While Others Add, Houston Subtracts : Finance: Astro free agents leave a club holding the payroll line because the franchise is for sale.

Free agency has hit the Houston Astros with the impact of a wrecking ball.

Of the six teams in the National League West, the Astros have experienced the most radical change.

Gone are bullpen aces Dave Smith and Juan Agosto and the leading winner among starting pitchers, Danny Darwin, who signed a four-year, $11.8-million contract with Boston after going 11-4 last season.

Gone are pitchers Bill Gullickson and Dan Schatzeder, infielder-outfielder Franklin Stubbs and outfielder Terry Puhl.

Gone, too, is any hope for 1991.

In its place: the possibility of 100 losses.

“There’s no question we’re going to take our lumps against some of these megabuck clubs,” General Manager Bill Wood said.

Wood looks at the dollars being spent and doesn’t see the sense in it, particularly for the Astros.

“We’ve been getting older as a club and not getting the job done (on the field),” he said. “There were changes that needed to be made, a process of rebuilding that we’ve been talking about for a couple years.

“All of that being concurrent with the escalation in the market, a downturn in our financial fortunes and the fact that the club is for sale, the process has simply been accelerated.”

Translation: The Astros made only a modest attempt to keep their free agents because owner John McMullen, a critic of baseball’s salary pattern, did not want to scare off prospective buyers by running up the payroll.

Said Wood, of the free-agent madness: “In our market, deficit spending is not the way to go. We think it sends a wrong signal to everyone in the country. We have to rebuild, then maybe take a look at free agency as a way to fill in here or there, as Cincinnati has. Maybe there’ll be some sanity to it then, but there’s not now.

“I mean, does it ensure hustle and all-out aggressiveness? Does it make the player more amenable to the fans and responsible to the team?

“It’s my perception that it’s just the opposite, and the studies support that. Many of those players suddenly start to shirk their responsibilities.

“They place it in cruise control, and the first thing you know they come up with an injury in spring training and play half the year.

“If I’m the only guy in baseball saying all this, tough. It’s the way I feel. I mean, there’s already a marked difference between the haves and have-nots and it’s going to get larger.

“There are now clubs with payrolls larger than the gross revenues of some clubs.”

Others are expressing the same concerns, but only the Astros voted against the $280-million collusion settlement that gave 15 players a second chance at free agency, including Smith and Darwin.

The Houston closers are now expected to be Brian Meyer and Al Osuna, who have one major league save between them. Veterans Mike Scott and Jim Deshaies are still in the rotation, but the three other spots are up for grabs.

The Astros may start first- or second-year players at four positions. The overhaul did not start or end with the seven free agents who have left this winter. Bill Doran, Larry Andersen and Glenn Wilson were traded in August because of their imminent free agency, meaning that in a span of five months, 10 players have been taken off the 25-man roster at a saving, Wood estimates, of $50 million in multiyear salaries.

And now even first baseman Glenn Davis is expected to be traded before opening day because he will be eligible for free agency after the 1991 season, and the Astros aren’t going to negotiate a multiyear contract.

Houston has put a price tag of four prospects on Davis, and the Angels and Baltimore Orioles have been among the most persistent trying to meet it, with the Angels known to have included outfielder Dante Bichette and pitcher Mike Fetters in their package.

The Astros drew only 1.3 million fans during a 75-87 campaign in 1990, and it’s likely to be slower at the gate and worse on the field in ’91.

Do the fans understand the Astros approach?

“Absolutely not,” Wood said. “They’re like fans in Los Angeles, Boston and everywhere else. They want to win and win now.

“Frankly, our club has become a public relations disaster. The owner has experienced an 11-year barrage by the media. Right or wrong, every move he’s made has been criticized. We have that to overcome, as well as the system.

“The fans are confused, but what can turn it around is for them to take a look at our nucleus of young players and agree we’re on the right course.

“We’ve put a lot of money in our farm system, and you can’t just assume that some of these kids aren’t ready to play here.”

Time will tell, of course, but Wood believes there’s one certainty.

“They’ll play harder than many of those millionaires,” he said.