Bad Rapp for Angels

The Angels opened their home schedule Tuesday night amid the usual panoply--and questions. Is the rotation good enough? Is the Walt Disney Co. committed long-term?

Club President Tony Tavares sat in his Edison Field office several hours before the first pitch and suggested that the answer to the first question could influence the answer to the second.

A winning season, Tavares said, might dispel any thoughts Disney has entertained about selling, which remains a rampant rumor.

It resurfaced during a winter in which Disney did little to build on the promise of 2000, investing only modestly in pitching improvements.

“To my knowledge,” Tavares said, “Disney is not attempting to sell, certainly not actively. Their position in the past has been that if the right person came forward with the right amount of money they’d consider it, and I think that remains their position.

“A baseball team is a tough asset for a big company like Disney. The expectations are unfairly high, and they’re too easy a target. No matter how much good they do, the only answer in baseball is to win a World Series, and then the credit goes to the players, the manager and, way down the list, the general manager. The owner is only a pincushion. With all of the success that the [New York] Yankees have had, no one is selling George Steinbrenner T-shirts.”

No one is selling Michael Eisner T-shirts either. The Disney chairman approved the purchase of the Angels and renovation of Edison Field basically to keep the team in Anaheim as an extension of the Magic Kingdom. Tavares, his baseball lieutenant, said he did not mean to say that any Disney official was sitting in Burbank muttering, “ ‘Well, we invested X amount in the team and X amount in the stadium and we need a return on that,’ but at some point they would be happy just to break even. I mean, they put north of $250 million into the two teams [Angels and Mighty Ducks] and the stadium, and they’ve lost money every year.”

The 2000 loss was estimated at $20 million, which may explain why Eisner didn’t pop for gas and make the drive to Anaheim for the home opener.

Of course, he was aware of the economic landscape when Disney bought the Angels--although he might not have envisioned a club investing $252 million in a player.

That, of course, is what the Texas Rangers have guaranteed Alex Rodriguez, who helped attract a crowd of 42,784 Tuesday night, a turnout that might have eased what Tavares said was his “shock and dismay” at a signing that “dramatically changed the compensation structure. I mean, people say it was an aberration and had no affect, but even in my limited time I’ve learned that every signing impacts every other--this one especially.”

The Angels, of course, weren’t in the Rodriguez market despite their concern at shortstop. However, Tavares insisted that the inexpensive signings of Pat Rapp and Ismael Valdes as veteran additions to an otherwise young rotation didn’t stem from financial concerns. If anything, he said of a payroll that has dropped from $58 million to the mid-$40 millions depending on the accounting formula, “we had the money but just couldn’t find good ways to spend it. If [Mike] Mussina had been interested in coming West or [Mike] Hampton had been interested in the American League we’d have been willing to offer [what the Yankees and Colorado Rockies did], but there was a big falloff to the next tier.”

He referred to a tenuous group of Andy Ashby, Kevin Appier, Steve Trachsel, Rick Reed, Pat Hentgen and, perhaps, Darren Dreifort--none of whom came cheaply either. So the Angels, despite the need for veteran reliability and leadership, dropped to an even lower and less-expensive tier, signing Valdes and Rapp, who was hit hard for a second time Tuesday night and could be quickly working his way to the bullpen, possibly leaving Matt Wise as the fourth young starter in a rotation that includes Ramon Ortiz, Jarrod Washburn and Scott Schoeneweis.

“No one in the organization has trumped up Rapp and Valdes as the next Mussina,” Tavares said. “We’re only looking for innings from them. It would be ideal to have a No. 1, but we don’t. We have to try and get it done by committee. We need quality starts from [the two veterans], but it really revolves around Ortiz, Washburn and Schoeneweis. If those guys kick up to the next level and prove they’re regular major league starters, I think we’ll be in the thick of it come September. I think we’re as good as any team in a very tough division.

“Most people give Oakland an edge because their young pitching staff has more experience than ours, but we’re not conceding anything. I look for our pitching and defense to be better [than last year].”

The Angels, of course, have to compensate for the loss of Mo Vaughn’s power, but that shouldn’t be the long-term concern that the starting pitching is.

It is worth remembering that this is an organization that has wasted millions on fragile and aged pitchers acquired through free agency and trade, and Tavares said the Angels have learned a lesson. No longer will they give up their best young players in a desperate attempt to win now. No longer will they make a desperate signing, thinking they are better than they really are, thinking that one man player can guarantee a World Series.

“We are a .500 club on the way up,” Tavares said. “We do not have the Yankee revenue and depth. We weren’t looking to fill just one need.”

The attempt to stay the course, to build from within on pitching, to be more judicious in trades and free agent signings, is to be applauded.

It may be, however, that the Angels did have one need--one key pitcher to help defuse the pressure on those young starters. Rapp wasn’t the answer again Tuesday, and there’s little reassuring in the Valdes credentials. Money may not have been an issue, as Tavares insisted, but Disney will have a lot to answer for if the absence of a veteran arm is fatal--that is, if Disney is still around to answer.