Angels Pick Up Wallach, Howell as Third Base Pair : Baseball: Lower-priced veterans will replace Phillips, free money for re-signing Finley, Abbott.

The Angels began a low-cost renovation of the third-base position with Tuesday’s signing of former Dodger free agent Tim Wallach and former Angel Jack Howell, moves that could leave the team with an antique look in the corner of the infield previously manned by Tony Phillips.

Wallach is a five-time all-star and three-time Gold Glove winner, but he is 38, coming off an injury-plagued season with the Dodgers and will undergo arthroscopic knee surgery this week.

Howell, who hit .238 with 78 home runs and 258 runs batted in as an Angel from 1985-91, returned from a 3 1/2-year career in Japan in good health. But at 33, he’s hardly the young prospect the Angels were grooming for the third-base spot in the mid-1980s.

“We’re not concerned about their age any more than we were concerned about [reliever] Lee Smith’s age [37],” assistant general manager Tim Mead said of the possible platoon of the left-handed hitting Howell and the right-handed Wallach. “We’re not looking for 100-RBI seasons from them, and they’re not signed to multi-year contracts.”

Wallach, a career .258 hitter with 248 homers and 1,083 RBIs, and Howell, who had 100 homers and 272 RBIs for the Yakult Swallows and Yomiuri Giants in Japan, represent low-risk investments for the Angels.

Wallach, who will have floating cartilage removed from his left knee this week, signed a one-year contract for $400,000, only $50,000 of which is guaranteed. He must make the team to receive the other $350,000, and his deal includes $100,000 in incentives if he makes 225 plate appearances.

Howell’s one-year contract calls for a $300,000 salary if he makes the team and $100,000 in incentives for plate appearances, meaning the combined salaries of the team’s potential 1996 third basemen will be millions less than Phillips’ 1995 salary of $3.5 million, $1.9 million of which was paid by the Angels.

That might allow the Angels, who hope to re-sign free-agent left-handers Chuck Finley and Jim Abbott and add another right-handed starter, to free up more money for pitching.

As for Phillips, Mead said, “Resource-wise, it’s tough to imagine him coming back. We would have loved to have him, but we have to work within the [financial] structure we have.”

Money was hardly a concern for Wallach, who has seen his salary slide from $3.4 million in 1994 to $2.175 million in 1995 to $400,000 in 1996.

What appealed to Wallach was the opportunity to close out his baseball career in Orange County, where he played for University High in Irvine, Saddleback College, and led Cal State Fullerton to the College World Series championship in 1979.

“There were really only two teams I wanted to play for, the Dodgers or Angels, and it’s obvious the door to the Dodgers [who traded for Seattle third baseman Mike Blowers last week] was closed,” Wallach said.