Bold Move by Claire, but Little Is Clear

If there had been some doubt in the aftermath of the Mike Piazza trade, Fred Claire removed it in a decisive fashion Monday.

By designating Hideo Nomo for assignment, responding with stiletto to the pitcher and his agent’s plan to announce his desire to be traded and, thus, terminating an era similar at times to Fernandomania, the Dodger executive vice president reasserted his authority and responsibility for personnel decisions.

He also documented, as Fox executives had by their trading of the popular Piazza, that no player is bigger than the organization.

Is Claire’s work done, his status totally resolved?

Hardly.

From clubhouse to front office, from 2000 Elysian Park Avenue to Fox headquarters in Beverly Hills and New York, Claire’s attempt to successfully resolve the ongoing and distracting trade talks involving Randy Johnson is being watched closely--the Dodger season possibly hanging in the balance, as well as Claire’s future with the new ownership.

His bid for the Seattle Mariner left-hander has muddied Dodger focus at a time when the team is struggling for survival in the National League West and adjusting to the presence of four new players--Gary Sheffield, Bobby Bonilla, Charles Johnson and Jim Eisenreich.

He either has to pull the trigger or tell the Mariners he is terminating the talks--and he has to do it soon.

“Fred and everybody recognizes that it’s a distraction and can’t continue,” Peter O’Malley, chairman of the board, said. “I think Fred has a timetable in mind and that closure will be at hand soon.”

How soon?

Sources indicated that Claire remains adamant against trading Darren Dreifort but that a deal sending Ismael Valdes and either Todd Hollandsworth or Roger Cedeno to the Mariners for Johnson will be made before tonight’s game against the St. Louis Cardinals at Dodger Stadium--or it will not be made at all.

“We’ve got to get this team settled down, that’s far and away the No. 1 objective,” Claire said, agreeing on the need to resolve the Johnson situation quickly.

“We have enough time and ability [to make up the 8 1/2 games by which they trail the San Diego Padres in the NL West], but we have to regain a focus--and that has to be on the field.

“Enough is enough.”

Claire wouldn’t be specific, but he smiled and said he thinks he knows how to reestablish that focus and settle the Dodgers down.

He was saying, of course, that the acquisition of Johnson would do it--an acquisition that seems imperative given the fact that Nomo is gone, Valdes and Chan Ho Park have struggled and that only Dreifort recently and Ramon Martinez from the start have provided the pitching rotation with any consistency.

Johnson has struggled as well (5-3, 5.47 earned-run average), but he was dominating in his last two starts against the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. He has labored mentally with the Mariners’ spring announcement that they would not extend his contract when the season was over and probably would flourish in the environment of a new league.

The Big Unit will be 35 in September, and the Dodgers might be mortgaging their future by trading Dreifort, 26, but Valdes’ future with the team is tenuous at best given the inconsistency of the 24-year-old’s development and a clubhouse feeling that he tends to be too timid on the mound and too absorbed in his own statistics and performance.

It takes two to tango, of course, and there is nothing Claire can do if the Mariners won’t accept a Valdes package--or find a better package elsewhere--except reconsider his stance on Dreifort. If, as sources insist, he won’t, the problem for Claire in that case is twofold:

* How would the players react to the collapse of the widely chronicled Johnson talks?

* How would Fox react, given the fact that it opened the door to Claire’s pursuit by approving another payroll boost to the $60-million plateau, it seems determined to win in its first year of ownership and there is already a perception that Claire has been reluctant to close a major trade since the widely criticized Pedro Martinez-for-Delino DeShields deal?

That perception seems patently unfair, since Claire had been handcuffed in the last few years by the rigid payroll parameters that weren’t lifted until the recent trade with the Florida Marlins.

Whether Fox would ultimately weigh that and other factors if and when it determines Claire’s status isn’t certain, but if the Johnson resolution ultimately has a bearing on his fate, Claire showed no hesitation in pulling the trigger on Nomo.

He made his decision Sunday night after hearing agent Don Nomura’s latest request for a trade and initially agreeing to a joint Stadium Club news conference for Monday at which Nomo would express his desire to be traded if it would help the club and the Dodgers would say they would try to accommodate him.

