Playboy's 1993 Baseball Preview

The Horror! Somebody call 911. Baseball is a goner. The stitches are coming loose. The old pastime, clearly past its time, may limp through one more year, but that's about it. After this year, when television pulls the plug on $1.2 billion worth of life support, the future fades to black. The next TV deal will be far smaller, not nearly enough to keep the game alive.

Some teams have already given up the ghost. The Padres performed last rites on themselves, trading an All-Star shortstop for two cheap Mets uniforms to save $2 million, and mothballed their office Christmas tree to save $40. The once-proud Yankees and Dodgers are downsizing their farm systems to save a few salaries that wouldn't buy Barry Bonds' lunch.

Attendance is down (if only slightly), expenses are up. Ticket prices are too high and games are too long, alienating fans who like NFL and NBA action better anyway. The game's hottest young celeb, Deion Sanders, is a moonlighting football player. And the national pastime's champion is a foreign team. We tried to prevent it, displayed the Canadian flag upside down at the World Series, but Toronto still beat America's team.

Mamas, sign up your babies for soccer. That's a game with a future. Baseball has a grand past, beloved by all, and no tomorrow.

But hold the phone. Maybe there's a light at the end of the clubhouse tunnel. Major-league owners say it's a locomotive--the engine of doom, fueled by zillion-dollar salaries--but they've been whining about that for 20 years. There is still another year of TV money, $401 million of it, enough to pay half the total major-league payroll without a single dime from ticket sales, local TV, souvenirs, hot dogs or beer.

Some clubs are hurting, but some former doormats--hello, Houston and Cleveland--have spent their money well and are now contenders. They can't print tickets fast enough. Neither can two new teams in rich new markets, the Colorado Rockies and the Florida Marlins, which paid $95 million each to join the party. That's $190 million more for the poor owners' cupboard. And salaries are bound to drop when the TV gold decreases (or else owners who overpay will lose money, like bad businessmen should).

Attendance dropped last year. It was down six tenths of a percent from the all-time high of 1991, a loss of 310,000 fans. But the Mets and Dodgers, who spent their money wrong and finished a combined 59 games out of first place, lost 1.1 million fans all by themselves. Elsewhere, attendance was steady; it will set a new record in 1993, unless there's another giant sucking sound from Flushing and Chavez Ravine.

And while it's true that the game needs more Deion-style neon, there's plenty already if you know where to look. Sanders shines brighter legging out a triple, grinning all the way, than hidden in a football helmet. No offense to Michael and Shaq, but Kirby's got back--210 pounds of pocket-popping pinstripes--and he hits, runs, fields and throws, while they just dribble and dunk. Roger Clemens, painting the corners of the plate, makes NFL quarterbacks look like scatter-armed shot-putters. No other jock runs like Marquis Grissom, vaults walls like Devon" White, poses in midperfection like Bonds or Will Clark, or sees Madonna like Jose Canseco.

The national game's champion is a Canadian club. On the other hand--and according to Boston's ambidextrous pitcher Greg Harris, there's always another hand--that is a temporary horror. This year the reign of Toronto falls on the grass of Atlanta, where the Braves will win the 1993 World Series.

On the other other hand, perhaps foshballs will fly from my butt.

The foshball is a mutant change-up-forkball thrown by Colorado ace David Nied. I think Nied will lose 20 games, spraining his neck as he spins to watch the home runs he allows vanish into Denver's thin air. Of course, he could also fosh the Braves on October 3, the regular season's final day, and prevent their rematch with Toronto.

As I hazard these guesses, there is snow in Toronto. The suicidal Padres haven't yet traded Bruce Hurst for a batboy. The Braves haven't settled on a closer (Jay Howell?), the Blue Jays need a setup man (Paul Assenmacher?) and a third baseman (Ed Sprague?). Baseball's owners haven't yet named a Muppet to be the game's new commissioner. There's a chance they will lock out the players this spring. But since a lockout requires that the owners' foolishness outpaces their greed, let's suppose the season starts on time. Greg Maddux shuts out his old Cubs teammates on opening day for the Braves' first step toward revenge on Toronto, to be served cold in October.

Rich clubs such as Atlanta and Toronto now have far more options than their competitors. Last fall the Braves hired all-time saves leader Jeff Reardon to plug their leaky bullpen and the Jays acquired David Cone for their pennant drive. The trend continued in the off-season: Atlanta's signing of Maddux for a piece of Ted Turner's superstation fortune completed the best starting staff this side of Coopers-town. Thus do the rich get richer, while the Padres, Pirates and Brewers turn to dust.

The rehabbed Reds and Astros are healthy enough to stay close in the NL West, but when Murphy's Law comes calling, they'll have a lot more trouble patching holes than the Braves, who are as deep as the Mariana Trench.

The NL East ought to be a fairer fight. The Expos are young and strong with a flame-flinging bullpen and a graybeard ace Dennis Martinez. Pittsburgh, dispersed like a puff from manager Jim Leyland's cigarette, is now passive smoke. The Mets, behind starter Bret Saberhagen--alock for Comeback Player of the Year--are 15 games better than last season's 72--90, but I'll take St. Louis. The Cardinals have an MVP candidate in Ray Lankford, a rookie named Canseco (Jose's twin brother, Ozzie), a terrific no-name pitching staff and Lee Smith, hobbling to the mound to nail down 45 saves and pass Reardon as history's top savior.

