Evans Still Has a Little Work Remaining

You know that big house on the corner that has been dark and quiet for two months? The one with cobweb shutters and weed siding?

A neighbor kid just flung a rock through the front window.

And now we’ll know.

Does anybody still live there?

When the seemingly vacant Dodgers made crashing noises Thursday by trading Kevin Brown to the New York Yankees, they lost more than a pain-in-the-wallet pitcher.

They lost all excuses.

Are they really interested in off-season acrobatics beyond walking a tightrope between two owners?

Now they have 18.5-million reasons to show us.

Will Dan Evans be given the power to improve a deepening hole that, based on other off-season maneuvers, has left them as only the third-best team in their division?

His face, and reputation, are the only things visible through that broken glass.

Brown’s arrival five years ago symbolized the bloated arrogance of the Kevin Malone era.

Will Brown’s departure symbolize the tightfisted foolishness of the Evans era?

As usual, Dodger fans deserve better. But, as usual, they are being asked to re-enlist without a clue.

So here’s one: While the trade costs the Dodgers their best starting pitcher, it can bring them a playoff spot if Evans doesn’t blow it.

The Dodgers will gain roughly $18.5 million over two seasons when one considers the difference between Brown’s contract and that of acquired pitcher Jeff Weaver, plus that $3-million Yankee tip.

They need two big bats in the lineup, and this should help buy them both.

One of whom should be Vladimir Guerrero or Magglio Ordonez.

If these were the Yankees who had this need, one of them would be Guerrero or Ordonez.

They are both under 30, they both are career sluggers, and both find ways to get on base.

A second hitter could be found at shortstop. Cesar Izturis may be the best young shortstop in the National League, but he did play second base in Toronto, and if the Dodgers want to bring in surly Nomar Garciaparra, the kid can adjust.

And we’ll only ask this Nomar guy about his wife, oh, 546 times, tops, promise.

The talent is there. The money is available.

The question, of course, is whether Evans is willing, or able, or both.

The last time he came to the plate in an off-season situation this big, the answer was a groundout named Fred McGriff.

The last time he came to the plate with so many possibilities, the answer was a foul ball named Ventura and a bloop single named Burnitz.

With the Dodger ownership situation in such disarray, everyone is wondering whether he answers to Fox, or Frank McCourt, or maybe even Bud Selig.

Here’s hoping that, in what could be his final acts as boss, he answers to the fans.

Here’s hoping that if indeed the new owner would hire a new general manager, Evans wants to avoid going out in a blaze of gory.

If the team loses Brown for Weaver and a couple of Yankee minor leaguers -- the Yankee farm system being bereft of talent these days -- that would qualify as ugly.

If you are going to field a starting pitching staff that might include Edwin Jackson, Wilson Alvarez and Weaver, you better get some bats.

If you are going to pay big money to a guy who experienced maybe the best relief season in major-league history -- Eric Gagne deserves it -- then you better get some veteran bats to take him to October.

If McCourt doesn’t have enough money to buy the team without a huge loan, which many suspect, then you better cover your eyes.

And to think, just 30 miles away, they don’t have any of these problems.

Arte Moreno’s team needs pitching, he pulls out his wallet and signs Kelvim Escobar and Bartolo Colon.

Not only don’t the Dodgers have an owner, they might not even have a wallet, or have conveniently lost it, in which case the fans will pay.

Kevin Brown may have been rude, reclusive and downright reprehensible in his dealings with the team and its immediate surroundings.

But at times last year, the guy was the best pitcher in the National League. To give him away for a pitcher so hated by the Yankees that they would tie $3 million around his neck for bait, that’s not a deal, that’s a salary dump.

Please tell us the Dodgers did not just start a fire sale disguised as a trade?

That’s only one question facing them today as the baseball world, which came running at the sound of that broken glass, watches from across the street with curiosity and suspicion.

Are the Dodgers still in business? Or are they still in limbo?

Followed, of course, by that annual, eternal question.

Why can’t they be more like the Angels?

Bill Plaschke can be reached at bill.plaschke@latimes.com