A Padre Who Is Heaven Sent? : San Diego first base coach Lopes could cut his managerial teeth with Angels, a team that has nothing to lose.

There’s some hope amid the rubble of the Angels’ season, you know.

They have a great chance to make a pro-active move, to break the invisible chains that restrict them and so many other franchises and hire a manager like the San Diego Padre first base coach, Davey Lopes.

They can do away with all of the excuses (not enough experience, doesn’t interview well, blah, blah, blah) and simply get it done.

The Angels have nothing to lose. Unfortunately, they also have nothing to offer, either.

The team as currently constructed is a manager’s trap. It’s high-priced, which automatically brings high expectations. But the talent is undermined by a shaky pitching staff that, as we have seen, makes it difficult to fulfill those expectations.

All of that means they don’t necessarily get their first pick.

Don Baylor would be the best choice for the job. Of all the names floating around--including Kevin Kennedy, Chris Chambliss and Phil Garner--he is the only one to win a postseason game as a manager. (His Colorado Rockies took one off the Atlanta Braves in 1995.) He’s a big presence--literally--in the clubhouse and is as good a link to what’s right about the franchise’s history as you could find.

The problem is, this job wouldn’t be the best choice for Baylor. He doesn’t need to take a job just to take a job, simply for the sake of saying he has managed a team. Baylor has already done that.

He might be better suited for the Chicago Cub job if Jim Riggleman gets fired. Wrigley Field is a place with low expectations but big-market resources (should the Tribune Co. ever decide it wants to get serious about baseball).

If I’m Baylor, I wouldn’t go anywhere near Anaheim.

Any hire stepping into the Angels’ house has to know the roof could collapse at any minute.

General Manager Bill Bavasi is conducting the search, but right now he isn’t guaranteed to still be around by the time the ink dries on the new manager’s contract.

Disney could sell the team in the off-season and an entirely new ownership and front office could take over.

Of course, the first thing new people like to do is hire their own people, so anything less than a pennant could be grounds for dismissal for whomever sits in the manager’s office.

A guy like Lopes could take that risk. He’d have to. He might not get another chance.

Sometimes he sounds resigned to a fate of never managing a major league team. He knows the good-old-boy network still exists, and he knows he speaks his mind a little too freely for some people’s opinions.

The Angels are a team that could use someone like that. Just because they grew tired of Terry Collins’ intensity doesn’t mean they should go get a guy who will write positive messages on Post-Its and stick them around the clubhouse.

Lopes, who was also a first base coach with the Texas Rangers and the Baltimore Orioles, has been with the Padres since 1994.

And no, this isn’t some request for hand-outs or a demand to hire Lopes simply because he is a minority. This is for the sake of the Angels and baseball. When you expand the candidate pool beyond the same old names, you’re bound to find a few surprises. Don’t you think the San Francisco Giants are happy they gave the job to Dusty Baker?

Minorities deserve the chance to leave the broadcast booth and manage, the way Larry Dierker did with so much success in Houston.

And they deserve the chance to lose without it counting as a permanent mark against them. Joe Torre had a .471 winning percentage and had losing records in nine of the 14 seasons he managed the New York Mets, Atlanta Braves and St. Louis Cardinals before he landed the New York Yankee job.

I’m reminded of a quote from former Georgetown basketball coach John Thompson, which certainly applies here.

“There’s a lot of whites failing,” Thompson said. “All we want is the opportunity to get out there and to try, and a right to fail also. I’m sick of us having to be perfect to get the job. I don’t want to be perfect.”

Lopes isn’t necessarily the perfect man for the Angels. But what about them has been perfect lately? What more harm could possibly be done?

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J.A. Adande can be reached at his e-mail address: j.a.adande@latimes.com