In the American League, Oakland is the best in a slipping West. Two Western clubs are changing their uniforms: The Angels return to a Sixties look but won't approach their 84--77record of die summer of love, while the A's will wear an angry, bat-chewing elephant. Choose anger over love. Even with Ruben Sierra's failing to fill Canseco's spikes, Oakland is 25 games better than the Angels--enough to edge the White Sox by a trunk.

In the East, only the Orioles car fly with the Jays, who replaced Series hero Dave Winfield with a better DH, Paul Molitor. Cleveland's Indians have been built from die ground up in four years, just like the fine new park they will occupy in 1994. Still, when the Jays need a pitcher in August to hold off the O's, they'll rent one for a million a month and rule the roost again.

The Jays' second baseman, Roberto Alomar, begins his third Toronto season as a prime MVP candidate. Ditto Chicago's Frank Thomas and Ranger J. Canseco, who will gain as much from hitting in Arlington Stadium as Sierra suffers in pitcher-friendly Oakland. The NL MVP will be a center fielder: Expo Grissom, St. Louis' Lankford or die Reds' Roberto Kelly.

Clemens should win die AL Cy Young award every year. Heave an NL Cy to any member of the Atlanta rotation, Montreal's Martinez, Cincinnati's Jose Rijo, Astro Doug Drabek or the Cardinals' sophomore sleeper Rheal Cormier. Rookies of the Year? Expos shortstop Wil Cordero and Angels outfielder Tim Salmon.

Two other rookies, the NL's Colorado Rockies and Florida Marlins, will endure a bloody birth. The carnage! The other owners surrendered little more than sore arms and spare parts in November's expansion draft, so die Pebbles and the Fish are sure to stink. They'll finish last in their divisions, though they may scare some sense into the sixth-place Padres and Phillies. Colorado looks better for this season. But Florida, having wisely decided to build for the long term, has a chance to party in the postseason by 1999. The Rockies, in a vain effort to win 75 games in 1993, risk an avalanche of losses that could last a decade.

Next year's shortage of TV riches is bound to send the owners into a panic. That means gimmicks. Before long die leagues will probably realign into three divisions each, bringing wild-card (Continued on page 140)Baseball Preview(Continued from page 122) teams into a lucrative new stage of play-offs for the networks to televise. Inter-league play may also be coming to rob the World Series and baseball's All-Star Game--the only All-Star game anybody cares about--of their uniqueness.

It wouldn't be the first time baseball was ruined. The Black Sox scandal killed it in the early Twenties. The game crawled off its slab and into its first golden age, which ma y or may not be ending now. Times of crisis bring out baseball's goofy charms.

Remember the bottom of the ninth in game seven of the National League Championship Series? It featured a tired pitcher massaging a shutout, a double that nicked the foul line, an error by a Gold Glove infielder, a crucial pitch miscalled by an umpire who had replaced an ump who had been struck by vertigo and, finally, Atlanta's slowest runner beating a bullet to the plate.

It was one of those singular baseball moments. Go back to Atlanta and play that inning a million times. It never happens the same way again. Not even close. And while the future looks hazardous to the game's health, there will be more grand moments like Cabrera's in 1993.

And more horror. A year ago Seattle traded three good pitchers for home run king Kevin Mitchell. The Mariners expected 40 homers from Mitchell in the Kingdome. He hit nine, got nauseated and pulled a ribcage muscle vomiting. Now he's batting cleanup for the Reds as they chase the Braves.

Hold the phone: Call Riverfront Stadium and ask the Reds if they have any Pepto. If Mitchell hits 40 and heartburns Atlanta, all bets are off.

The hardest part was getting there. After their tenth straight winning season, the Blue Jays were still the game's best bet to go south in the fall. In 1987 they led the East by three and a half games with a week to go, finished 0--7 and were Tiger meat. In 1989 and 1991 they won the division but died in the playoffs, and last fall they had their collective beak on the exhaust pipe again. Game four of the American League Championship Series: Dennis Eckersley whiffed Ed Sprague to end the eighth inning. Oakland was about to even the series. Eck glared at the Toronto dugout and pumped his fist, saying, in effect, "We're the As, you're the Jays, get used to it.

In the ninth Roberto Alomar took Eckersley upstairs. Strolling into his later trot he raised his fists as if to say, "If we weren't on TV I'd have only four fingers clenched." The Jays pulled off the biggest comeback ever in the playoffs and marched through Atlanta to the top of the world. They're good enough and they're rich enough to stay there.

