Bargain Basement : Padre Owners Tighten Their Belts, Squeezing Much of the Talent From What Had Been a Contending Team

Ed Lynch, San Diego Padre farm director, poked his head into Joe McIlvaine’s office, looking frantic.

“Joe, you better get going,” Lynch said, glancing at his watch to accentuate his point. “It’s already after 6.”

“I know, I’ll be there, Ed.”

“Joe, the party starts at 6:30, and it’s a good 20-minute ride from here. You don’t want to be late.”

“Don’t worry, you go on ahead. I’ll catch up with you there.”

This was the night of the Padres’ annual spring-training party, sponsored by a local booster group. Attendance was mandatory for the players and coaches, and several of the Padre owners arrived in town for the occasion.

Lynch stood at the doorway, waiting until he was assured McIlvaine still was attending the affair. It’s never easy for McIlvaine at these functions, trying to come up with answers about the usual questions concerning the club’s financial problems, but it was no time to be stubborn, either.

McIlvaine, the Padre general manager, smiled sheepishly over Lynch’sconcern. He has loyal employees, ones he handpicked after his arrival 2 1/2 years ago from the New York Mets. McIlvaine knows they worry a lot about him, and if not for their interference, he might have walked out on his job this winter.

“I was ready to quit,” McIlvaine said. “I was going to walk down to that (owners’) office and say, ‘That’s it. I’ve had it. I’m leaving.’ Believe me, I was ready to do that more than once.

“I had some long, hard talks with my staff, and I’ve relied on their support. But what do you accomplish by walking out? I’m not a quitter. I’m not going to give up on my goal of winning a World Series.

“It’s just that when you have to do things that you know are not right--from a baseball standpoint--that’s tough to take.”

McIlvaine leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. There were times this winter he felt rage and jealousy, but now all he feels is absolute helplessness.

He was lured from the Mets on Oct. 2, 1990, by the Padre ownership group that promised him total autonomy within the organization. He specifically asked if they wanted him to build a winning team. He specifically asked if they would make the necessary financial commitment.

“Those were the two biggest questions I had for the owners,” McIlvaine said, “and they assured me they were committed to do what it takes to win.

“Now, it’s 180 degrees in the other direction.”

The Padres, considered one of the most talented teams in baseball last season--threatening the Atlanta Braves until September--have been stripped into a pitiable, despondent organization.

McIlvaine was informed that he could not to re-sign catcher Benito Santiago and Randy Myers and couldn’t so much as offer arbitration, allowing them to leave through free agency without a compensatory draft pick. He was ordered to either trade or release All-Star shortstop Tony Fernandez within 48 hours of the World Series. He was told not to make a multiyear contract offer to All-Star third baseman Gary Sheffield, and now risks losing him to free agency in two years.

Most painful for McIlvaine, one of the most astute talent evaluators and player-development administrators in the game, is that he has been instructed to strip the scouting and farm systems. The Padres, who already laid off about 20 front-office employees, had to reduce their scouting department by about six employees, eliminate one minor league affiliate and fire one coach from each minor league team.

It has reached such an extreme that the Padres’ triple-A Las Vegas team was allowed to hire Marty Barrett to be its third base coach only for home games. As if it were in Little League, Las Vegas will have to use one of its players to coach third on the road.

“I never saw any of this coming,” McIlvaine said, “until late May. I’ll never forget it. I was sitting in my booth during a game, and one of the owners came in, and said, ‘Can you imagine what will happen if we win this thing? Our payroll will go out of sight!’

“I knew right then, things were going to be changing real quick.

“And they were changing 180 degrees in the wrong direction.”

McIlvaine looked away and grimaced at the memory. He glanced at his phone, hoping it would ring before his wife arrived to take him to the party.

He was anxiously awaiting the phone to ring, so he could accept another trade he did not want to make.

“I’m through wrenching my hands and grinding my teeth,” McIlvaine said. “The owners are so consumed by the payroll that my hands are tied. I can’t even take on a player who makes more than $400,000.

“Can you believe it?

“Sometimes, it’s hard to believe any of this.”

*

The Padres have been one of the most amusing organizations since their inception in 1969. They have provided Roseanne Barr’s rendition of the national anthem; a club president who made an obscene gesture to the crowd on Fan Appreciation Day; a manager who quit on the eve of spring training without telling anyone, a radio broadcaster who became manager and the San Diego Chicken.

