Dodgers Let Bouncing Ball Roll Through to Backstop

By BILL PLASCHKE

Dec. 19, 2000 12 AM PT

To the rest of baseball, maybe, he was only a free-agent catcher.

For the Dodgers, he was a ground ball in the ninth inning of the championship game that is their off-season.

Charles Johnson had been bouncing toward the Dodgers for weeks, it seems, the stakes growing with every skip.

If they caught him, he would complete an expensively reinforced pitching staff. If they booted him, the staff would be cheapened, the defense diluted, the 2001 season potentially damaged.

Then came Monday, when Charles Johnson took that final bounce and the strangest thing happened.

The Dodgers didn’t boot him, they ignored him. They watched him skip past their shoes and bounce all the way to Florida.

Johnson signed with the Marlins for what, by this winter’s baseball standards, is a song. Five years, $35 million--Darren Dreifort’s under-the-cushion change.

It is a song, however, that the Dodgers were obviously unwilling to sing.

They prefer, apparently, the strains of, Lo-Duuuuuca.

The Dodgers’ refusal to buy a catcher such as Johnson to accompany Brown, Park, Dreifort and Ashby is like deciding to save money on your Mercedes by never changing the oil.

The starting catcher for this $44-million worth of arms will be $250,000 Paul LoDuca. Except when Dreifort or Chan Ho Park pitches, in which case it will be 36-year-old Chad Kreuter.

Nothing wrong with them, really, except they have the potential to render the Dodgers’ winter maneuverings as meaningless as “Jingle Bells” in July.

It was written here that the Dodgers needed to ignore Alex Rodriguez and improve their pitching and defense.

Andy Ashby and Dreifort were a start.

Johnson would have been a finish.

Johnson would have directed the staff with the sort of experience that seemed badly missing in recent years.

Johnson could throw out runners to relax them, and hit homers to save them.

Johnson said Monday he signed with the Marlins because he wanted to go home, but he had earlier indicated that he would have signed with the Dodgers under the right conditions.

After paying $55 million to Dreifort, however, the Dodgers apparently felt they could no longer afford him.

Knowing this now, does anybody else think maybe the combination of Johnson and Kevin Appier would have been a better deal?

The organization loves LoDuca, 28, and he comes recommended by no less an authority than Mike Scioscia. But he has never really played in a major league game that mattered.

Kreuter is as plainly reliable as sunflower seeds, but he has hit only 46 home runs in 13 seasons. As poorly as Todd Hundley played for the Dodgers, he hit 48 homers in two seasons.

And, no, Sandy Alomar Jr., who signed Monday with the Chicago White Sox, was not the answer. The Dodgers don’t need another 70-games-a-year catcher.

What they need, though, is more than what they’ve got.

To what was essentially a .500 team--they got 10 of their 86 wins in the final two weeks against teams that no longer cared--they have:

* Added 12 wins with Ashby.

* Subtracted 24 homers and 70 runs batted in with the departure of Hundley.

Looks like another .500 team from here.

Certainly, Dreifort can live up to his new contract by showing us a pitcher he has not yet shown us in six seasons here.

Absolutely, LoDuca is a player favorite who could emerge as the sort of tough guy this team so desperately needs.

And, OK, you figure Shawn Green will adjust to his new surroundings and avoid becoming a bigger homecoming bust here than Darryl Strawberry.

Lots could happen. But lots should have already happened, and hasn’t.

The Dodgers cannot be blinded by Dreifort’s smoke or confused by Ashby’s mirrors. This is not a complete team. It still needs work.

Which brings us to where we hope the Dodgers are headed next. That would be Kansas City, and center fielder Johnny Damon.

If the Dodgers can pry him from the Royals, it’s front-page stuff. If they can give Kansas City a few young underachiev . . . , ahem, young arms--hey Royals, you’ll love this Antonio Osuna guy!--then it could be championship stuff.

Of all Damon’s lovely leadoff-hitting statistics, none is more striking than this: He was the third-hardest American League hitter to strike out, fanning only once every 12.4 at-bats.

Damon will become a free agent next year, which is why the Royals want to trade him. Because he is a Dodger Stadium sort of player, the Dodgers will be pursuing him next year anyway, if he’s still available, so why not now?

Of course, there is always the possibility that the Dodgers will arrive in Vero Beach just as they are.

At which point, they will remind you that with 86 wins, they finished only one game worse than the New York Yankees.

To which you should remind them, staring down a ninth-inning grounder with their off-season possibly in the balance, the World Series champions would have gone to their knees to make that catch.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Catch as Catch Can

Comparing Dodger catchers in 2000 (Todd Hundley, Paul LoDuca, Chad Kreuter) with the ones that got away Monday. Salaries are for 2001; statistics are from 2000:

CHARLES JOHNSON

Salary: $7 million

Games: 128

Batting: .304, 31 HR, 91 RBIs

Caught Stealing % (24 of 78): .30.8

SANDY ALOMAR

Salary: $2.7 million

Games: 97

Avg.: .289, 7 HR, 42 RBIs

Caught Stealing % (23 of 98): .23.5

KREUTER/LODUCA COMBINED

Salary: $1.3 million