A year ago general manager Pat Gillick signed Jack Morris and Dave Winfield, combined age 76, to teach Toronto how to win. It worked. Now Winfield, starter Jimmy Key and stopper Tom Henke are gone, but Gillick has a bullpen ace--Duane Ward--up his sleeve. He signed Dave Stewart and Paul Molitor, combined age 72, to replace Key and Winfield. Molitor is the only active DH better than Winfield. Stewart, who has been mediocre the past two seasons, is a gamble. John Olerud and Derek Bell are fine young hitters, Joe Carter's a fine old one. Devon White strikes out too much for a leadoff hitter but compensates by being a 78 percent base-stealer and making other center fielders look like garden statuary. Second baseman Alomar, 25 years old, is already the league's top player. Gillick, sitting on his mountain of money (Toronto is the premiere ticket-seller in baseball history), may have some holes to fill by August. But when also-rans start hawking their highest-priced players in August, the Jays will be buying.

With the Orioles on the auction block, owner Eli Jacobs tightened his purse strings. The O's, whose modest payroll and soaring attendance put them in position to shoot for the stars last winter, settled for DH Harold Baines and second baseman Harold Reynolds, Harolding something less than a sudden charge to the top of the class. The offense looks fierce: Brady Anderson, Mike Devereaux, Cal Ripken, Baines, Glenn Davis and Chris Hoiles are each capable of 25 homers and 80 RBI. Baltimore's defense is as sharp as its bullpen, where Gregg Olson's cruel curveball has hooked 104 saves in three years. But the starting rotation has a rusty anchor. Rick Sutcliffe is an admirable fellow who won 16 games last year, but healso lost 15 and led the majors in runs allowed. His ERA was five-plus after the All-Star break. Behind him, kid starters Mike Mussina and Arthur Rhodes are kid stuff incarnate. Ben McDonald and rookie John O'Donoghue complete a promising but iffy rotation. Scattershot smoker Brad Pennington is manager Johnny Oates' wild card. With Ripken, Baines and Sutcliffe adding up to 102 birthdays, while Davis, Hoiles and third baseman Leo Gomez recover from injuries and the staff matures on the mound, this is an odd nest of gray whiskers, bandages and fledglings. The O's could be in full flight when they host the All-Star Game at the Yards. Down the stretch I like the Jays better, but not by much.

Calling the Yankees a sleeper in the East is like calling George Steinbrenner a human being. It's technically true, but you never know when either will try to prove the opposite. Three of die game's best pitchers made sure they avoided pinstripes this year, when Steinbrenner returns from a two-year exile. Still, Steinbrenner surrogate Joe Molloy saved 1993 by signing Jimmy Key and shipping two terrific prospects to the Angels for Jim Abbott. After crazily leaving third baseman Charlie Hayes unprotected in the expansion draft, Molloy reached into' his bottomless pocket and pulled out $11 million for Wade Boggs, who compares to Hayes the way Hayes compares to Helen Hayes. The rotation is twice as strong as last year's and the bullpen is safe in the hands of Steve Farr and Steve Howe. The offense features Boggs, Don Mattingly, Danny Tartabull, Paul O'Neill (whose left-handed upper-cut suits Yankee Stadium perfectly) and center-field phenom Bernie Williams. If Abbott, Key and Melido Perez win 15 games each and the cement-footed offense scores 700 runs, New York wakes up and wins.

The Indians' rotation of slidermeister Charles Nagy plus Bob Ojeda, Mike Bielecki, Dennis Cook and Jose Mesa isn't thin, it's transparent. After Nagy, they had better pray for rain. Cleveland can afford to be patient, though. With a microscopic payroll, a ripening farm system and a major-league lineup loaded with young talent--most of it inked long-term by GM John Hart--Cleveland is due for a renaissance. The Tribe is set at catcher, second base, DH, in the outfield and the bullpen for die next five years. If Hart attacks his pitching problems, this bunch could break even this year and could win a pennant next year, when Gateway Center opens downtown.

After finishing last with the East's highest payroll, the Red Sox ought to start from scratch. Instead, they are looking for big years from Andre Dawson and Ivan Calderon, two right-handed designated hitters with ancient bodies. Cursed with a sloppy defense and a 100-year-old catcher, the Sox let their best glove, Jody Reed, and their top catching prospect get away in the expansion draft while protecting the fragile Ellis Burks. Then they let Burks go. They spent the winter looking for a famous reliever to stand in the way of rookie Ken Ryan, the only diamond in a pitch-dark Boston system. Roger Clemens, the top pitcher of his generation, won the ERA title for the third straight year. But Rocket fizzled in September. He's 30 now and he has pitched more than 2000 major-league innings. If he's less than superhuman, the Sox will face an ugly truth. They need to be razed and rebuilt, Cleveland style.

Pat Listach deserved the Rookie of the Year award for helping lead the Brewers' stirring run at Toronto. (Cleveland's Kenny Lofton, a better base-stealer who doesn't strike out all the time, is a better player, though.) Cal Eldred is one of the league's superb young starters. Kevin Reimer's going to hit 25 homers and rookies John Jaha and Matt Mieske might do the same, but Milwaukee will need a designated driver--not three iron-gloved DHs--to get them home this time. The club spent the off-season selling luxury boxes in County Stadium, but it didn't raise enough cash to sign two guys who count, Chris Bosio, now a Mariner, and Paul Molitor, now a Blue Jay. Instead, they got Tom Brunansky and Bill Doran, old and broken-down. There had better be plenty of brews in those boxes to distract Milwaukee's swells from the crew on the field. The 92-70 record of a year ago is turning upside down.