“It used to be comical watching what was going on down there,” one National League general manager said. “Every day was like a soap opera. You couldn’t wait until the next episode.

“But what’s going on now is sad. It’s pathetic, really. They’ve torn apart a good baseball franchise and (are) ruining a good baseball man.

“It’s like watching someone slowly bleed to death.”

The Padres, who were purchased in 1990 by TV producer Tom Werner and 14 limited partners, promised a new era when they assumed control. They were rich in enthusiasm, and most important, simply rich. Their net worth is estimated to be nearly $1 billion, according to documents provided to major league baseball, and they include some of the most powerful businessmen in San Diego and Los Angeles.

They bought the club for what was considered a bargain price of $75 million, with former owner Joan Kroc even taking responsibility for the $10 million in collusion damages. They weren’t going to spend money like the New York Yankees, McIlvaine was told, but certainly money would not be a problem.

“I never told them I was an economist or a banker,” McIlvaine said. “I told them I can build a good baseball team, a championship team, if they desire.”

Two years later, the Padres have evolved into a baseball flea market, dumping players as if Charles O. Finley had returned to the game. Werner, who is chairman of the board but runs the ownership group as if it were a democracy, says that the fire-sale was needed because the club lost $7.1 million in 1992.

Werner conceded that he isn’t counting the $12.3 million the Padres received in the expansion pool. That would make it a $5.2-million profit. Besides, the expansion money never went into their pockets. According to several owners, the money was used to help pay off a $20-million bank loan used to help buy the team.

“I say to people, ‘If you were me, would you do it any differently? Would you go out and spend?’ ” Werner said. “If we had the same payroll we had in 1992, we would have lost 15 million (this season).

“Maybe we didn’t realize that salaries would skyrocket totally out of control, but for us to remain in San Diego and be successful long term, we have to make some choices. And those are choices that, in the short-term, involve having to make some player-payroll decisions.”

The most popular theory for the Padres’ swap meet is that Werner simply wants to make the club more alluring on the open market by slashing the payroll. Although he vehemently denies the club is for sale, one high-profile owner says that Werner is attempting to sell the team.

“If Werner would just come in here and say to us, ‘Hey, we’re trying to sell the team,’ ” Sheffield said, “then we’d all understand. Even if we didn’t believe they lost $7 million, we know this is a business and we’d respect his right to sell.

“But this, this is crazy. There’s no plan. It’s like we’re here for our health.

“The only message they’re sending to guys right now is that, ‘If you start making good money, you’re out of there.’ The only two guys on the team who aren’t worried about what’s going to happen to them are Fred (McGriff) and Tony (Gwynn), because they’re on multiyear contracts.

“The rest of us know we’re gone. I come here every day knowing I could be gone. It’s just a question of when for a lot of us.”

Even McIlvaine is forced to succumb to the same uncertainty. Although he signed a five-year contract that pays him about $500,000 per year, there is a clause that gives the owners the right to fire him at the 1993 All-Star break.

The owners haven’t commented on McIlvaine’ status, but have made it clear that they want the budget trimmed to $21 million by opening day.

This meant that center fielder Darrin Jackson, who won his arbitration case at $2.1 million, had to be traded to the Toronto Blue Jays.

If starter Bruce Hurst--who makes $2.75 million but is recovering from rotator-cuff surgery--can’t be traded, McIlvaine might be forced to unload starter Greg Harris and his $2-million salary.

“My job probably depends on getting the budget down,” McIlvaine said. “I can’t tell you how frustrating that is. I came out here to build a championship ballclub, and I still believe I can, if given the chance. But now we have all these bumps and obstacles to overcome.”

McIlvaine, who fired Greg Riddoch as manager in September, has left first-year Manager Jim Riggleman a team that might have difficulty keeping the Colorado Rockies out of last place.

The Padres do not have a bullpen stopper, trying to choose three pitchers who have five saves combined.

Andy Benes, who has spent only 3 1/2 years in the big leagues, will be their most experienced starter if Hurst is traded. Gwynn, who stole three bases last season and 11 the last two years, will be the leadoff hitter for the first time since September of 1987. Their defense up the middle, now that Jackson is gone, will be entirely new and unproved.

