BASEBALL DAILY REPORT : ANGELS : Willie Fraser Has Returned

By ROBYN NORWOOD

Feb. 29, 1992 12 AM PT

Willie Fraser was traded by the Angels before last season--a season that became his “hardest ever.”

Fraser, a right-hander who was a starter for the Angels in 1987 and ’88 and a reliever in 1989 and ‘90, was part of the deal that sent Devon White to the Toronto Blue Jays for Luis Sojo and Junior Felix.

Fraser was 0-2 with a 6.15 earned-run average when the Blue Jays released him in June. He was picked up by St. Louis, and went 3-3 with a 4.93 ERA for the Cardinals, who didn’t offer him a contract after the season. The Angels signed him last month and brought him to spring training as a nonroster player.

“I wasn’t really ready to be traded at the time I was traded,” he said. “I’d have rather stayed, even if I had gone to Toronto and done well.”

He was away from his family and home in Irvine, away from his Angel buddies, away from pitching coach Marcel Lachemann.

“It was tough,” Fraser said. “I wasn’t having a lot of fun in Toronto. The quality of people for me wasn’t as good. Now when I went to St. Louis, I had a lot of fun. I probably would have gone back if they had made me an offer.”

Now he’s trying to latch onto a job with the Angels, and to ease back into old relationships.

“It’s a strange situation,” he said. “You want to come back, but if you expect everything to be back where it was, you’re only kidding yourself.”

Outfielder Luis Polonia’s workout was cut short after a ball he fouled off the plate bounced up and and hit him in the face, scraping him above his right eye. He is expected to return for today’s workout.

The Angels will play intrasquad games Wednesday and Thursday at Gene Autry Park before opening their Cactus League schedule with a four-game series against the San Diego Padres at Yuma Friday. Buck Rodgers says the series will be a good test of the fundamental baseball skills he is working on.

“Some of these guys haven’t done these things for a few years,” Rodgers said. “There are different views we have on pickoff plays, bunt plays, running the bases, delayed steals, double steals, right-handers pushing the ball past the pitcher.

“We play a National League team right off the bat,” he said. “It will be right from the laboratory into the operating room.”