Thirty minutes, guaranteed. In the next half hour the Tigers will hit a home run. Last season Detroit's lineup averaged 19 homers per player. Count on Cecil Fielder to earn his millions by hitting 40, while starters Bill Gullickson and Mike Moore serve up more dings than Fielder hits. Shortstop Travis Fry-man eats fastballs for lunch, and second baseman Lou Whitaker never goes stale. But owner Mike Ilitch--the Little Caesar's Pizza emperor who bought the club from Domino's Pizza man Tom Monaghan--would be wise to stick the rest of his product in a box and bury it.

Tony La Russa did a heroic balancing act in 1992, suiting the nimble elephant-on-a-baseball that was the Athletics' shoulder patch before the peeved pachyderm appeared this year. Running 22 players back and forth from the disabled list, using 19 who spent part of the year in the minors, he won 96 games. His everyday nine missed almost 50 starts per man, yet he still managed a consistent winner--the A's were 15 games over .500 before the All-Star break, 15 over after. Then Eckersley picked the wrong night to have the worst of his 72 outings. "The swagger is gone," said Eck after Toronto rocked him in October. Free agency rocked the Athletics soon there after; the herd that stampeded the West four times in five years was breaking up.

Then GM Sandy Alderson spent $77.5 million to sign the men he had to keep: Mark McGwire (who hit 42 homers and led the AL in slugging percentage), Ruben Sierra who came from Texas in the Jose Canseco deal), catcher Terry Steinbach and starter Ron Darling. Oakland still has some patching to do. Troy Neel, a DH who hit .351 at Tacoma, will help. Ditto infielders Mike Bordick and Kevin Seitzer, as well as Dave Henderson, who hobbles back from the DL to play center. A rotation of Bob Welch, Darling, Bobby Witt, Storm Davis and Kelly Downs won't help La Russa sleep at night, but the team shouldn't miss Dave Stewart or Mike Moore's indifferent 1992 innings. The pen belongs to Eckersley, who gives up historic postseason home runs but nothing else. While saving 236 games in six years, he has walked just 55 men and struck out 491 in 475 innings.

After Sierra spices up the middle of the order to the tune of 90 RBI, the A's can pack their trunks for another October flight to Toronto.

The White Sox unraveled after shortstop Ozzie Guillen blew out his knee in April. They finished ten games over .500 but got crummy years from Steve Sax (a career low .236 average), Dan Pasqua (.211) and every starting pitcher except Jack McDowell, who was 20-10 while four other starters went 37-43. Relievers Scott Radinsky and Roberto Hernandez sparkled with 27 saves and a combined 2.15 ERA, but ex-ace Bobby Thigpen, who had 57 saves in 1990, saved 22 with a 4.75 ERA. Signees Dave Stieb and Ellis Burks can't bend without wincing, Guillen's knee is still sore, infielder Craig Grebek has a tender foot and we all know about Bo Jackson's hip. The Sox are sound only at first and third with Big Frank Thomas and Robin Ventura, in center field with Lance Johnson and at the top of the staff, where the 6'5" McDowell stares down the Twins on opening night. A farm chain stocked with strong right arms makes the late Nineties look promising. This year could go either way. Will the Sox, who have finished second, second and third this decade, hold up or pale in the stretch? Maybe Bo knows. In a wide-open West it won't take a miracle for Chicago to win. Four hundred at-bats on a bionic hip, a near miracle, ought to do it.

The 1992 Royals started 1--16, getting one hit in the one game they won. Mets rejects Kevin McReynolds and Gregg Jefferies flopped. Jefferies, the worst third baseman on earth, had 26 errors and just ten home runs. Outfielder Brian McRae played like the manager's son you hated in Little League, batting .223 with four homers but still playing almost every day to get his 533 at-bats. Kansas City trailed the league in homers. Other than Kevin Appier, who went 15-8, the starting pitchers lost 26 more games than they won. But now comes David Cone (whom the Royals gave up in 1987) to help Appier anchor the staff. Right fielder Felix Jose, acquired for Jefferies in an intra-Missouri trade, adds muscle to the middle of the order. Shortstop Greg Gagne and second baseman Jose Lind (the ex-Pirate whose NLCS error tarnished his 1992 Gold Glove) give K.C. what might be the finest double-play combo since Sixties Pirates Gene Alley and Bill Mazeroski. Junkballers Mark Gardner and Hipolito Pichardo fill out the rotation. Jeff Montgomery may challenge Eck for the AL lead in saves. Last year's Royals, emotionally crushed by their horrid first month, were 71-74 from May through October. With Cone, Gagne and Lind aboard, manager Hal McRae's boys are poised to gain 15 games in the standings.

