Angels Missing Out on Baylor?

If Don Baylor, the Atlanta Braves’ hitting coach and hottest ticket on baseball’s bustling managerial market, is a candidate for the Angels’ vacancy, it is news to him.

“I know I’m being mentioned as a candidate there, but I don’t feel that I am,” Baylor said Thursday after the Braves worked out in preparation for Saturday’s opening game of the World Series against the New York Yankees. “I mean, I’m pretty much in the dark as far as that situation is concerned.”

This does not mean Baylor is no longer interested in returning to the team with which he won the American League’s most-valuable-player award in 1979 and which he considers, as a resident of La Quinta, the closest thing to his hometown team.

It is merely to point out, Baylor said, that he feels the Angels’ interest in him has “deteriorated” since he was first contacted by former general manager Bill Bavasi and “right now they’re behind everyone else who has talked to me.”

The Chicago Cubs and Milwaukee Brewers have had direct contact, and the Baltimore Orioles and Cleveland Indians have received permission from the Braves to talk with him.

Baseball sources believe Baylor already has a tentative agreement with the Cubs, but Baylor denied that.

“I’ve talked to both the Cubs and Brewers about range of money and years, but I’m far from an agreement,” he said.

Bavasi contacted Baylor before resigning as general manager and told him he was one of three people he was recommending for the position. Phil Garner and interim Manager Joe Maddon were the others.

Garner has since become manager of the Detroit Tigers with a four-year contract at $1 million a year. Maddon is not considered a candidate--whether Bill Stoneman is hired as general manager today, which is expected, or someone else fills that role.

The GM search has taken precedence over the managerial search, and since that initial call from Bavasi, Baylor said his only contact with the Angels has been two calls from longtime friend Tim Mead, the club’s vice president of public relations. Baylor said he has not talked with President Tony Tavares and seemed to suggest he did not consider Mead’s calls official contacts, considering the new general manager will have responsibility for hiring a manager.

“This process [of clubs calling and/or meeting with him] has been going on for three or four weeks,” he said. “The Angels or anyone else can call only so many times to say they’ll get back to you.

“I may have hit against Bill Stoneman at some point in our careers, but I don’t know him at all, and the general manager should feel free to bring in whoever he wants. And that process alone takes time to sort out.”

Baylor will make no decision until the World Series is over, and that is a factor in the Angels’ pursuit, because Tavares--on both the baseball and hockey fronts--adheres to a policy of not approaching any person involved in the playoffs until those playoffs are over. How quickly Baylor decides after that--and how quickly the Angels respond, if at all--is uncertain, but since Terry Collins resigned, he has been the logical choice for several reasons.

Among them: Baylor would bring a physical presence and competitive toughness to a combustible clubhouse. He would bring the experience of six years managing the Colorado Rockies, who demonstrated under Jim Leyland this year that a change of managers wasn’t the answer. He would bring the respect inherent in his MVP award and 16-year major league career in which he reached the World Series three times with three different teams. He would help reestablish links to the community and the Angels’ history, having played with two of their three division winners.

“He’s the complete package,” Atlanta General Manager John Schuerholz said Thursday. “I was resigned to having him for only one year on the day we signed him.”

Baylor has had significant impact on an offense that lost Andres Galarraga and Javier Lopez. The switch-hitting Chipper Jones is his prize student, having now become a power threat from the right side as well as the left, and there has been an overall improvement in the Braves’ level of patience, although a frustrated Baylor said they lost focus at times during the National League’s championship series and will have to maintain it against the Yankees. As a team, the Braves struck out fewer than 1,000 times for the first time since 1995 and walked more than 600 times for the first time since 1987.

Now, however, Baylor is down to his final seven games or fewer with the Braves. He said he is looking for a competitive and committed environment where there are young players who can make an impact. He said he does not want to muddy the situation talking to six or seven teams and is “not interested in being anybody’s minority candidate. If a team is interested in an experienced baseball guy, that’s fine, but hopefully I’m past the point where a team would be interested because of my color. I expect to be managing next year and would be surprised if I’m not, but I don’t know where at this point.”