THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, March 27, 1995 TAG: 9503270111
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY TOM ROBINSON, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: PORT ST. LUCIE, FLA. LENGTH: Long : 153 lines
Here at confusing Camp ReplaceMet, uncertainty pervades the air on either end of the New York Mets' spring training complex. At the major league stadium, the 7,400 seats remain two-thirds empty for exhibition games and, in its home clubhouse, unfamiliar nameplates - Durkin, Rosenthal, Wagnon, Sarno - adorn the lockers.
A few hundred yards to the west, the minor league operation runs as smoothly as it can amid the possibility of player defections to the big league team that could further shake up the composition of farm teams, including the Triple-A Norfolk Tides.
The ReplaceMets, you see, stink. Originally composed largely of has-beens and never-weres - in order to keep minor leaguers from the middle of baseball's labor strife - the club is 6-13 in the exhibition season. However, an increased presence of real minor leaguers voluntarily taking part has helped salvage the past 12 days. All six victories were captured in that time after an 0-9 start that was ripped by Mets manager Dallas Green, who has campaigned loudly for more minor league reinforcements.
Because if replacement baseball is to happen next Sunday when the major league season opens, and there's no reason to think it won't, the teams with the most minor leaguers are expected to be strongest.
The Mets finally get it, and so Friday and Saturday nights they talked to 30 to 40 minor leaguers who have some interest in being ReplaceMets in the regular season. Obviously, if they played, they would do so against the wishes of the striking Major League Players Association, so the Mets laid out the financial inducements they will offer to minor leaguers who cross the invisible picket line.
Details have not been disclosed, but guarantees above the $115,000 minimum salary and $5,000 signing bonus have been offered. It is believed the Mets' offer mirrors the one the Los Angeles Dodgers made to their minor leaguers:
Players who agree to be on the replacement roster and are sent back to the minors, and have at least 30 days Class A service time, will receive $3,000 per month.
Players with 30 days Double-A time will receive $5,000 per month.
Players with 30 days Triple-A time will receive $7,000 per month. The Triple-A minimum, for example, is $2,000 per month.
Also, all will have guaranteed jobs in the minors for the season.
``It's going to be different for everybody,'' said one player in the Tides' camp who is considering becoming a ReplaceMet. He spoke on the condition of anonymity. ``Some guys have never been (in the majors) and this could be their only shot. For other guys it could be their last shot.
``This has been a big headache. Everything we talk about has to do with the strike, all spring long. It's a huge distraction. It's not going to be an easy decision one way or the other.
``Some guys might want to play to stay in the game, some might do it just for the money. For me, it's not the money. That's a benefit, but it's not the reason I'd do it. I won't give my reason, though. It's nobody's business.''
In exhibition games, the Mets have used 28 minor leaguers but did not discuss until Friday their availability for regular season games. But should all 28, or more, agree to play in April - teams will need 32 players, 25 active and seven on a taxi squad - that could mean chaos for Steve Phillips, the Mets minor league director who is already handcuffed by not knowing who will play where.
No minor league cuts can been made because of the need for bodies, and rosters for the four full-season minor teams are nowhere near finalized as they are at this point in a normal spring.
``That's impossible to do right now,'' Phillips said. ``We don't know which minor league players are actually going to play with the (big league) team. We know which players said they'd play spring training games, but we don't know which ones are actually going to say yes to playing in April. Therefore we just don't know what the pool of players is that we're going to be able to choose from.''
As it is, the minor league rosters are dotted with players who are playing at least one level higher than they would be if there was no strike. That's good for them. But perhaps the major casualties of the strike are the youngsters who have never played in the majors yet are on the 40-man roster.
Because their name on the 40-man roster automatically puts them in the Players' Association, budding stars like Edgardo Alfonzo, Alberto Castillo and Ricky Otero, who should be with the Tides, are on strike. Also affected are Tides from last season such as Aaron Ledesma, the team's most valuable player, Butch Huskey, Pete Walker and Omar Garcia.
There had been hope that the union would relent and let players with little or no major league time play in the minors, but that appears to be a dead issue, said Joe McIlvaine, the Mets' executive vice president for baseball operations.
``We've petitioned, asked, cajoled, tried every means we can - we call them the prisoners - to free the prisoners,'' McIlvaine said. ``It's not their making that they're protected on the roster. If the union is acting in the best interests of their players, they'll do what's best for them. And what's best for those guys is to let them play. In exchange for a promise that you wouldn't play them in the big leagues? I'd do that.
``Just so at least they're playing. They can't improve sitting at home. It's hurting their development. But we're being told no chance.''
It's all the more bizarre to see Otero and Castillo, who live in Port St. Lucie, hanging out at the minor league complex watching exhibition games, leaning against the cyclone fence of the dugout and joking with their uniformed buddies on the other side.
``I can't talk,'' Castillo said, declining an interview. ``I'd like to say some things, but I can't.''
Castillo did respond, though, when asked why he just doesn't come in and play.
``Because,'' he said, ``I think I can play in the major leagues for a long time.'' The underlying message, of course, is the fear of being branded a strike-breaker.
Through it all, Tides manager Toby Harrah has stayed above the fray, simply because there's nothing else for him to do. Harrah spoke from the day he was hired in December of his eagerness to work with a load of talented prospects due in Norfolk this season, in greater numbers than the Tides have seen in almost a decade. But Harrah, too, has been hamstrung by the strike.
First, the thrill of being part of Green's staff for major league camp was tempered by having no real major league players to tutor. Now, his Norfolk team is not as promising as it could be.
True, the Tides have nice talent in the outfield - if it stays in the minors - thanks to the signing of free agents Jarvis Brown, Chris Jones and Derek Lee, all with big-league experience. And they are lucky to have star-potential pitchers such as Bill Pulsipher and Chris Roberts who have not played long enough to require placement on the 40-man roster. Their shortstop, Rey Ordonez, also fits the latter category.
But there is still much uncertainty as to which players on the Tides' roster will become ReplaceMets and how best to fill the holes that those players leave. That's why no one has been cut and won't be until the big league season starts.
``The plus side for me is I've seen a lot of kids that I normally may not get a chance to look at,'' said Harrah, who said he prides himself on gleaning positives from negative situations. ``I don't have any arguments at all. I really don't worry about things I have no control over. One of these days, I'll get a chance to watch these (absent) kids play. I'm looking forward to it.''
But first everyone will have to make do with something less than expected. The Mets have already done that, because the ReplaceMets have not performed to the master plan.
``We had to give the replacement players a chance first,'' McIlvaine said. ``We got off to a real slow start, but we were playing all replacement players. Since we've started to play more minor league players, obviously record-wise, we're doing better.
``There are inducements, that's about as much as I can say at this point. We're trying to do the best we can, we want to put the best team we can put out there on April 2. We've got some replacement players that have certainly done OK, mostly pitchers. But we need to upgrade our position players, I think.''
And so the watch continues for the minor leaguers who will cross over to an uncharted world of replacement major league baseball. Their identities will be known soon enough, possibly today or Tuesday. Which, mercifully, at least means this maddening spring training is almost through. ILLUSTRATION: [Color Photo]
MARTIN SMITH-RODDEN/Staff
Minor league players with the Mets, who face an uncertain future,
listen to instructions during a morning meeting.
by CNB