In December, Jose Canseco was arrested for fighting in a bar. It was his first nonvehicular nonweapons arrest. By January Rangers manager Kevin Kennedy had made a pilgrimage to Miami to assure Jose that as long as he was a free man, he was their' main man. If his Schwarzenegger frame holds up--40 homers and 120 RBI aren't too much to ask from Madonna's favorite baseball Adonis--this becomes the game's most intriguing team. Tom Henke plugs a hole in the bullpen while Manuel Lee, another Toronto refugee with a World Series ring to show his new teammates, takes over at short. Starters Charlie Leibrandt and Craig Lefferts toss Wiffleballs behind staff ace Kevin Brown and the everlasting heat of Nolan Ryan in the last year of his matchless career. Rehabbed Julio Franco hopes for a return to his silver-bat form of 1991. First baseman Rafael Palmeiro is bound to hit better than .268. Ivan Rodriguez, 21 years old, is becoming the AL's top catcher, and Juan "Igor" Gonzalez, baseball's home run king, can now rest his aching back with occasional help from tiny center fielder Doug Dascenzo. I would pick Texas in a minute if pitching didn't count and Jose had a license to scoff at the law. But it does and he doesn't. Not in a million years.

Manager Tom Kelly and GM Andy MacPhail keep the Twins in the race every summer. MacPhail saved the club's season-ticket sales by re-signing Kirby Puckett, who has now surpassed Prince as Minnesota's most popular person (he had a better year). But every winter the Twins pay the price of being a small-market franchise. Signing Puckett, a .321 career hitter--plus Methuselahs Dave Winfield and Bert Blyleven--won't make up for the losses of starter John Smiley and shortstop Gagne, whom MacPhail could no longer afford. Minnesota is reduced to hoping that a club that led the AL in hitting and magically finished third in pitching can duplicate those feats, and that Bernardo Brito can pop a pinch-hit homer or three. Brito, the real-life Crash Davis, has hit 229 minor-league home runs but none in the majors. Still, Kelly needs more arms. Last year Minnesota's non-Smiley starting pitchers had an ERA of 4.20.

Any of five teams could win the pitching-poor West, but not the Mariners. Just you wait, Lou Piniella. You're going to blow a fuse in May, when the Ms are 15--25, and start hammerlocking players on the clubhouse floor. There are bright spots in the Kingdome--Ken Griffey, Jr., in center, Edgar Martinez and Tino Martinez at the corners, Chris Bosio and Norm Charlton on the mound--but more black holes. And like a cosmic black hole, Seattle will suck.

The Anaheim Angels have enough money to contend. But cowboy owner Gene Autry and his wife, Jackie, who now runs the club, have snapped the saddlebags shut while perhaps preparing to sell the team. Circling his wagons, GM Whitey Herzog has assembled a hellish bunch of Angels who are either too old (Chili Davis), too young (Tim Salmon, J. T. Snow) or too splintered by bench time in the other league (Stan Javier, Jerome Walton). Rebuilding is fine, but chaos should be kept in the Bronx, where it belongs. At least the Angels have a sharp new uniform and a Most Telegenic Vamp in the stands. Tawny Kitaen, the designated writher in countless White snake videos, is Angel Chuck Finley's new girlfriend. Look for a lot of her in California's otherwise depressing highlight reel.

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Lee's knees. They are the keys in the East, a division that looks wide open until you look into the Cardinals' clubhouse. Proud St. Louis hasn't won a pennant since 1985. Ozzie Smith is the sole survivor of that campaign. He may have slipped to second behind Barry Larkin in the NL shortstop derby, he may not do handstands on opening day anymore, but at the age of 38, his wizardry is undiminished. Ozzie hit .295 and stole 43 bases in 52 attempts. He leads a quick attack that paced the league in batting average and steals. The Cards' starting pitchers are young and anonymous except for Bob Tewksbury, a pointillist whose corner-painting led to a 16-5 record and a 2.16 ERA. Meanwhile, Lee Smith notched 43 saves in 70 games, the most appearances he's made in ten years. Lee's 35-year-old knees crackle when he walks, but his arm is almost as rapid as ever. This spring he'll pass Reardon for the all-time saves lead. Supposing his knees last and manager Joe Torre keeps the tumblers of his deceptively young roster turning (key Cardinals not named Smith average just 26 years of age), the Cards trump Montreal and face Atlanta's full house in the playoffs.

With comebacks from third baseman Todd Zeile and rejuvenated problem child Gregg Jefferiese, continuing brilliance from outfielder Ray Lankford, speed and defense from Ozzie and the emergence of multitalented second baseman Geronimo Pena, Torre's offense doesn't need much help. What it needs should come from first baseman--outfielder Ozzie Canseco, Jose's twin, and that football guy in the outfield. Not Deion Sanders, but Sanders' former teammate in the Falcons' defensive backfield, Brian Jordan. Rod Brewer, who batted cleanup in the Triple-A all-star game, will also lend a bat. Tom Pagnozzi, the game's best defensive catcher, commands a league-leading defense. And the no-name pitching staff is a powerhouse in the making. Tewksbury, Donovan Osborne, Omar Olivares and Rheal Cormier had a 3-1 strikeout-to-walk ratio in 1992, portending dominance in 1993 as the youngsters mature. Cuban defector Rene Arocha, another Triple-A all-star, completes the league's second-best rotation. So keep an eye and an ear on Lee's knees. If they can support 45 saves, it's St. Louis in a breeze.

