If Angels Fail, So Does Bavasi

If four years is enough time for a college to pass out a diploma to a student, it’s certainly enough time to pass judgment on a general manager.

Bill Bavasi knows this. He knows the Angels have his stamp all over them and that their performance is a reflection on him.

“I’ve been here now long enough where if this works, I feel good,” Bavasi said. “If this doesn’t work, then, hey, it’s my fault.”

By October, he’ll either be taking bows or dodging tomatoes. Right now, before the curtain goes up, there are plenty of reasons for him to be proud.

Everyone in the projected starting lineup and pitching rotation was either acquired by Bavasi or came up through the Angels’ minor league system, which Bavasi oversaw for 10 years beginning in 1984. Crucial young players such as Tim Salmon and Darin Erstad are locked up for the next four seasons.

The Angels are in an enviable position. They have the talent to win the American League West, but all the expectations and the pressure are the burden of the Seattle Mariners. Should the Angels fail, they won’t be subjected to the criticism and second-guessing that plagued the Dodgers throughout the off-season.

Bavasi has created a nice little niche for himself as well. He isn’t perceived as merely the son of Buzzie Bavasi, who was the Angels’ general manager from 1977-1984.

Bill Bavasi is his own man, freewheeling enough to make a few runs down a mountain on a snowboard, cautious enough to get off the phone with impatient agents and take some time to review his notes before calling back to commit to a free agent.

Bavasi doesn’t try to hide from the shadow of his father, who made such flashy acquisitions as Rod Carew, Fred Lynn and Reggie Jackson. When asked if last week’s signing of Jack McDowell was the most significant spring training move he has made, Bavasi had to acknowledge that it was, with the joking concession that, “It’s not like you’re talking to Buzzie.”

Bill admits he didn’t inherit his father’s ability to make snap judgments. And he definitely didn’t just inherit this job. He literally worked his way from the ground up, with jobs in the operations department and on the grounds crew of the San Diego Padres before joining the Angels’ minor league administration in 1980.

“It makes me appreciate what everybody does,” Bavasi said. “I know what goes on in the ticket office. I know what goes on in the operations department. I mean, firsthand I know these things. I grew up around them.”

His first thought now that he’s in charge is to be grateful that his predecessors in a period of unusually rapid turnover for the Angels (three general managers in three years before Bavasi took over in 1994) did not throw everyone overboard.

“When we played well in ’95 and what you’re seeing here now is [Jim] Edmonds not traded, is Salmon not traded, is [Gary] DiSarcina not traded,” Bavasi said. “We stuck with the players we had in the big leagues. We stuck with the players we had in the minor leagues.”

Everyone from Angel players to Walt Disney Co. Chairman Michael Eisner feels good about the direction the team is headed and the way Bavasi is running things.

All that’s left for Bavasi to do is please the fans. People don’t come to a ballpark to watch a general manager, but they do come to see his product.

Less than 1.8-million fans came to Anaheim Stadium last year. The folks at Disney hope the redesigned (and renamed) Edison International Field of Anaheim will boost attendance, and the team will keep people coming back.

The Angels showed last season that a winning record (84-78) isn’t enough. What the Angels lack is a bona fide star who will draw fans once the novelty of the new park wears off.

Bavasi does not want to carve into the core of his team to acquire a big name or write the checks it would take to keep him here.

“Let’s say we trade for a power-hitting first baseman that’s got huge star quality and costs $10 million a year, $11 million a year,” Bavasi said, making a not-so-subtle reference to the great Mark McGwire debate that swirled around the Angels last season. “That’s going to be an increase in our payroll of $7 million. Are you telling me that we’re going to draw enough fans to pay for that? Do the math.”

Bavasi said there was a time that taking on a big-time salary could be met by the expected boost in attendance.

“Those days are over,” he said. “[A superstar] salary has gone so far out of whack, you can’t bring a star in and say, ‘You know what, it pays for himself.’

“The way it works today, the reason you want to do [it], it gives your club credibility in your community. From my point of view, I feel that our ballclub has to be run and developed without star quality in mind, until you can run a profit. You have to put the best club you can put together together.”

The way it turned out for the Angels, they kept their young players and acquired a smaller (in home run numbers, anyway) version of McGwire at a bargain rate in Cecil Fielder.

At some point however, it’s up to the superstars to take over. Seattle did it to the Angels with Ken Griffey Jr. in the stretch drive last year and Randy Johnson in 1995. Sometimes a young phenom might emerge ahead of his time, the way Livan Hernandez did for the Marlins in the postseason last year.

When Bavasi makes a move for a star, or one of his young players turns into one, his job will be complete. He won’t merely be effective, he’ll be a winner. Bavasi has passed through the first four years on the job. Now it’s time for him to earn his master’s degree.