Lachemann Expected to Leave Angels Today

Angel Manager Marcel Lachemann, whose underachieving team has been mired in last place for much of the season, is expected to announce his resignation at a news conference this morning.

There were television reports Monday night that Lachemann was going to be dismissed today, but General Manager Bill Bavasi said that “this organization has no interest in firing Marcel Lachemann.”

Angel President Tony Tavares, who also heads Disney Sports Enterprises, would not comment on television reports. “They can report what they want to report, but they’re not based on anything we’re giving them,” he said. “I’m not going to comment.”

However, several baseball sources confirmed Monday that Lachemann, who has guided the Angels to a 163-171 record since taking over for the fired Buck Rodgers on May 17, 1994, will step down.

Lachemann walked from the team bus to his office after arriving at Anaheim Stadium late Monday night. The Angels had just returned from Cooperstown, N.Y., where they played the Montreal Expos in the Hall of Fame exhibition game.

When asked about the reported managerial change Monday, Lachemann said only, “That’s tomorrow’s story. I guess we’ll talk about it tomorrow.”

An interim manager, possibly triple-A Vancouver Manager Don Long, will likely be appointed until a full-time successor is named. Long spent four days with the Angels while the team was in Seattle in early July.

Former Cincinnati Reds and Detroit Tigers Manager Sparky Anderson, an analyst on Angel telecasts, said Monday night he has heard the club plans to have a news conference today but did not know what it involves.

Anderson said he has not been contacted about replacing Lachemann and would not be interested.

“I’m enjoying life,” he said. “I like to sit up in that booth now and be right all the time.”

Sources said representatives of the Angels recently contacted former Seattle Mariners and Chicago Cubs Manager Jim Lefebvre to inquire about his availability and were told by Lefebvre he would be interested if the club made a managerial change, but Lefebvre is currently in Germany giving clinics on behalf of major league baseball, according to Ruth Lefebvre, his wife, and has not heard anything from the Angels.

Lachemann, whose team was picked by many to win the American League West this season but has struggled to a 52-59 record, has been the subject of much criticism, most of it from the outside but some of it from himself.

An Angel pitching coach for nine years, Lachemann took a lot of heat for an early season bullpen controversy, when he gave aging and injured relief pitcher Lee Smith--the all-time leader in games saved--the closing role after flame-throwing Troy Percival had converted his first 11 save opportunities.

After Smith blew a lead in an eventual 3-1 loss to the Kansas City Royals on May 8, Bavasi told reporters that Percival was the team’s closer.

Lachemann, keeping a promise to Smith that he would be the team’s closer when he recovered from an off-season knee injury, initially insisted Smith was still his bullpen ace but gave Percival most of the closing assignments. Smith was eventually traded to Cincinnati in May.

Lachemann also blamed “poor managing” for several losses this season, and after a particularly ugly loss to the lowly Detroit Tigers last week, he said, “It’s my job to motivate this team, and right now that’s a zero.”

The Angels have been extremely inconsistent all season and have underachieved in almost all facets of the game--pitching, hitting and defense. They are well off the pace in the West, 10 1/2 games behind the Texas Rangers.

The final straw for Lachemann appeared to come on this past road trip to Detroit and Toronto, where the Angels won just one of six games.

The trip began with Gold Glove first baseman J.T. Snow wondering why he wasn’t in the lineup for a second consecutive game. Utility player Rex Hudler, who filled in for Snow, even second-guessed the wisdom of the move.

“We’ve got a Gold Glover who can hit sitting on the bench. . . . Put a real first baseman in there,” Hudler said.

Snow said, “The worst thing you can do is make a player wonder if he’s going to be playing every day. If I’m going to be a platoon player, [Lachemann] should tell me. There’s definitely a lack of communication around here.”

Lachemann called a team meeting the next afternoon, assuring players that his door was open, and if they had any problems, they should come to him.

But two days later, Lachemann was questioning his team’s motivation. This time, his players came to Lachemann’s defense.

“If we don’t go out and play the way we should play, we should be fired, not the manager,” center fielder Jim Edmonds said. “Guys aren’t pitching and playing like they’re supposed to.”

Lachemann’s frustrations seemed to come to a head after Thursday’s 13-5 loss to Detroit, which completed a three-game sweep of the Angels for the Tigers, who have baseball’s worst record.

“I can’t do this much longer,” Lachemann said after the game. “I can’t sit here and watch this. I don’t know how they can sit and watch this. We have to turn it around somehow.”

Lachemann endured similar problems last season when the Angels suffered one of the worst collapses in the history of baseball, blowing an 11-game lead in the West in the final two months of the season.

The Angels also had a 13-game lead over the Seattle Mariners in early August, but two nine-game losing streaks later, the lead was gone.

The Angels won their last five games of the 1995 regular season to force a one-game playoff with the Mariners to determine the division champion, but the Mariners won, 9-1, to advance to the playoffs.

Lachemann’s brother, Rene, was dismissed last month by the Florida Marlins. They were the first brothers to manage in the majors at the same time in this century.

Also contributing to this report were Times staff writers Ross Newhan and Elliott Teaford.