The Expos are another young club on the rise. Nepotism helps--skipper Felipe Alou's son Moises joins Grissom and Larry Walker in a magnificent Montreal outfield. Felipe's nephew Mel Rojas, the NL's primo setup man, shares the bullpen with John Wetteland. Off-season shark-spearer Wetteland, a fireball closer the Dodgers crazily traded with Tim Belcher to get Eric Davis, fanned 99 men in 83 innings on his way to 37 saves in 1992. Nicaraguan national hero Dennis Martinez anchors a starting staff that won't blow anyone away but is nearly as young and promising as the Cardinals'. Ex-Card Ken Hill may have the best stuff of any number-two starter outside Atlanta. At catcher, first base, third base and shortstop, however, les Expos are not tres jolie. Alou may resort to platoons behind the plate (never helpful to a pitching staff), at first and at third. At short, steady Spike Owen will be replaced by Wil Cordero. Only 21, Cordero's a superb prospect who could either cruise to Rookie of the Year honors or flame out in a flurry of strikeouts and errors. He'll be Larkin's backup at the 1995 All-Star Game and probably start for the stars the rest of the decade, but like the Spos themselves, he may still be a year away.

The 1992 Mets had the game's highest payroll. They trailed the majors in batting average. In the NL they topped only the Dodgers, their partners in diminishing returns, in homers, and they underperformed the historically horrible 1962 Mets in a slew of departments. The 1992 Mets had 17 triples, while Deion Sanders had 14 in 5037 fewer at-bats. They traded two everyday players for Bret Saberhagen. He won three games. Howard Johnson melted from 38 homers and 117 RBI to seven and 43. Bobby Bonilla, a Slim-Fast candidate who earned five times his weight in gold, barely managed to hit his weight. Bonilla wore earplugs to drown out the boos at Shea Stadium. Upon his return to Pittsburgh, where he'd driven in 220 runs in two years, junk was thrown at him from the bleachers. Occasional bullpen ace Anthony Young had 15 saves--also two wins and 14 losses.

All of this suggests that New York looks pretty good in 1993. When you hit bottom at breakneck speed, you're bound to rebound. Saberhagen, his bum finger healed, will win between 15 and 20 games. Sid Fernandez, Doc Gooden and towering lefty Pete Schourek ought to combine for 40 wins, not 30, this time around. Johnson, Bonilla, Vince Coleman (assuming GM Al Harazin can't trade Coleman) and catcher Todd Hundley cannot play worse than they did in 1992. Mike Maddux, Cy Young's big brother, is the middle reliever the Mets have needed for years. He'll save Young and/or John Franco for short-inning duty. Tony Fernandez is the shortstop the Mets have needed since the dawn of time. For a team with this much talent, up is the only way to go from 72--90. New York's 1993 ceiling, something near 90-72, could give the younger Cards and Expos nightmares.

On opening day at Wrigley Field, Greg Maddux faces the Cubs. Dueling superstations WGN and TBS, with Harry Caray in the Cubs' booth and his son Skip in the Braves', beam the game to half the Western Hemisphere. Maddux beats Mike Morgan 4-2, Atlanta completes the first game of its championship season and Chicago starts waiting till next year. There's nothing terribly wrong with the Cubs. Morgan, whose sinker was made for the tall grass at Wrigley, was the ideal free agent acquisition of 1992; he may even match his 16-8 of a year ago. José Guzmán, whom the Rangers rehabbed and unwisely allowed to flee to Chicago, is another best-buy signee, but former South Sider Greg Hibbard is useless and new closer Randy Myers--whose 38 saves for the Padres were an optical illusion--is going to be Chicago's biggest fire-starter since Mrs. O'Leary's cow. Myers is finished. The skunk that ran from the San Diego bullpen last July was an omen. Unless the Cubs bury Myers in middle relief and save saves for Dan Plesac, bleacher bums will sport clothespins on their noses in the late innings by June.

On offense, Ryne Sandberg is a lonely Hall of Famer. Candy Maldonado is no Andre Dawson, and Sammy Sosa, if healthy, will lead the league in strikeouts. At Wrigley, you have to have base runners to succeed--otherwise your solo homers lose to the other guys' three-run jobs--yet the Cubs persistently and perversely refuse to get on base. Too often, their hitters trail the NL in walks. Brett Butler might score 120 runs for this club. No Cub will score 95. As long as they refuse to learn that on-base percentage is the most crucial Wrigley stat, these guys deserve to finish fourth.

"We woulda beat them if they hadn't commenced being wonderful." That was Casey Stengel's lament decades ago, but he coulda been talking about die 1992 Pirates. After three straight division titles, the poor Pirates are in freefall. Jim Leyland's club finally ran out of steam. And money. They have lost baseball's best player, Bonds, and one of its top pitchers, Drabek. In the bullpen and in left field, Atlanta irregulars Alejandro Pena and Lonnie Smith try to pick up the pieces of a franchise that was one out from the World Series last fall but may not return to the playoffs until the next century. Knuckleballer Tim Wakefield and tender-arm Zane Smith head a fastball-free rotation. An outfield that two years ago boasted Bonds, Bonilla and Andy Van Slyke is now Van Slyke between two question marks. Second baseman Carlos Garcia, third baseman Kevin Young and part-time left fielder Al Martin are the sort of rookies you build a future around, Houston style, but not the kind you rely on to defend three division crowns. Like Minnesota's Kelly--another five-star field general struggling with the realities of a small-market outpost--Leyland will squeeze as many wins out of this loser as any man can . Eighty-one wins should earn him another Manager of the Year award, but not another postseason heartbreak.

