Better to Lose a Prospect Than a Proven Player

You sit there, all agog, holding your breath, waiting for Bud Selig, the Acting Temporary Interim Sort of Commissioner of Baseball, to send a shock wave rippling through your neighborhood by announcing, “With their first pick of the 1997 expansion draft, the Tampa Bay Devil Rays select, from the Los Angeles Dodgers, first baseman Eric Karros.”

When they don’t, you wait for the Arizona Diamondbacks to make you quake by taking as a Snake someone as successful as Karros . . . or Todd Zeile . . . or Eric Young . . . or one of the big-name big leaguers from other markets rumored to be available in Tuesday’s yard sale.

Instead, two left-handed pitchers you just watched in the World Series--Game 4 loser Tony Saunders and Game 7 eighth-inning reliever Brian Anderson--become a charter Devil Ray and Diamondback, respectively, followed in turn by a bunch of virtual strangers . . . Edwin Who, Esteban What and Yamil I Don’t Know.

OK, you can breathe a little easier.

The draft is done, and it could have been worse. The man lost in the first round by the Dodgers was a prospect, outfielder Karim Garcia, who wasn’t likely to start in 1998 anyway. (And the only Angel lost in that round was Dennis Springer, who is hardly a prospect, seeing as how he will be 33 by opening day.)

If it is true that the Dodgers exposed their infield around the horn--leaving first, second and third base unprotected after the retirement of their shortstop--then it was a calculated risk of considerable bravery. And it appears to have been a well rationalized one, as Tampa and Arizona steered clear of superstars, and even of near-superstars.

“I’m very surprised we haven’t seen more well-known players taken, especially by Arizona,” said TV analyst Joe McIlvaine, the former New York Met general manager, in giving proof that it wasn’t only the uneducated guessers of the media or general public that anticipated a drafting of several household-word names.

Fred Claire, the Dodger decision-maker, did his homework.

He deduced, if we take it on faith that Karros, Zeile and Young were left unprotected, that the expansionists would lean toward youthful, inexpensive talent. We must take this on faith, inasmuch as baseball’s clubs stamp “Top Secret” on their protected lists, guarding them like fail-safe switches for jets carrying bombs.

Several teams had their headquarters swept by surveillance experts for bugs, and we don’t mean the kind you spray with an insecticide. If this seems a tad extreme, keep in mind that this is a billion-dollar business, in which Arizona already has doled out $10 million to a first baseman named Travis Lee who has never spent a day in the majors.

Did L.A. lose a good man in Garcia?

Yes, indeed it did. There was a time, not long ago, when he was listed No. 7 on a Baseball America list of the minors’ top 100 prospects. He was one of those Mike Brito discoveries scouted in his native Mexico who could have become wildly popular in this town. Los Angeles would have loved Karim, as we love all athletes named Karim.

But somebody had to go, and better it be Garcia than one of those infielders, who could prove invaluable either on the field or in upcoming deals. For it is one thing to lose Eric Karros in a blockbuster deal that nets you talent quid pro quo, but it is quite another to sacrifice him on faith, like a virgin in a volcano.

It isn’t impossible that the only Dodger infielder who returns from last season will be Zeile.

Finding a shortstop can be easy sometimes--the Dominican Republic alone seems to have an inexhaustible supply--but teams are already snapping up some good ones, such as Walt Weiss and Jay Bell. That bottomless well of talent known as the Atlanta Brave organization didn’t even blink at losing infielder Bobby Smith, because it was busy signing Weiss to play alongside Chipper Jones. Smart move.

At second base, the Dodgers once had a prospect who looked beautiful in Bakersfield as recently as 1994, when he stole 44 bases, hit .291 and looked like an up-and-comer. Too bad for Miguel Cairo that he was thrown into a deal that brought Mike Blowers to the Dodgers to play third base. The good news for Cairo is, after being bounced to two more teams, he was Tampa’s fourth pick and could start at second base.

A lot of good players we watched on local ballfields are primed to make names for themselves, thanks to this “no-name” draft, such as Neil Weber of Corona del Mar and fellow southpaw Joel Adamson from Artesia, who are about to be united on a Diamondback diamond. Either could find himself pitching against the Dodgers in a National League game.

That won’t be half as weird as if Karros were holding Dodger runners close for them at first base.

If this was a roll of the dice for the Dodgers, this one they won.