For Sale or Trade: All-Star Catcher, Golden Arm; Bat? Well . . .

By now, the nation’s baseball fans are aware that they voted one guy onto the National League All-Star team who is retired and another guy onto the American League All-Star team who has been sidelined all season by injury.

What they probably do not realize was that they voted another guy into the National League lineup who should be wearing a “For Sale” sign rather than a number.

This is the situation with the Padres’ Benito Santiago, No. 9 on your scorecard but perennially No. 1 in Manager Jack McKeon’s doghouse.

Now, almost on the eve of Santiago’s first All-Star game appearance, McKeon will be (or is) attempting to trade the 24-year-old catcher.

This is a rather strange paradox.

Incredibly, in only a few months, Santiago has gone from the Padres’ catcher into and beyond the foreseeable future to a candidate to be the Padres’ catcher of the immediate past.

Santiago, to be sure, is a victim of the inconsistency of both himself and the team. He stands as a symbol of what has gone on in a summer that has drained the ocean of patience McKeon had only a year ago and turned it into a birdbath of frustration.

From the early weeks of the season, McKeon has been complaining quietly about the selfishness of certain unnamed players. It’s a matter of these players simply not doing the little things that need to be done to win.

That McKeon has not been pleased with Santiago initially manifested itself in benchings that were far more frequent than would be the case if he were merely resting him for a day or two.

It became obvious this week, however, that Santiago is one of the culprits who had for so long gone unnamed.

McKeon made that clear Thursday after yet another loss when he told The Times’ Bob Nightengale that it was time to shake things up with a trade and that Santiago was the most logical guy to deal. This represents a drastic change in thinking from spring training, when McKeon instead was trying to trade Sandy Alomar Jr. Since he could not get the value he hoped to get for Alomar, he sent the kid to Las Vegas.

Now, at the halfway mark of a season rapidly disappearing into the plumbing, McKeon’s statements would seem to indicate he will be much more comfortable watching either Alomar or Mark Parent behind the plate.

“If you trade a Santiago,” he said, “you’ve got to get a couple of players for him, two pluses for one minus. But it’s tough. I don’t think you could get two players for him right now.”

Giving Santiago (and maybe McKeon) the benefit of doubt, I don’t think he was calling Santiago a minus. I think he was just saying you add two players and subtract one. However, the rest of the observation was not exactly a glowing endorsement of what he now interprets Santiago’s value to be. Remember, it was not long ago McKeon was talking of taking no fewer than four regular players (or pitchers) for him.

So what’s going on here?

Santiago had that very big rookie year in 1987, both at the plate and in the field. He was very average at the plate last year, but continued to be outstanding in the field. He has been below average at the plate this year, when again it must be conceded that he is outstanding in the field.

What seems to be nettling McKeon is that Santiago is not responsive to direction when it comes to (a) getting his offense back to his rookie level or (b) doing the little things that guys hitting .230 have to do to compensate for their lack of statistical production. Santiago has insisted on going his own way when his boss thinks his way is headed in the wrong direction.

The biggest gripe about Santiago’s offense is that it is lacking in discipline. It could be that he has this perception that he is a free-swinging power hitter, when, in fact, his power quotient has never been very high and the free swinging simply keeps his average down.

“There’s no question when the light flicks on he’ll be a good one,” McKeon said, “but who knows whether it flicks on at the end of his career or tomorrow.”

That’s the rub. McKeon is getting tired of waiting, and he is dealing with a less-than-exuberant attitude in the meantime. He is not liking what he is seeing.

And so it has come to pass that Jack McKeon has the ultimate showcase for marketing a player. He has the starting catcher in the All-Star game. He will let him out of the doghouse and into the limelight.

Perhaps Trader Jack might invest in some advertising.