SOLID STATE

Encouraged by a ballclub that answered a season of physical and emotional breakdowns with one of playoff contention, Angel management is prepared to bid for a front-line pitcher this winter.

Two possibilities, Baltimore’s Mike Mussina and New York Met Mike Hampton, can become free agents shortly after the World Series. In a thin free-agent class rounded out by the likes of second-tier pitchers Andy Ashby, Darren Dreifort and Rick Reed, Mussina and Hampton are the only sure aces.

Angel President Tony Tavares and General Manager Bill Stoneman say they have the money and the inclination to add a pitcher to the top of a youthful Angel rotation. In an exclusive interview, they did not specify names, but they spoke of two potential targets, one of whom they expected to re-sign with his existing club. That, probably, is Mussina.

Tavares and Stoneman agreed their pursuit of an ace would not undermine their effort to reconstruct the farm system, and would not cut into their core of young big-leaguers: third baseman Troy Glaus, left fielder Darin Erstad, center fielder Garret Anderson, catcher Bengie Molina and second baseman Adam Kennedy.

A top-end pitcher, then, would have to come as a free agent, rather than by trade.

The Angels have available resources. Operating with a payroll of approximately $55 million, they will save--or already have saved--about $18 million in salaries no longer owed veterans Ken Hill, Tim Belcher, Kent Bottenfield and Gary DiSarcina. Even with raises due Anderson, Erstad and closer Troy Percival, the Angels have the finances to fortify a game but lagging starting rotation.

Tavares also said he feared a work stoppage after the 2001 season, adding that the looming labor impasse could affect their long-term strategy. And he heaped credit on Manager Mike Scioscia, who soothed a savage clubhouse.

Tavares and Stoneman, each dressed in a gray suit, sat in a private box at Edison Field and, for 30 minutes, allowed crowd noise to call their attention to the game below. In between, they assessed an organization that, 12 months ago, appeared to be a wreck.

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Question: How do you go about upgrading the Angels?

Tavares: We know our young pitchers can compete at this level. We know that our young players can compete at this level. We still have holes. We have a big question mark at shortstop. Can Gary DiSarcina come back and can he play at the same level as before? It’s a big question. We don’t know. Right now, a conservative person would say we have a hole there. Gary may end up being the guy, but we don’t know that and we can’t bank on that. As happy as we are with our young pitching, we now have stripped out the upper end of our minor leagues. We’re real enthusiastic about what we have in rookie ball, and a player or two at [Class] A and a player or two at double-A and a player or two at triple-A. But, it’s not exactly heavily stocked, except down at the lowest level, and that’s because of this last draft. What will we do in the off-season? We’re certainly looking to plug our holes. You look at shortstop. We’d like to have a backup catcher. And, if you could find the right pitcher in the right circumstance, you’d probably add a veteran pitcher to this staff.

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Q: The pitcher’s qualifications?

Tavares: It means finding the right guy who’s the right age, and not a guy who’s all used up that you’re going to bring in and overpay. We’ve done that a number of times. We get guys that we think are going to lead us to Valhalla and what we find out is, they’re on the back sides of their careers and as much as they want to help, they can’t do it. We’ve locked in guys for three and four years. There aren’t many guys, veteran pitchers that are up around 34 and 35 years old, who are worth three- and four-year commitments.

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Q: There will be a handful of capable pitchers on the free-agent market this winter. Will Disney make the financial commitment to sign one, if everything fits?

Tavares: There are probably two guys. We don’t even know right now that those two guys are really going to be available. Bill and I have talked and we are almost certain that one guy is going to re-sign with his existing club. So, there may be one guy. If there is one guy that’s out there, it’s probably silliness to get involved in a bidding war with New York and New York and everybody else. It would be stupid. But, if you can get a veteran guy that can come in and do the job for you--you’d love to get a No. 1 pitcher but you’re not going to find that--so, just a little veteran stability from somewhere. If you can find the right guy, you do that. Right now we can’t hope, I would say, on anybody coming up through the minor leagues making our club next year.

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Q: You’ll pay for a front-line pitcher who meets age and health requirements, but you won’t overpay?

Tavares: If that player is available, the answer is yes. Everybody forgets that we inadvertently trimmed a lot of payroll in the last couple years. It just ended up happening.

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Q: Bill, how do you continue the momentum of this season?

Stoneman: It appears a lot more doable now than it did 12 months ago. There’s a certain credibility here. As long as it’s the right person, we’ll take a run at something that might be available that would help us. Again, though, not something just to do something.

Tavares: Right. We’re not doing that. I want to fix this. I think we’re close now. We’re being realistic. We’re saying, “Is that a championship-caliber club? Is it or is it not? Is one guy going to make this a championship-caliber club and what’s the price you pay for that?” We’re no longer going to go into this and say, “One guy can get us into the playoffs, maybe, and we have to give up four young guys for him.” We’re not doing that.