How bad is Phillies' pitching? Their best arm, Curt Schilling, started 1992 in middle relief, emerged to chalk up 226 innings with a sterling 2.35 ERA and the staff still finished last in the NL in pitching--by almost half a run per game. The difference between the Pirates' imposing 3.35 team ERA and the 11th-place Astros' 3.74 was the same as the difference between the Astros and the 12th-place Phils. If Philadelphia hurlers had added 15 straight shutouts to their season, they still would have finished last in ERA. So they signed starter Danny Jackson to make them even worse. Closer Mitch Williams, who is to control what Madonna is to modesty, allowed a stupefying 133 base runners in 81 innings. ("It used to bother me, facing him," says Bonds. "Then I figured out he doesn't try to throw at you, he just doesn't know where it's going. Nobody does.") Leadoff man Lenny Dykstra, who is to self-control what Williams is to pitching precision, happens to be my own baseball hero. He'll hit .300 and eat a lot of dirt stealing 50 bases, but the Phils won't win 75 games because they treat pitching the way the Cubs treat OBP--the way the Mighty Casey treated first-pitch fastballs.

You heard it here first. Florida's Marlins will finish the season's first week in first place. They open at home with six games against the Dodgers and Padres. Four wins out of six is not too much to ask of any team facing the Blue Crew and Porto-San Diego. In fact, the whole first month favors the Fish. They could be 13-12 on May 4, when the bubble bursts. Florida starters won't get many games to closer Bryan Harvey. (If his arm is sound, he is one of the NL's top three closers--late-season trade bait for a contender willing to give up two or three prospects.) But there's nothing wrong with a lineup that includes catcher Benito Santiago, first baseman Orestes Destrade, Dave Magadan at third and Bret Barberie, Walt Weiss and center fielder Chuck Carr up the middle. Fish GM Dave Dombrowski has assembled a time-release contender. Florida looks worse than Colorado this year, but far better down the line. By 1996, when Jose Canseco comes home to play right field and Gloria Estefan sings the anthem on opening day, Miami will have a sound machine ready to churn out a pennant.

•

What's wrong with the Braves? They have an imperfect bullpen. They have no potential All-Stars at catcher, first base or second base. Their Triple-A club may not be better than the 1927 Yankees. The owner's wife tends to nod off during extra-inning games. And they're still the only team in 14 years to lose back-to-back World Series.

Otherwise they're perfect. In the off-season everyone expected GM John Schuerholz to throw Ted Turner's millions at Barry Bonds, improving an already superlative Atlanta outfield. Instead, Schuerholz landed Greg Maddux for $15 million less than Bonds' price, turning a stellar Atlanta rotation into one that might win 90 games all by itself. That move saved $15 million to pay the price of success--raises all around the horn--with enough left over to buy a star to be named later and a Tiffany alarm clock for Jane Fonda.

The Braves' bullpen isn't perfect, but then neither was last year's, when its two leading savers had four-plus ERAs. Alejandro Peña lost his fastball early in 1992. In May he was 0--4 with a 7.36 ERA and Atlanta was five games behind San Francisco. All Ted's team did was finish 26 games ahead of the Giants, at least eight ahead of everyone else. At catcher, first and second, they are starless but solid. How solid? Receivers Damon Berryhill and Greg Olson, who are adequate at worst, are backed by minor-league all-star Javier Lopez. The first-base platoon of Sid Bream and Brian Hunter totaled 102 RBI a year ago; behind them is Ryan Klesko, the fastest bat in the minors. Mark Lemke and Bill Pecota can hold the fort at second until shortstop Chipper Jones, the system's standout prospect, arrives to bump incumbent Jeff Blauser to second. Maddux brings his Cy Young trophy and Gold Glove to a staff that already led the majors in ERA while pitching half die time in Fulton County Stadium, a hitter's paradise. In the pen, lefty Mike Stanton, righty Mark Wohlers and salvage project Jay Howell should keep Ted and Jane from missing Peña (now a Pirate) in die late innings.

I haven't mentioned Atlanta's ten other All-Star candidates.

It's usually a mistake to pick pennant winners to win again; the thousand contingencies that add up to victory seldom add "the same way twice. But if the 1993 Braves--one of the strongest, deepest and richest teams in 20 years--don't win, I'll eat my foam-rubber tomahawk.

