Herzog Leaves a Grim Legacy

Whitey Herzog is out of here, probably frolicking on some well-packed ski run at this very moment, but he is in every Angel fan’s thoughts today as Bill Bavasi and Buck Rodgers try to figure out what to do with that exorbitant parting gift Whitey left behind, Joe (Rhymes With Kelly Gruber) Magrane.

Magrane, expected to be the No. 3 starter in Rodgers’ pitching rotation this season, underwent arthroscopic elbow surgery Tuesday morning--12 days before pitchers and catchers report to training camp and less than five months after Whitey signed Magrane to a guaranteed $3-million contract that is worth, potentially, up to $13.3 million over four years.

Unlike Gruber, whose shoulder and neck injuries ambushed the Angels last winter, Magrane’s arm problems are a matter of public record. Magrane underwent reconstructive elbow surgery in March of 1991, missed all of the 1991 season and appeared in only five major league games in 1992.

This was with the St. Louis Cardinals, who nursed Magrane through those two seasons, and 20 more starts in 1993, before signing off on the rehabilitation project last Aug. 15, tendering Magrane his release.

Things looked grim for Magrane, once a promising sinkerballer who won 18 games in 1989, but, fortunately, he had a friend in Whitey. Together, they won a pennant in 1987. Almost won a World Series, too. Good times, they were. Whitey remembered them well.

What this called for was a round of drinks. Or a testimonial dinner. Share a few laughs, give Magrane a gold watch, thank him for his meritorious service.

Most general managers in baseball would have done just that.

But not good buddy Whitey.

Good buddy Whitey felt he had to set Magrane up for life, which he did last Sept. 21 with a contract agreement so outlandish that it wasn’t second-guessed at the time, it was first-guessed.

Three years, plus an option.

Three million guaranteed over two seasons, with incentives that could swell the jackpot to $9 million over three seasons and $13.3 million over four.

All this after watching Magrane make six starts for the Angels.

Of course, three of those starts were victories.

And they did come in a row.

Angel veterans were apoplectic. Luis Polonia kicked and screamed his way out of town. Chili Davis, the team RBI leader, whose 1994 contract option would be picked up by the team and nothing more, could only shake his head.

What if Magrane’s arm goes out again?

Yeah, well, Whitey isn’t around to answer that one now. The deed has been done, the deal has been signed, and now Magrane’s out six to eight weeks, minimum, sending Rodgers to Tempe not to pick up the pieces, but first to find some.

“Somebody asked me today, ‘What’s your starting rotation going to be?’ ” Rodgers said Tuesday. “I told him, ‘Your guess is as good as mine.’ ”

Right now, it’s a two-man rotation, Chuck Finley and Mark Langston.

After that?

“You’d like to give Phil Leftwich an outstanding chance to be our No. 3 starter,” Rodgers said. Leftwich, 24, made 12 starts for the Angels last season. He finished 4-6 with a 3.79 earned-run average.

And after that?

“From there, I don’t know,” Rodgers said. “We got about six guys, including (Hilly) Hathaway, (Russ) Springer, (John) Dopson and (John) Farrell. You name it, we got it.

“We’re going to give them all a shot, so when we get back from Arizona to start the season, your guess is as good as mine as to who’s going to be our Nos. 4 and 5 starters.”

Some numbers to ponder:

--Hathaway, in 1993: 4-3, 5.02.

--Farrell: 3-12, 7.35.

--Springer: 1-6, 7.20.

--Dopson: 7-11, 4.97.

Rodgers has pondered, and it has given him a Magrane headache.

“When you got a guy with a bad arm, it’s not unusual for him to have something that needs to be cleaned up from time to time,” Rodgers said. “It’s the timing. You figure he has the surgery after the season, something like that.”

You don’t figure the Tuesday before Valentine’s Day, with 30 to 35 starts hanging on that left elbow.

“I thought he’d give us a good, solid 200 innings,” Rodgers said. Now? Who can say when Magrane will be back in the rotation? Late April? May? June?

“I don’t know,” Rodgers said. “I really don’t know. We have to find out how serious it is and when he can start throwing again.

“That’s going to be one thing. How long it takes him to get back on the mound is another. Really, everything is speculative right now.”

Has Rodgers been able to track down Herzog to discuss this latest development?

“No,” he replied. “But (Magrane) was given the OK by the St. Louis doctor and our doctors. I don’t think there’s anything Whitey didn’t do in this case.

“I think we followed the (proper) procedures and everything. We started him and he pitched 48 innings for us and we pronounced him able . . .

“All I know is that it was my job to put him out on the mound and evaluate him as a healthy pitcher and an effective pitcher. We did that and we told (the front office) he could be one of our starting pitchers next year. And the negotiators took over from there.”

Indeed they did. Four-and-a-half months later, Rodgers was standing outside an elevator at Anaheim Stadium, playing spin doctor while the real doctors tinkered with Magrane’s elbow.

“I don’t think it was that bad a contract,” Rodgers professed. “I mean, if we go in and sign a healthy Joe Magrane, he’s going to cost you somewhere between $4-5 million a year. So we took a gamble and built in some incentives. So I think both sides are protected.”

Gruber. Magrane. You’d like to say the Angels do learn from these experiences, but last week they gave $1 million to a 31-year-old left fielder with an artificial hip. It was the first “major signing” of the post-Whitey Herzog era.