BASEBALL / ROSS NEWHAN : Any Deal Is a Game of Buyer Beware

Baseball’s general managers haven’t used a handbook since they graduated from the Boy Scouts.

Aside from some technicalities pertaining primarily to paperwork, there is no manual on how to make a trade, no official protocol.

“Baseball has always been vague in that area,” said Andy MacPhail, the successful and innovative general manager of the Minnesota Twins. “The policy I try to follow is caveat emptor . . . (let the) buyer beware.” That is the same policy recommended in a 1977 bulletin from then Commissioner Bowie Kuhn, but there have been suggestions that the Angels failed to follow it in their Dec. 7 trade for Toronto Blue Jay third baseman Kelly Gruber.

Gruber had arthroscopic shoulder surgery Tuesday and will not be ready to play for at least eight weeks, prompting the Angels, admittedly looking like “country bumpkins,” to consider asking the American League for an official investigation that could lead to a rescinding or reworking of the trade. Club president Richard Brown said Friday that he believes the Blue Jays knew the severity of Gruber’s injury and should at least owe the Angels financial compensation.

Should the Angels have been more diligent before the trade? Should they have been aware that Gruber seriously injured his shoulder in Game 3 of the World Series and demanded a pre-trade physical? Did the Blue Jays or Gruber know the extent of it when the trade was made? Did Toronto wink and send the Angels damaged goods, or was everyone innocent in an unfortunate but unavoidable development?

“Sometimes you can ask the right questions and get honest answers, but the player can still come up hurt,” MacPhail said. “There are no guarantees. You never know for sure.”

The collective bargaining agreement requires that clubs exchange medical reports, but the leagues are basically operating on conflicting testimony when they attempt to sort out claims of damaged goods. Other than a stipulation in the Major League Agreement that requires the clubs and their employees to act in baseball’s best interest regarding “transactions and practices,” there is no set of rules and regulations governing the situation.

“This wouldn’t be the first time that we’ve been asked to investigate, but I don’t recall that we’ve ever revoked a trade because we had established that a club acted in bad faith,” American League vice president Phyllis Merhige said.

Most often, any suspicions are resolved between the clubs.

The Montreal Expos, for example, traded Al Oliver to the San Francisco Giants for pitcher Fred Breining and outfielder Max Venable on Feb. 27, 1984. Spring training had already started, and when Breining reported to the Expos’ camp he could barely lift his pitching arm. The Expos complained to National League President Chub Feeney, who influenced the Giants to send Montreal a replacement, pitcher Andy McGaffigan.

Basically, every general manager is hoping there is honor among thieves.

“I’ve always felt that you put your reputation and credibility on the line every time you make a trade,” said Fred Claire, the Dodgers’ executive vice president. “You deal with the other clubs day in and day out, year in and year out. All you have to do is intentionally trade an injured player and your reputation would be ruined.”

Said MacPhail: “The Minnesota Twins hope to be in business another 100 years. I’m 39 and hope to be in it for another 20 or 30 years. The only way I can do that is by protecting my reputation. I mean, you don’t deal an injured player knowing the other club is going to find out he’s injured a week from now.

“That doesn’t mean there haven’t been deals made where the player comes up more seriously hurt than anyone honestly believed. Maybe the injury was misdiagnosed. Maybe the player didn’t say anything to protect his contract. Maybe he was hurt screwing around off the field and crawled to the nearest diamond to protect his worker’s comp.

“As I said before, you never know. . . . You have to trust your scouts and you have to trust the other team.”

Teams rarely demand a pre-trade physical. The Dodgers did it before signing free agents Jim Gott and Kevin Gross but did not do it before signing free agent Todd Worrell. The Dodgers also relied only on an exchange of doctor reports before making a trade that was a risk for both sides, sending Bob Welch and his fragile elbow to the Oakland Athletics for Alfredo Griffin and Jay Howell, both coming off surgery. The deal proved to benefit both teams.

“Where you can, you request a physical, but even that’s not a total answer,” Claire said. “If you examined every pitcher in baseball it’s likely that 75% of them would show a problem with their elbow or shoulder.

