Angels’ Abbott Files for Free Agency : Baseball: He joins Phillips, Gonzales and Habyan in that group. Nine others also eligible.

Left-hander Jim Abbott, third baseman Tony Phillips, infielder Rene Gonzales and reliever John Habyan were the first of 13 eligible Angels to file for free agency Tuesday.

Nine others, including left-hander Chuck Finley and catcher Greg Myers, also are eligible to file by the Nov. 12 deadline.

Whether to re-sign Abbott and Finley figures to be among the biggest off-season decisions facing the Angels.

However much of the Angels’ planning for 1996 has been put on hold until the club’s sale to the Walt Disney Co. is approved by major league owners. No date has been set for a vote, which figures to be a slam dunk.

“We really have not pinpointed our priorities beyond the No. 1, and that’s [re-signing] Chuck Finley,” General Manager Bill Bavasi said. “No. 2 and beyond? We have not shuffled that deck yet.”

Conventional wisdom suggests the Angels also need to bolster their starting rotation with a hard-throwing right-hander capable of pitching inside.

“We feel we’d like to [acquire a right-hander],” Bavasi said. “There are a lot of things we’d like to do, but after Chuck we haven’t really sorted it out yet. Do we need two righties? Do we need one righty and have Jim back?

“But the need for a right-hander is real.”

Abbott, re-acquired in a July 27 trade with the White Sox, is a fan favorite but didn’t pitch as well as hoped, going 11-8 with a 3.70 earned-run average in 30 starts for the White Sox and Angels. Finley was 15-12 with a 4.21 ERA in 32 starts. Mark Langston, a third left-handed starter, also won 15 games.

The Angels would like to re-sign Phillips, who slumped to a .261 average after hovering near .300 for most of the season, but his salary might be too high.

Last season, the Angels, who traded Chad Curtis to Detroit to get Phillips, paid $1.9 million of Phillips’ $4.4-million salary. Next season, the Angels would probably have to pay Phillips at least $4 million, particularly since he led the club with 119 runs and had a career-high 27 home runs in ’95.

The rest of the Angels eligible to file for free agency:

Utility player Mike Aldrete, right-hander Mike Bielecki, outfielder Dave Gallagher, infielder Spike Owen, reliever Bob Patterson, right-hander Scott Sanderson and shortstop Dick Schofield.