“If you look at the teams on paper in our division, where do you think we finish?” Gwynn asked. “We finish sixth. It’s going to be hard convincing people that we can win, because everybody in our division has better balance than us, except the Rockies.

“It’s tough to accept, but what can you do? We can’t do a damn thing about it. Everybody in here has resigned themselves to the fact that, sooner or later, some more guys in here will be gone.

“Winning just isn’t the most important thing around here anymore. The bottom line is making money.”

Meanwhile, Padre ticket sales are down nearly 30%. The ownership group is projecting the Padres will draw 1.5 million, but anything less, McIlvaine fears, could signify additional budget cuts.

“If nobody comes out to see the ballclub and the ballclub does terrible,” McIlvaine said, “I’d hate to see what will happen next year.

“Can you imagine?”

*

There was one move that stood above all the rest in its absurdity. It was the Oct. 26 trade of Fernandez to the New York Mets for pitcher Wally Whitehurst, outfielder D.J. Dozier and minor league catcher Raul Casanova.

McIlvaine was so embarrassed by the one-sided trade that he refused to publicly discuss it until he was coerced by the public relations department and other members of the front-office.

If David Cone for Ed Hearn and Sheffield for Ricky Bones and two minor leaguers were his finest trades, this one might go down as his worst. It was the first time he ever made a trade with a gut-feeling it will have disastrous repercussions.

“The Fernandez trade was made for all the wrong reasons,” McIlvaine said. “I pleaded and pleaded and pleaded for them (ownership) to wait, but they wouldn’t. They were just so consumed by their budget.

“That trade didn’t please anybody, except the owners. It sure didn’t please me, the players or the fans.

“What made it so frustrating was the reason behind it.”

McIlvaine thought it was senseless to trade Fernandez--$2.3 million was a bargain for an All-Star shortstop--and he was mortified by the timing. Fernandez’s option had to be exercised within 48 hours after the World Series, and although McIlvaine tried to persuade the owners that he would receive much greater value if they waited until the winter meetings, they refused.

“If I didn’t make that trade, I was going to have to release him,” McIlvaine said. “It was that simple.”

The moment Fernandez was traded, the news spread quickly to every Padre player. There was no doubt that Myers and Santiago would leave. They weren’t surprised when they learned no Padre employee would be receiving a raise. They shook their heads after finding out that 50-cent directory-assistance calls were prohibited in the office.

“It’s one thing to trade guys, that’s part of the game,” McGriff said, “but it’s another to just give guys away.

“If we had a bad team last year, then OK, go ahead and make your changes. But we were a good team. We were maybe two pitchers away from the Braves, and offensively, we were better.

“Now, I can’t see how we’re even close.”

Riggleman and McIlvaine, fearing the distraction created by their financially dictated moves, met with the players on the first day of camp and instructed them to forget about their departed teammates and concentrate on baseball. Maybe it would be easy, Sheffield said, if no one else was leaving. But everyone knows that more moves are on the horizon.

Hurst was so fearful that the trade talks will affect his family while he is away in spring training that he pulled his children out of school and hired a private tutor so they can remain together in Yuma. Jackson says he jumps every time the phone rings, knowing that the next call could be telling him to pack his bags.

“I’m on a one-year contract,” Sheffield said, “and like everyone else, I don’t know if I’m coming or going. It’s a bad situation. It’s hard to concentrate on what you want to do.”

Said Jackson: “It’s just gotten crazy. When I won my arbitration case, the first thing I said to my agent was, ‘Where will I be playing next?’

“I knew if I won, I’d be gone.”

McIlvaine empathizes with his players. He understands their anguish and tells them he didn’t want to trade Jackson any more than he wants to part with Hurst.

“People want to keep cutting us down and laughing and laughing,” McIlvaine said. “Hey, we’re trying the best we can. There’s only so much we can do right now.

“I’m scared to death what’s happening--not just here, but in all of baseball. I’m afraid that in five years there won’t be any baseball people left. They’ll all be financial experts.

“Most owners in baseball just don’t understand the game. Pretty soon, you’re going to have a group of elitists running the game who don’t know anything about baseball.

“Now, that’s the sad part.”