed added that he was confident he could help Offerman, having contributed to the growth of Boston shortstop Luis Rivera.

“My sense of it is that Offerman is similar to the way Luis was,” he said. “He’s erratic and doesn’t use his head at times. He makes unforced errors. It wasn’t long ago I was going through the same things. I’m sure I can help.”

The Marlins are just as sure about Harvey. Pitching coach Marcel Lachemann, who spent nine years with the Angels, lobbied for Harvey’s selection.

“What with the surgery and contract, I can understand the Angels’ reasoning in not protecting him, but I’m glad they didn’t,” Lachemann said. “There’s a degree of gamble to it, but between the medical reports and the way he ‘rehabbed’ at the end of the season, we don’t think there’s a problem.”

Neither does Harvey, who was reached at his home in Catawba, N.C., and said his elbow feels fine, although he is not scheduled to throw again until January.

The American League save leader with 46 in 1991, Harvey said that he, too, could understand the Angels’ thinking and will leave with only good memories.

“It’s a happy day and a sad day,” Harvey said, referring to the sadness of leaving friends and the happiness of being reunited with Lachemann.

“I know that Chuck Hernandez will do a great job for the Angels, but it was a sad day when Lach left,” Harvey said. “He was great for me, and it’s great to be back with him. I’m excited.”

Herzog insisted that the Angels’ interpretation of the medical reports created doubt about Harvey’s comeback, or he would have been protected.

“They don’t know and we don’t know,” Herzog said of the Marlins. “If he doesn’t pitch this year it’s another $4 million down the drain. I mean, it could be a bad gamble for us and a good one for them, or vice versa.”

Grahe, who saved 21 of 24 games after he returned from Edmonton, will replace Harvey. Herzog predicted that Troy Percival (“he’s been blowing hitters away in Arizona this winter”) will be contributing for the Angels by midseason.

He denied that the Harvey decision was strictly because of money; that in saving his salary the Angels can improve a $16-million, four-year offer to Jim Abbott. Herzog said that offer represents a record for a fourth-year pitcher, and that if Abbott and agent Scott Boras continue to reject it “we’ll continue our attempt to trade him.”

However, Manager Buck Rodgers said that with the money saved by Harvey’s being drafted, it shouldn’t be necessary to trade Abbott, adding that combined with the loss of Felix, “we have $5 million on the table that we didn’t have yesterday. We’ll have to regroup and decide what to do with it.”

That decision, however, may not rest with Rodgers and Herzog. Of the decision not to protect Felix, Rodgers said: “I probably like Junior more than some people in the organization do. He was our best player for two-thirds of the season, but the way things are now, he would have been our fourth outfielder (behind Luis Polonia, Chad Curtis and Tim Salmon), and that wouldn’t have worked.”

It isn’t clear who the Angels and Dodgers protected after each of the first two rounds, but it probably will be remembered that Harvey wasn’t protected from the start, and that an expansion team seemed to place more emphasis on an expensive closer than the economy-minded Angels.

Times staff writer Helene Elliott contributed to this story.

EXPANSION DRAFT: Round-by-round selections and the players lost by each team. C8