Time to Warm Up to Baseball, Even Without a Hot Stove

Around the batting cage:

There aren’t many other sports pages around the country today where you can read those words. But the Dodgers began their voluntary winter workouts Monday at USC’s Dedeaux Field, and it’s not as if we have an NFL team in the playoffs to consume our thoughts. . . .

I love it when Dodger management talks about “financial flexibility,” as in referring to the recent trade that sent Ismael Valdes and Eric Young and more than $10 million in salaries to the Cubs. . . .

As I interpret it, financial flexibility means that the Dodgers will pursue Alex Rodriguez when he becomes a free agent after this season. . . .

If Mark Grudzielanek looks at it that way, he will consider himself fortunate that the Dodgers are moving him to second base this spring. That gives him a one-year head start because he would have been moving next year, anyway--to make room for Rodriguez. . . .

But I can understand if Grudzielanek feels unsettled. After working last winter with Bucky Dent, Grudzielanek seemed comfortable for the first time last season at shortstop. Not only are the Dodgers now asking him to play second, they’re penciling him in as the leadoff hitter. . . .

The Dodgers appear to prefer Alex Cora at shortstop this season because he hits a little better than Juan Castro, although it’s not as if either is the next Tony Gwynn with a bat. . . .

Or even Chris Gwynn. . . .

I would have guessed that Davey Johnson would prefer the defensively superior Castro, recalling the number of runs former Baltimore Oriole teammate Mark Belanger saved at shortstop, despite a batting average of .228. . . .

You might think that the Dodgers and Scott Boras would have removed each other from their Rolodexes. After all, Boras ratted out the team for signing client Adrian Beltre at 15 and is still trying to have him declared a free agent. . . .

Get real. Boras remains eager to do business with the Dodgers because they’re among baseball’s big spenders, and the Dodgers can’t hold a grudge against him because he has the best client list in baseball, including Rodriguez.

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Boras also has the first four starters in their rotation--Kevin Brown, Chan Ho Park, Darren Dreifort and Eric Gagne. . . .

Park is the latest to join Boras. The Dodgers know that eventually will cost them money, but they also hope that it will bring Park peace of mind. He didn’t have that last season while anguishing over whether to leave agent Steve Kim, a longtime friend. . . .

Still seeking a plausible reason for the Dodgers’ trade of Valdes and Young, the conspiracy theorists came up with this one: Commissioner Bud Selig told the Dodgers that he would rule in their favor on Beltre if they would dump payroll. . . .

“The league said zippo,” Bob Daly, the Dodger CEO, said Monday. . . .

Critics of the deal extend beyond the media. Several players at Monday’s workout, who didn’t want to be identified, wondered why the Dodgers didn’t get more for Valdes and Young. . . .

Daly said they did get more. Besides Terry Adams, who came in the trade from the Cubs, they used the money saved by trading Valdes and Young to sign Orel Hershiser, Gregg Olson and F.P. Santangelo. . . .

“No one can say we’re giving away players to shed payroll, like San Diego and Florida did,” Daly said. “We’ll still have a payroll increase over last season. But if we hadn’t made any changes, we’d have gone up to $95 million. We’re still in the mid-80s.” . . .

Even without Valdes, Daly predicted that the pitching staff will be improved over last season’s. . . .

You won’t hear many predictions from General Manager Kevin Malone. . . .

He’s still embarrassed about the ones he made last winter that had the Dodgers in the World Series against the Yankees. Well, he was half right. . . .

Malone won’t even speculate about the possibility of Shawn Green, the Dodgers’ new right fielder, taking a page from Sandy Koufax’s history and missing a World Series game if it falls on Yom Kippur. . . .

Good news for the Dodgers: Yom Kippur this year falls on Oct. 8, which will be during the playoffs but not the World Series.

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While wondering if Ted Turner hadn’t rather keep Jane Fonda and lose John Rocker, I was thinking: The Dodgers’ mood is lighter now that they’re not worrying about Raul Mondesi’s weight, I guess Kevin Brown couldn’t get the corporate jet to fly in for Monday’s workout, the Dodgers still look like a third-place team.

Randy Harvey can be reached at his e-mail address: randy.harvey@latimes.com.