If Dodgers Are Saving for Rainy Day, Tell ‘Em Raines Has Gone Away

How in heaven’s name can the Dodgers stand back and watch the San Diego Padres sign Tim Raines?

How many teams have to bid on free agents before the Dodgers decide it would be OK to join them?

How many millions of fans do the Dodgers have to draw before they will talk to Raines’ agent, as the Padres are doing?

How many center fielders do the Dodgers have to try before they go after a guy who would give them the best outfield in the National League?

How many All-Star outfielders do the Dodgers have to lose to injury before they decide to protect themselves by having at least one other All-Star outfielder on the premises?

How many months of whining about the loss of a single player will Dodger fans have to endure if Guerrero should get hurt once again while attempting one of his Chevy Chase slides into third?

How many dozens of errors do the Dodgers have to make in spring training before it occurs to them that they had better sign a Raines or trade for a Brett Butler to fortify themselves up the middle?

Questions, questions, we got questions.

From this vantage point, it is difficult to fathom how the Dodgers could go 73-89--matching their worst record since moving from Brooklyn--and finish a half-game out of last place and figure Guerrero’s return will turn the whole thing around.

Anybody who thinks the addition of Matt Young and Tim Leary will be enough to overtake the Houston Astros and Cincinnati Reds is either a ridiculous optimist or has been hallucinating on some of that stuff that the other Timothy Leary used to use.

The Dodgers are completely unsettled at third base, have a wildly unpredictable shortstop, have an outfielder playing first base and have a second baseman who will be lucky to come within 30 points of last season’s batting average--and fairly satisfied to come within 50 points of it.

Fernando Valenzuela and Orel Hershiser are the only starting pitchers with certified health and talent--and Hershiser is still reeling from a break-even record and a nasty slash in pay.

And Young, Ken Howell and Tom Niedenfuer had better do better, because the Dodgers led the league in one-run games last season, and lost a whole lot of them.

Jeff Reardon, one of the National League’s top relief pitchers in recent times, a man who won seven games last season and saved 35 for a lousy team, was available during the offseason--not as a free agent, but on the good, old-fashioned trading block. He went to the Minnesota Twins in exchange for the immortal Neal Heaton.

Couldn’t the Dodgers have offered more for a guy of Reardon’s caliber? Buck Rodgers, the Expo manager, said Sunday before an exhibition game at Vero Beach that the Dodgers offered Montreal three Class A players for Reardon. Not Triple-A. Not Double-A.

Single-A.

When Bud Furillo of KABC radio mentioned to Rodgers that the Dodgers really liked a young Expo outfielder named Mitch Webster, Rodgers replied: “Maybe they’ll offer us three Rookie League players for him. “

The Dodger front office has long been accused of behaving in trade talks as if their lowest prospects were the next Mantles and Mayses.

Trouble is, in recent years such players as John Franco, Candy Maldonado, Sid Bream, R.J. Reynolds and others have moved on to new teams and done the sort of things that they never did for the Dodgers. A fear already exists that Greg Brock will step up to the plate for Milwaukee this season and crack about 30 home runs.

Rumor has it that the Dodgers have been trying to pry Butler, a good-hitting, good-fielding center fielder, from the Cleveland Indians by offering a package that includes people like Alejandro Pena, a pitcher whose arm practically fell off his body a couple of seasons ago.

If Butler is available, the Dodgers ought to offer Pena and about half a dozen other players to get him. He might not be Tim Raines, but he’s close enough.

As for Raines, he is some kind of wonderful. He would give the Dodgers their only guaranteed .300 hitter. Raines could heat .300 wearing a blindfold. He also would track down all those balls that Guerrero and Mike Marshall or Franklin Stubbs would fail to get to. He’d be Gary Pettis with a bat.

Furthermore, he would not cost the team half a dozen players. He would simply cost them money. And if the L.A. Dodgers don’t have money, why do they have a waiting list of 3,500 for season tickets?

If the Phillies can sign Lance Parrish, and the Cubs can sign Andre Dawson, what in heaven’s name is wrong with the Dodgers signing Tim Raines? Why is it all right for another team in their division to sign the guy? Why do they believe having Ken Landreaux is as good as having Raines?

What in heaven’s name do the Padres have that the Dodgers don’t have, besides a name better suited to heaven?

Questions, questions.

We have to keep asking them, before it’s too late.