Will Disney Let Go With the Dough?

Forget the Debilitating injuries. Forget the failure to make a Deadline Deal. Forget the September Demons.

Talking D when it’s the Angels is all about Disney.

Particularly now with the team at a crossroads.

Will corporate Burbank allow baseball Anaheim to make the right decisions and not the economical ones like Eddie Murray and Cecil Fielder? Will Disney pay for the needed power hitter and No. 1-type pitcher? Can Disney--which has had a difficult time doing it with the Mighty Ducks--persuade interested free agents that it is dedicated to winning and not simply satisfied to finish second? Can Disney persuade the core group it likes to brag about--Tim Salmon, Jim Edmonds, Garret Anderson, Gary DiSarcina, Darin Erstad, Troy Percival, et al.--that it is serious about winning, or have doubts crept in to the extent that expiring contracts might produce a future exodus?

General Manager Bill Bavasi has indicated he will pursue a premier power hitter. Mike Piazza and Mo Vaughn are the probables, but one wonders.

Vaughn is likely to stay in Boston, using the market to jack up the price.

Piazza?

Will Disney--which nixed a done deal for Mark McGwire in July 1997--really outbid Peter Angelos in Baltimore, Jerry Colangelo in Arizona, Jerry McMorris in Colorado, Fred Wilpon and Nelson Doubleday in New York and, possibly, Rupert Murdoch in Los Angeles, providing the Dodgers trade Charles Johnson?

Will Piazza really take less to return to Southern California?

The Angels definitely need to clean up their catching mess. They milked all that Matt Walbeck and Phil Nevin had to offer, traded inexplicably for an injured Charlie O’Brien, then reacquired Chad Kreuter in a September emergency. That assortment won’t do it in ’99. Piazza would certainly be a plum--on the marquee and in the lineup--but will Disney provide the financial resources given that they also need to acquire a No. 1 pitcher, a Kevin Brown- or Randy Johnson-type enforcer?

Bavasi can’t possibly ask Chuck Finley, at 36, to shoulder that assignment again and can’t possibly count on Ken Hill’s tender elbow in that role. Jarrod Washburn--the latest in a succession of basically finesse-type pitchers coming out of the Angel system--should move up full time, but the rotation needs to be addressed as much as the catching, particularly at the top.

The combination of Piazza and a Johnson/Brown-caliber pitcher, of course, would cost more than $20 million a year. The departure of Fielder and the imminent departures of Jack McDowell and Allen Watson will save about $9.7 million. Raises in existing contracts will cost $4.4 million. The saving of $5.3 million would only be a down payment on the needed hitter and pitcher and it’s uncertain how much higher Disney will take the current payroll of $40 million to $45 million. The likelihood is that the Angels will pursue Piazza as a free agent and use Edmonds or Anderson in a trade for pitching, probably Edmonds.

There are options, including the possibility of renewed talks involving Cincinnati’s Brett Tomko or the New York Yankees’ Andy Pettitte (if Bernie Williams leaves as a free agent) or the Dodgers’ Ismael Valdes.

The Angels can put whatever spin they like on the failure to deal for Todd Stottlemyre or Juan Guzman or Tim Belcher or Carlos Perez or Brian Jordan at the July deadline, but the Texas Rangers’ addition of Stottlemyre, Royce Clayton and Todd Zeile was ultimately decisive in the ugly AL West.

Disney can’t fail to deal now.