This May Not Be Good for GM Stock

Shortly before 1 p.m., Bill Stoneman could be seen sitting in his box seat at Yankee Stadium, shades tight, smile ironed.

Shortly after 1 p.m., Paul DePodesta could be seen standing in a dining room at Dodger Stadium, shirt baggy, frown wrinkled.

Two general managers, two missions, two tailors.

But today, one ledge.

The Southland’s baseball brains crawled there together Sunday because of what both achieved on what was supposed to be one of baseball’s most intriguing days.

Nothing.

The non-waiver trading deadline came and went like a Wilson Alvarez fastball, yet both Stoneman and DePodesta kept the bat, not to mention the weight of their constituencies, on their shoulders.

The exhausted Angels, clinging to first place over the charging Oakland A’s, did nothing.

The exasperating Dodgers, clinging to their sanity in baseball’s worst division, did nothing.

Luckily for them, no other team in their divisions made big moves.

Unfortunately for them, no other team in their divisions faces such expectations.

If the local teams survive, their leaders will be lauded and loved and compared to all things Buzzie.

If they don’t, they’re headed for a Sheriff-sized fall.

In all fairness, they have another month to figure things out. Waiver deals are tough but possible -- the St. Louis Cardinals even acquired Larry Walker last August, remember?

But the time for easy trades is over, and Stoneman and DePodesta have only empty, head-scratching hands to show for it.

It says here that Stoneman did the right thing, refusing to part with one of his major leaguers -- Chone Figgins? Scot Shields? -- for another bat or bullpen arm.

But if he’s wrong, blowing the American League West to the dreaded Billy Beane, even the gentle Angel fan will not let him forget it.

The guy who gave away Troy Glaus just gave away the pennant! The guy who threw out Percy let his team get goofy!

It says here that DePodesta has not yet done the right thing, that he still needs to make a trade for a hitter in the next month for his team to make up the four games that separate it from the leaders.

If he doesn’t, then the increasingly angry Dodger fan will not let him forget it.

Last year he blew up a team that was 17 games over .500, but this year he doesn’t touch a team that was 10 games under .500?

Two general managers, two months left, two reputations on the ledge.

During his team’s dispiriting 7-5, 11-inning loss to the Cardinals on Sunday, DePodesta was asked if this group of Dodgers can really win a championship.

“I think so,” he said.

A few minutes later, he was asked it again.

“We’re gonna have to,” he said.

In other words, he doesn’t believe it any more than the rest of us, but for now, he says there is nothing he can do with it.

He said he talked to more than a dozen teams. He said they offered to throw in money to complete one of the deals. He said he was close on three different things.

“We offered some of our biggest guys,” he said. “In the right deal, we talked about just about anybody.”

But he seems reluctant to part with members of the Jacksonville Five, the Double-A prospects who include pitchers Chad Billingsley and Edwin Jackson, infielders Joel Guzman and Andy LaRoche and catcher Russell Martin.

If the Dodgers stay close, he may regret that decision.

Though the daily attendance announcements are often in the 45,000 range -- the club announces the number of tickets sold -- the actual count at the stadium this week was sometimes less than half of that.

The Dodgers are surely leading the league in no-shows, and soon could be leading in no-cares, and owner Frank McCourt knows that’s no way to build a business.

On Sunday, in a game the Dodgers should have won -- the Cardinals started without six regular position players -- they blew chances and made bad pitches and put the first two runners on base in the ninth inning of a tie game but couldn’t score one.

Assuming that the National League West winner will still have to play at least .500 baseball, is this a team that can play 11 games over .500 for the rest of the season?

Of course it isn’t.

DePodesta said that adding Milton Bradley, Jose Valentin, Dioner Navarro and Jonathan Broxton in the last two weeks is like adding new players.

Of course it’s not.

Navarro and Broxton are untested, Valentin was batting .194 when he returned Sunday, and Bradley went two for 18 on the homestand, struggling so much that Tracy asked him to bunt in the ninth inning Sunday.

“But I’m going to say yeah, this group can still win it, because I’ve never seen anything like this division in my life,” pitcher Derek Lowe said. “If there was a clear favorite, they would have pulled away by now. We’re one week from getting back in it.”

So goes the mantra, from clubhouse to computer room.

“Nobody in the division did anything to significantly improve themselves, and I think we’re better now than we were 10 days ago,” Manager Jim Tracy said.

Tracy will come under fire for having Bradley bunt in the ninth inning Sunday, which moved runners to second and third and allowed the Cardinals to walk Jeff Kent.

But Tracy ultimately had the situation he wanted -- bases loaded, one out, Cardinals playing the outfielders close, and a guy batting .345 with runners in scoring position at the plate.

That Olmedo Saenz grounded into a double play to send the game to extra innings will place all the heat on the manager, but until the general manager gets him another bat, these are some of the tough choices the team will face.

The Dodgers need a jolt.

The Angels need a jump.

Soon enough, their general managers could be needing both.

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Bill Plaschke can be reached at bill.plaschke@latimes.com. To read previous columns by Plaschke, go to latimes.com/plaschke.