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Q: Can it happen soon? Next season?

Stoneman: I’d say it can happen. But we’re not going to disturb the discipline that we have to maintain our long-term direction of building from within. The good players who are going to be our stars for the future are really key to us, along with how we go about obtaining those players and how we develop them. Those are the real keys.

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Q: You don’t have the players in the upper minor leagues to make trades to significantly upgrade the big-league team, do you?

Stoneman: I wouldn’t say that. But I would say that once you start doing that, you’ve got major problems. If it doesn’t work out, you’ve got major problems that are not easily resolved in a year or two.

Tavares: What we’ve been through in the past, we start developing young talent, we start liking our young talent, suddenly we get a little closer and say, “OK, let’s go for it” and we trade the young talent. Then you get major holes in the minor-league system. We got caught between philosophies all the time. Our core young guys are young enough that they will develop and make us stronger right now. Will we do deals? Yes, we’ll do deals. Are we going to give up a bunch of young talent to do that? No. Also, think of this: None of us know what’s going to happen in 2002. Nobody knows. But, if you were a betting man, you’d be betting there’s a work stoppage. So you go out and you sign yourself a 37-year-old pitcher. Then you get a work stoppage. He’s off for a year, then he’s 38. He starts up again for you at 39. Your investment still hasn’t changed. Those are concerns.

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Q: Can you become “a championship club,” without a free-agent signing, particularly in the area of pitching?

Stoneman: Maybe not. But is that the only thing that would be available? I wouldn’t say that there will be no trading.

Tavares: Shortstop, backup catcher, starting pitching . . . those are our stated goals.

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Q: How are you going to handle the DiSarcina situation?

Stoneman: We’re not to the point of truly even examining that until the season is over. There’s not really a point to it right now. I met with Gary and his agent. We talked about things. He understands we’re being realistic.

Tavares: If you put all your eggs in the Gary DiSarcina basket and Gary can’t perform, then you’ve got a problem.

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Q: Bill, you heard the horror stories about this club, particularly in the clubhouse. Are you surprised it’s turned around so quickly?

Stoneman: No. The players made it easy. I don’t want to diminish what Mike and the coaches did. Players want to play in a great environment. By bringing them into spring training with some upbeat, credible coaches and an upbeat, credible manager, everything just happened. It was going to happen. People didn’t believe us when we talked about it last winter.

Tavares: To a degree, Bill. But their own embarrassment helped. Right? They didn’t want to go through that again.

Stoneman: Well, they didn’t. They had every reason to come in upbeat. They were healthier. There was a near total change in the staff. They wanted a different environment.

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Q: Are you satisfied with the progress?

Stoneman: That’s a tough question. You’re never really satisfied until you’re wearing the ring. That’s the ultimate objective. But I’m satisfied that we’re going in the right direction. I’m satisfied there’s a commitment to that. As Tony said, we’re not going to waver from that. There’s only one way that we’re going to do it. We’re on that path. We had a terrific draft in a year where it reputedly wasn’t a good draft. That has to happen. That has to happen for anybody, I don’t care what market we’re in.

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Q: What is the plan to explore the injuries to your young pitchers? Bill, is it your hope to introduce drop-and-drive mechanics throughout the organization?

Stoneman: That’s not a term I used or knew when I pitched. That term, to me, sounds radical. But from a standpoint of an aggressive delivery, absolutely. I believe in it.

Tavares: We’re going to make a full examination of how we prepare, what we do, how we teach. We want to get to the bottom of it and see if we can’t improve on it.

Stoneman: We’re definitely going to pursue some changes.

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Q: Tony, a year ago you compared your team, position by position, with the Yankees and were disappointed. Has that changed?

Tavares: We stack up much better. In the pitching staff, though, that’s where it’s all about. That’s where the difference is.

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Q: You believe you’re gaining.

Tavares: We didn’t stack up at shortstop last year, we certainly didn’t stack up at second base last year, we didn’t stack up at catching last year. The catching came out of the system. There’s one guy in this organization who really believed in Bengie Molina, and that was [Assistant General Manager] Ken Forsch. Nobody was championing him. It’s like anything else in an organization, everybody needs a champion. Nobody championed this guy’s cause until Ken. It’s not that anybody said he can’t play or he’s terrible, but he needed somebody to say, “I really like this guy.”

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Q: Big picture. You’re happy?

Tavares: It’s probably best described as a work in progress. We made some improvements and advancements over where we were last year. And we still have a long way to go. You can define “long way” anyway you want to. My definition is to be a championship club year in and year out.