Eight games short of Atlanta last season, the Reds return as a short-term threat to the Braves. Cincinnati GM Jim Bowden found twin engines for his offense during the off-season. Roberto Kelly and Kevin Mitchell complete the NL's toughest batting order--if Kelly quickly adapts to NL pitching and Mitchell controls his queasy stomach. Bowden also signed John Smiley to rev up a rotation that features Jose Rijo, the league's premiere starter (when his shoulder isn't pinging), plus Tom Browning and the Tims--Belcher and Pugh. Those five can't match the Braves' fleet of Porsches, but they match up well with Houston's improved staff and leave the division's other rotations sucking fumes. From top to bottom, the Reds' everyday lineup is better than Atlanta's. But injuries to any of five key men, all of them injury-prone--Mitchell, Rijo, Barry Larkin, Chris Sabo and outfielder Reggie Sanders--could strip Cincinnati's gears. With Norm Charlton gone, the bullpen doesn't look as smart as it did. Jeff Reardon's slowballs will set up Rob Dibble's laser show. At least Reds fans will see more of Doggie (new manager Tony Perez) and less of die owner's Saint Bernard. Owner Marge Schott has been banished to a luxury penalty box upstairs. She should have been suspended for perpetuating the hiring practices of the paleface organization she inherited, not for speaking evil, which is the right of us all, bigots included. But condemning her actions rather than her words would have implicated other clubs' antebellum hiring records, so her fellow owners took die easy out. During Schott's suspension, the Dog's team, paddling to stay afloat, must keep everybody healthy to have a shot at the Braves.

It was a Bush thing to do. Astros owner John McMullen rented out the Astrodome for last summer's Republican Convention, forcing his team to take a road trip that lasted a month. But that was when the Stros came of age. They raced through the gantlet and finished the year 81-81. A heroic new owner, supermarket man Drayton McLane, took over a team that boasts Ken Caminiti and Jeff Bagwell at the corners, Craig Biggio at second, three protostars (Luis Gonzalez, Steve Finley and Eric Anthony) in the outfield and reborn reliever Doug Jones in the ninth inning. All McLane had to worry about was a starting staff led by Pete Harnisch. Harnisch is neither a true ace nor a handsome fellow (he once worked as a ringer in police lineups; one of his 1992 "dates," courtesy of his teammates, was inflatable), though he looked fine as a number-three starter: 21-19 with a 3.18 ERA over two years. McLane gave GM Bill Wood $36.5 million and--shazam!--Doug Drabek and Greg Swindell fly south to make Houston a power in the West.

Barry Bonds swears his new club, the Giants, can slug it out with Atlanta and Cincinnati. "Willie McGee, Robby Thompson, Will Clark, Matt," Williams," he says, ticking the names on his fingers "I'll be driving them in all years." When the subject is pitching, Bonds' Visions aren't so pleasant. San Francisco's hurlers, he says, will "have a chance." The $44 million man worked on his reaction time last winter. He'll need it to track down rockets in the gaps at Candlestick. Rookie manager Dusty Baker's rotation is chancy at best. Rod Beck may be the NL's next great closer, but Jeff Brantley and ERA champ Bill Swift, converted relievers, are stopgaps as starters and there are too many gaps to stop.

The Dodgers, who paid better than five times more to finish last in 1992 than Cleveland paid to finish fourth, are the game's second-biggest mess (see below, 90 miles south of L.A., for the biggest). So desperate were they for relief that they signed Todd Worrell, who spent parts of 1990 and early 1991 screaming in pain every time he lifted a salt shaker, without a medical exam. Darryl Strawberry and Eric Davis may never play full seasons again. With Ramon Martinez aching, L.A.'s top starter may actually be Kevin Gross, whose 1992 no-hitter is the sole highlight of a totally gross career. "Bugsy" Butler is die league's inexterminable leadoff man, while Eric Karros is a new Steve Garvey and Jody Reed is the infield glue the Blue needed. Still, Hollywood's team is the NL's Bonfire of the Vanities--an incredibly expensive turkey that looked fair in preproduction, tested horribly and played out its run as a lame excuse to sell popcorn.

San Diego prohibits calls from employees to directory assistance, saving 50 cents per call. If only the Padres had made the move sooner they might have been able to sign the hitter they need. Bonds wanted to play in San Diego. It would have taken only 87.5 million calls to 411 to pay him. Instead he's a Giant and San Diego's a case study in how not to play postmodern baseball. Sign no significant free agents, trade moderately priced All-Star Tony Fernandez for thin air, gut the farm system to save a measly mil or two. Bide your time, finish sixth, sell the team. In the meantime, a generation of kids who could have been Padres fans falls in love with die Chargers.

Rockies!It's wall-to-wall at Mile High Stadium on April 9, when the homers start flying toward Wyoming. In June, with the home team 20--40, Mile High will still be rocking. David Nied and his foshball might be worth 12 wins, while Don Baylor's relief corps--ex-Brewer Darren Holmes, flamethrower Rudy Seanez, submariner Steve Reed--ain't bad. Beyond that it's all downhill to seventh place. You have to love the Rockies anyway. While everyone else in the game is calling 911, here's a whole new time zone where baseball is king of the hill.

in the pastime's darkest days, we see light at the end of the clubhouse tunnel

Al East

Al West

Nl East

Nl West

Al champs: Blue Jays

Nl Champs: Braves

World Champs: Braves

The game crawled off its slab and into its golden age. Times of crisis bring out baseball's goofy charms."

American East League

American West League

National East League

National West League