Claire then reconsidered, deciding he wasn’t going to be party to that type of public accommodation, wouldn’t risk being a whipping boy for the agent, couldn’t allow Nomo to become another distraction by remaining in the clubhouse or making another start after expressing a public desire to be traded.

He called Nomo and Nomura in about 30 minutes before Monday’s scheduled news conference and informed them he was designating the pitcher for assignment, leaving them stunned, according to sources, and putting Claire in the news conference driver’s seat.

The decision means the Dodgers may end up with nothing for Nomo since it will be tougher to trade him--clubs will wait 10 days until he becomes a free agent and can be signed without picking up the remainder of his $2.8-million contract--but was applauded by O’Malley, who has been closer to Nomo than any Dodger official or player.

“Fred had authority and has authority, and he made the absolutely right and decisive move [in designating Nomo],” O’Malley said. “You can’t have Nomo go out and pitch four or five days after holding a news conference to announce he wants to be traded.”

Sources said that O’Malley’s reduced role in the operation was a primary factor in Nomo’s request, given their close ties. So was Tom Lasorda’s resignation as manager, the departure of Dave Wallace as pitching coach and the trade that sent Piazza, his favorite teammate, to Florida, sources said.

The rumors of his involvement in the Johnson trade--Claire continued to insist that Nomo’s name had never been mentioned in any discussion of any trade--also injured Nomo’s pride, but O’Malley suggested Nomo might not have made the request if he had been 7-2 instead of 2-7.

“Hideo is close to me, yes, and he is close to Tommy, but he’s been frustrated because he hasn’t been pitching well and sometimes a change of scenery helps,” O’Malley said. “I think that was what this was about more than anything, and I understand that.”

O’Malley, of course, has been a global pioneer and was significantly responsible for Nomo’s decision to sign with the Dodgers. The former owner said he had great admiration for what Nomo had accomplished with the team and for the “competitiveness and professionalism” with which he went about it.

“I will continue to be close to him and support him,” O’Malley said. “He knows he has a good friend here.”

Nomo went to O’Malley’s office Monday and gave his friend the ball that he had hit for a home run on April 28 against Milwaukee.

O’Malley told him that Nomo should give the ball to his son. Nomo argued that he wanted O’Malley to have it, but O’Malley told him he would keep it in his safe if Nomo reconsidered.

It was all part of a bizarre day in which the Dodgers served lunch to the media before serving up Nomo’s head, not what pitcher and agent had in mind when they requested a trade.

And it was another chapter in a chaotic period that may or may not result in the acquisition of Randy Johnson today--another measure, perhaps, of Fred Claire’s ultimate fate under Fox.

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FOX MOVES MADE

* March 19, 1998: Purchased Dodgers for $311 million.

* May 14: Returned pitcher Frank Lankford to the Yankees. Recalled pitcher Dennis Reyes from Triple-A Albuquerque.

* May 15: Traded catcher Mike Piazza and third baseman Todd Zeile to Florida for catcher Charles Johnson, third baseman Bobby Bonilla, outfielders Gary Sheffield and Jim Eisenreich and pitcher Manuel Barrios.

* May 27: Designated outfielder Matt Luke for assignment. Recalled pitcher Eric Weaver from Albuquerque.

* June 1: Designated pitcher Hideo Nomo for assignment and purchased the contract of pitcher Gary Rath from Albuqerque.

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Sorting It Out

The Dodgers “designated Hideo Nomo for assignment” on Monday. Here is an explanation of what that means according to major league rules:

Within the next 10 days, the Dodgers must do one of three things to Nomo:

* Trade him to another team.

* Put him on waivers, which would release him from the team. If the Dodgers put Nomo on waivers, teams would have three days to claim him. The team with the worst record at that time would have the first chance to claim him.

* If no team claimed him on waivers, the Dodgers could send him to the minor leagues. However, since Nomo has been in the majors over three years, he could refuse assignment to the minors. That would void his contract, and he would become a free agent able to sign with any team.