BASEBALL NOTES : Optimism Abounds--Except Around Padres

Spring training is supposed to be a place for optimism. It is a different atmosphere this spring around the San Diego Padres, where the cash-poor ownership has been forced to make available most of the club’s high-salaried talent.

Veterans Tony Fernandez, Benito Santiago, Randy Myers, Mike Maddux, Jose Melendez, Larry Andersen and Jerald Clark departed over the winter. Craig Lefferts was traded late in 1992, and Bruce Hurst and Darrin Jackson are almost certain to be traded by opening day.

The fire sale has transformed a possible contender into one of 1993’s mystery teams. The agonizing process has been toughest on General Manager Joe McIlvaine.

After the 1990 season, McIlvaine left the New York Mets, where he had been instrumental in building their late 1980s glory days, to replace Jack McKeon. At the time, there were no unreasonable fiscal restraints in San Diego. In fact, one of McIlvaine’s first moves was a blockbuster trade that sent Joe Carter and Roberto Alomar to Toronto for Fernandez and Fred McGriff.

But when the economy and the financial resources of the Padres’ ownership changed, so did the ground rules for running the club. McIlvaine acknowledges that even if Jackson and Hurst are dealt, still more changes could follow.

“The team has gone 180 degrees from where it was in 1990; it has not been easy,” McIlvaine says. “As a general manager, there are a lot of things you want to do. Instead, you are in the position where you have to trade players with salary.

“There’s no guarantee that we’re near the end of all this. It’s going to depend on attendance. If it’s way down, then we might have to do even more. And it may well go way down because everything being said and written about the club is negative.

“But it is something that we have to deal with, and if there is another side to it, it is that there is certainly a greater challenge presented to all of us. We’ve been given a roadblock and we have to try and jump over it.”

McIlvaine is aware how much talent has departed San Diego. But he has not thrown in the towel.

“People who think we’re going to just roll over are in for a surprise,” McIlvaine says. “We have a good manager (Jim Riggleman, starting his first season), a good staff and a good nucleus (Tony Gwynn, Gary Sheffield, Fred McGriff, Andy Benes). We are not giving up on this season by any means. And we’re trying to leave no stone unturned in doing what we can to put together as competitive a team as possible.”

The biggest concerns are at shortstop and in the bullpen. Fernandez’s salary-motivated trade to the Mets leaves San Diego with Kurt Stillwell and Craig Shipley at shortstop. And with Myers, Melendez, Maddux and Andersen gone, the Padres must patch together a relief corps from veteran Roger Mason and largely unproven ingredients such as Gene Harris, Tim Scott and Jeremy Hernandez.

“Shortstop is a question mark. We’ll just have to see if Stillwell or Shipley can do the job,” McIlvaine says. “In the bullpen, we have to hope that we’ll come up with a John Wetteland, a guy who blossoms into a closer. Guys like Scott and Hernandez made up a bullpen at Las Vegas last year that set a Pacific Coast League record for saves. Now they have to do it at this level.”

There are other questions.

Who will play center when Jackson is traded?

Will there be a useful bench?

Will the attitude of the veterans sag if the Padres quickly fall to the bottom of the standings?

“We might have a lot of questions, but unfortunately questions are a fact of life these days in baseball,” McIlvaine says. “More than 350 players changed teams since last October, and of those only about 20 percent were the result of trades. The rest were free agents, non-tendered players and releases.

“Right now, nothing is forever with baseball clubs. General managers, players and, most importantly, fans have to adjust to the fact that they will likely see huge turnover from year to year.

“I know many fans would rather see things as they were in the 1950s and 1960s, when teams stayed together for years. Well, I would rather see things that way, too. But the reality is otherwise and, in our case, we have to deal with it as best we can.”

Add cuts: Along with the Padres’ Jackson, the player most actively being shopped is the Seattle Mariners’ Randy Johnson. And though their budget crunch doesn’t rival San Diego’s, the Mariners need to delete some salaries.

After spending liberally in the offseason -- signing free agent Chris Bosio and tying up Ken Griffey Jr. in a long-term contract -- the Mariners’ payroll approaches $35 million, which places them in the classic small-market predicament.

The Mariners’ current payroll will consume roughly 80 percent of their projected revenue. You don’t need an economics degree to figure out that won’t work. That is why Johnson is on the trade block.

Other big-name pitchers being mentioned in trade talks are Cincinnati’s Tim Belcher and Montreal’s Dennis Martinez. The Yankees reportedly have a real interest in Belcher. However, the Reds and Expos have a solid shot to win their divisions and would need to be bowled over to convince them to trade.

Belcher and Martinez are making over $3 million and can be free agents after this season. Meanwhile, Cincinnati’s payroll already is nearly $40 million and Montreal has always been cost conscious. But if either club falls out of the race early, look for Belcher or Martinez to be traded.

Around the bases: The Chicago Cubs were encouraged in the first two weeks of spring by the progress of Mike Harkey. A healthy Harkey, who has yet to reach his enormous promise, would do a lot to make up for the loss of Greg Maddux and make the Chicago rotation good enough for a run at the wide-open N.L. East title. ... If the Tigers are successful in acquiring Darrin Jackson from San Diego, their lineup would rival any of the last 20 years for sheer firepower. They may need all that power to offset a somewhat weak pitching staff.

One of the best stories in spring training is the comeback of Steve Bedrosian, who has thrown well in early workouts with the Braves. Bedrosian had retired after going 5-3 with the Minnesota Twins in 1991 because of numbness in his fingers. But the condition could have been either stress- or tobacco-related. Bedrosian gave up tobacco. Meanwhile, Cory, Bedrosian’s son, successfully completed treatments for leukemia. As a result, Bedrosian appears healthy and stress-free once again. ... Whether you agree or not with baseball going to three divisions and an extra round of playoffs, the best thing to come out of the whole process is that the players will be made part of the decision-making process. This shared responsibility can only add to the future stability of the game.