“It’s also almost impossible to require a physical when you’re making a trade during the season. What happens if the player doesn’t pass and has to stay where he is? What happens if it becomes public knowledge that you’re in the process of dealing this player or that player, as it certainly would? It can be very unsettling and disruptive to the team.”

Claire has taken heat for not requiring a physical of relief pitcher Worrell before signing him in December to a three-year, $9.3 million contract. Worrell had missed almost two years with arm problems and emerged from the 1992 season with tendinitis in his forearm, a condition jeopardizing his availability during spring training and, perhaps, the season.

“We tracked Worrell through spring training and the entire season,” Claire said of his scouts. “We saw him pitch as well in September as any pitcher in the league. With the vast turnover of players, scouting is more important than it has ever been and you have to rely on the last thing you saw.

“Worrell would have agreed to a physical, but he also would have continued to talk to other teams during that time. We viewed him as a key acquisition and had to make a tough call. We had to rely on our reports and what we had seen during the season. If we had put him on hold he might have signed with Atlanta.”

Worrell told the Dodgers about his tendinitis condition before signing. The Angels didn’t learn about Gruber’s shoulder condition until late January. MacPhail said he would not take kindly to any player who did not inform him of a serious injury at the time of a trade, but he added that Gruber may not have recognized the seriousness of it. Toronto trainer Tommy Craig said as much the other day, suggesting that Gruber went home after the World Series believing it would respond to rest. Even in December, at the time of the trade, Gruber may have still felt it would improve.

“Millions of people watched him play in the World Series,” MacPhail said. “I don’t know how anyone would have known he was hurt or should have a physical.”

Still, there were some red lights that might have prompted the Angels to demand one even if they didn’t know about the shoulder.

--The Blue Jays, without a proven replacement, seemed too eager to trade a player who had been everyone’s All-Star in 1990--when he hit 31 homers and drove in 118 runs--for a backup infielder, while also agreeing to pick up $1.7 million of Gruber’s $4-million salary in 1992.

--Gruber, after playing 150 games in 1990, played only 113 in ’91 and 118 in ‘92, when he was sidelined by a jammed right shoulder and injuries to his left knee and hamstring. He also complained of a sore neck and was found to have a bulging disk. He hit only 31 homers in those two years, matching his 1990 total, and was criticized at times by teammates and Manager Cito Gaston for failing to play when they believed he was healthy enough to play.

The Angels contend they made only a minimum investment in acquiring Gruber, but the cost has risen dramatically. The Angels pride has been damaged, their relationship with the Blue Jays threatened, their reputation and support among fans--already disenchanted by the departure of Jim Abbott and other moves--further deteriorated.

The question of who’s calling the shots in the Jackie Autry, Richard Brown, Dan O’Brien and St. Louis-based Whitey Herzog chain of command has also become a renewed subject of lively--and often amusing--conversation among executives on the baseball grapevine.

Ironically, this is not the first time Herzog has been involved in an incident of this nature. The Twins complained to the commissioner’s office in 1984 that Herzog, then with the St. Louis Cardinals, had sent them damaged goods in the form of a gimpy Chris Speier, but the complaint was rejected on the basis that the Twins had scouted Speier and should have known about his condition.

Buzzie Bavasi, the Angels’ former general manager, reflected on the Gruber situation and raised an interesting question.

Why, Bavasi asked, would the Angels, having finally learned about the seriousness of the injury, go ahead with the surgery if they were considering (a) asking the league to revoke the trade or (b) provide another player for Gruber? Why, he mused, wouldn’t they go to the league or Blue Jays first on the basis that Toronto should make the decision and bear the expense of the surgery?

“Now you have a player who’s going to be out eight weeks or more and there’s no way Toronto would take him back,” Bavasi said, knowing Toronto would probably fight taking him back under any conditions. Financial compensation, however, may be a possibility.

“Those are honorable people (in Toronto) and I’m sure they’ll do the right thing,” Bavasi said.

It comes down to honor and credibility in any trade. There’s virtually no official guidelines.