Owners Busy Drafting Labor Strategy

Seeking to throw a number of bargaining chips at the players’ union in hopes of reducing the revenue and competitive imbalance and slowing salary growth, major league owners will meet in Arizona on Wednesday and Thursday to consider a list of proposals recommended last summer by Commissioner Bud Selig’s economic committee.

Since Selig seldom asks for a vote unless he knows the outcome, it is expected that the proposals--among them significant changes in the amateur draft and introduction of a competitive-balance draft among the clubs--will be approved as part of management’s negotiating package when discussions with the union begin on a new labor agreement at the end of next season.

But as a high-ranking baseball official put it: “In the overall spectrum, these rule changes are way down the priority list. We’re not going to cure our most serious problems with these.”

He meant that measured against two other proposals by the economic committee--increased revenue sharing among the clubs and a more meaningful luxury tax on high payrolls--the items that will be discussed in Arizona are strictly window dressing in what may be another contentious labor negotiation next winter.

Window dressing? Selig refused to put it in that context.

“The problems we face are so pervasive and complex that it’s going to take a myriad of solutions at every level,” he said. “We have to change the way we do business from top to bottom. I mean, revenue sharing alone isn’t going to do it. These possible solutions have been discussed by the economic panel, as well as general managers, for years. In considering our problems, I can’t afford to leave any stone unturned.”

The major proposals to be discussed in Arizona are a start.

The competitive-balance draft would allow the eight teams with the lowest winning percentages over a three-year period to pick one player each from the eight teams with the highest winning percentages over that span. Each of the top clubs would be allowed to protect 25 players from their 40-man rosters. The draft would be held after the World Series and before the winter meetings in December, but few in baseball believe it would have much impact on the alleged imbalance.

The general opinion is that only fringe players would be exposed, as in recent expansion drafts. Don Fehr, the union’s executive director, also speculated that the alleged problems could be exacerbated, rather than relieved, by the draft.

“For example, if the Yankees lose a player in the draft, aren’t they likely to be even more aggressive trying to replace him in the market?” Fehr asked. “I don’t want to get into a discussion of the merits before we know the details, but I would suggest there are no new ideas. I mean, the clubs initiated a professional-player draft after the 1981 strike and couldn’t wait to get rid of it.”

As part of the ’81 settlement, any club losing a free agent could select a replacement from a pool exposed by all of the other clubs after each had protected 25 players. Former union official and longtime agent Dick Moss said the clubs soon considered the concept a disaster.

“The turning point was when the White Sox picked Tom Seaver from the Mets,” Moss said. “The Mets felt no one would pick Seaver and didn’t protect him. Then Seaver came back to win his 300th game in New York, pitching against the Yankees. The clubs were soon looking for other ways to protect their assets.”

The proposed changes in the amateur draft came in response to recommendations by general managers and scouting directors looking to reduce signing bonuses and curb abuses in the signing of international players, while also equalizing access to them. The changes would:

* Extend the current boundaries beyond the U.S., Canada and Puerto Rico by establishing a world-wide draft.

* Implement a signing deadline of July 15, about six weeks after the draft, to prevent long holdouts.

* Make college players eligible only after their senior seasons, rather than their junior seasons, to remove the leverage of a drafted player returning to school.

* Allow teams to trade draft picks, a practice prohibited since the draft’s inception in 1965.

The union is believed amenable to some changes in the draft but would probably oppose restrictions to a free market for amateurs as strongly as it traditionally has and will continue to oppose restrictions on the professional market.

“Until we see the whole mosaic of the owners’ negotiating proposal, I would not treat individual concepts in isolation,” Fehr said.

“I might be willing to lend a friend $100, but if he asked me to include my first-born child and to pick up the mortgage on his house, then it becomes a different proposition.”

Although the bitterness of the 1994-95 labor dispute has not been forgotten, it has diminished.

The union has a working relationship with Rob Manfred, baseball’s lead labor lawyer, and Paul Beeston, the industry’s chief operating officer.

Given the improved atmosphere and that the union ultimately will have veto power, Fehr was asked if he was disappointed that the proposals to be discussed by owners in Phoenix--even if only window dressing and bargaining chips--weren’t first discussed with the union.

“Everybody has a view on the best way to conduct a discussion and a relationship,” he said. “I’m not offended or disappointed. The owners are entitled to their internal deliberations. Inevitably, they’ll do what they’ll do.”

If that represents rhetoric out of the eight previous work stoppages, Selig said there was no sense taking the proposals to the union “until we know what the clubs themselves want to do and what the clubs will approve. We understand that anything affecting the bargaining agreement has to be approved by the union, but there isn’t any urgency.”

That kind of thinking has led to crisis negotiations in the past. Amid whispers of a postseason signing freeze, lockout and one more Armageddon for baseball, urgency is in the eye of the beholder.

The clock, as usual, is ticking.

THE DAMON DEAL

More than one baseball official insists the Dodgers never were a serious player in the Johnny Damon pursuit and that General Manager Kevin Malone ultimately left a message on Kansas City counterpart Allard Baird’s answering machine that suggested they had, at least, put one over on the media.

“Not true,” Baird said when asked about that message, adding:

“The Dodgers definitely showed some interest, and Kevin was very professional and upfront. We stayed in contact throughout the process.”

Baird would not discuss offers, but if the Dodgers proposed a package that included pitchers Eric Gagne and Antonio Osuna it simply did not fit what Baird called “the long- and short-term framework” of a Damon deal.

“It’s one thing to establish criteria and another to fulfill it,” he said. “And as much as we like to make a deal involving just two teams, we ultimately reached the conclusion that it would probably take three.”

Damon went to the Oakland Athletics in a nine-player trade in which the A’s sent Ben Grieve to Tampa Bay for Roberto Hernandez, who was then shipped to Kansas City for Damon.

The Royals, who blew 59 of 117 save chances during the last two seasons, filled their short-term need with closer Hernandez while also filling a farm system void and a potential long-term need by getting shortstop Angel Berroa, 20, from Oakland.

“People talk about Hernandez being the key, but Berroa was just as much of a key,” Baird said.

Perhaps, but it was the acquisition of Hernandez that thrilled Royal regulars who had been grumbling about the lack of a move by the front office. Kansas City believes it can make the same type of Central Division jump that the Chicago White Sox did last season if the bullpen does not betray an offense that was second in the American League in runs and tied for first in average.

“I’m devastated that we traded Johnny Damon,” third baseman Joe Randa said. “He was obviously a big part of our team. But we got one of the best closers in the game, and I’m very happy about that.”

Out West, meantime, the division champion A’s got better. They added arguably the best leadoff hitter in baseball in Damon after the Texas Rangers added arguably baseball’s best player in Alex Rodriguez, plus Andres Galarraga, Randy Velarde and Ken Caminiti.

The Angels, of course, added Ismael Valdes and Pat Rapp, arguably putting the bottom line ahead of the standings.