Buyer Beware

Angel pitcher Tim Belcher was about halfway there. His 5-6 record might have seemed a bit underwhelming, and that hefty earned-run average certainly tilted toward disappointing. But he was on pace to make team history.

The Angels have never had a free-agent pitcher win more than 10 games in his first season with the club. Mark Langston couldn’t do it. Neither could Geoff Zahn nor Bruce Kison.

Frank LaCorte? Jesse Jefferson? Get real.

Belcher is the latest in that thin blue--now periwinkle--line, one that too often has run from the bank to the training room. Belcher fell into lock step three weeks ago, when he fractured the pinky on his right hand tagging a runner out at the plate.

Unusual? Sure. Rare? Not for Angel free-agent pitchers, who fall into either of two categories: those who were injured, or those who merely hurt the team.

Belcher, who is out at least one more week, still has time to earn his place in Angel lore with only six more victories.

“Actually, I’ve never worried about how I pitched with a big contract,� Belcher, 37, said. “Maybe if I was a younger pitcher, I would. All I want to do is win. I got a lot of no-decisions one year with the Dodgers, but we won. I’ll take that.

“An every-day player can have a good season even if the team doesn’t do well. He can hit .300 and drive in runs even if the club underachieves. A pitcher has those Ws and Ls next to his name.�

While free agency itself can be risky business, when it comes to pitchers and the Angels, it has been a losing proposition . . . literally. Remember Bill Travers? John D’Acquisto?

At first, Belcher seemed to be a bargain, considering the paydays given to Kevin Brown and Randy Johnson. But by the end of April, that perception already had changed.

Belcher didn’t make it past the fifth inning in five of his first six starts and his earned-run average stayed around double digits for the first two months. He also has given up more home runs than any Angel pitcher this season.

Then, just when things seemed to be turning around, Belcher was injured June 26. He made the tag on Oakland’s Ryan Christenson in the fourth inning, then stormed off the mound before completing his warmups to start the next inning.

A freak accident?

No, more like a continuing trend.

SINS OF THE FATHER

Of course, the Angels don’t hold exclusive rights to free-agent pitching flops. Many Dodger fans still cringe when they hear the name Dave Goltz.

The Angels just happen to have a long history of flops.

And it started 20 years ago, with Nolan Ryan.

Ryan had a 16-14 record in 1979, but he was rebuffed by the Angels when he asked for a $1 million contract to return to the team.

Buzzie Bavasi, the club’s general manager at the time, turned spin doctor in the aftermath, saying that all the Angels needed were “two 8-7 pitchers� to replace Ryan.

Ryan pitched 14 more seasons, won 186 more games, struck out 3,298 more batters and threw three more no-hitters.

Who knew?

“I think in retrospect, if [owner] Gene [Autry] and I had thought about it twice, we would have paid Nolan the money,� Bavasi said. “I can’t blame myself or Gene. Nolan had two subpar years and the team was above .500. It wasn’t so much about giving Nolan the money, but what happens to the fellow who had the good year? We’d have to go to the bank and borrow money.�

Actually Ryan was a solid performer in 1979. No pitcher on the Angels’ staff won more games and no one in the American League struck out more batters.

Bavasi, whose son, Bill, is the Angels’ current general manager, spent a lot of time and effort trying to prove himself right about Ryan. But to no avail.

Said Bavasi: “In my seven years there, I can’t think of anybody I signed that I wouldn’t sign again . . . well, there was that one guy from Milwaukee. He had a bad arm, but the deal was made.�

That guy from Milwaukee was Travers, who signed a four-year, $1.5-million contract in 1981--a sizable deal back then--and never won a game for the Angels. He went 0-1 with a 8.38 ERA in 1981 and 0-3 with a 5.91 ERA in 1983 before shoulder problems ended his career.

Unfortunately for the Angels, that failed signing was not an isolated incident.

* In 1980, Kison signed a five-year, $2.4-million contract. Presumably, he was supposed to be one of the “two 8-7 pitchers,� but instead he was 3-6 that season, missing the second half because of an arm injury. Things got so bad for Kison in 1980 that he offered the Angels a rebate. He won 22 games in five seasons.

* In 1981, D’Acquisto signed a four-year, $1.2-million contract only to go 0-1 with a 10.71 ERA. He was in Oakland the following year.

* Also in 1981, the Angels signed Jesse Jefferson. He went 2-4 in his last season in the big leagues.

* In 1984, LaCorte got a three-year, $1.1-million deal. He had shoulder problems during spring training, which later turned out to be a torn rotator cuff, and went 1-2 with a 7.06 ERA in 13 games.

“When you’re a free agent, you have a lot of pride,� said LaCorte, who now runs a trucking company in Gilroy, Calif. “The club paid me money and I couldn’t perform. The fans were disgusted and the reporters were saying I wasn’t worth [anything]. I always took that to heart.

“I was devastated by the whole thing, [but] my teammates were saying, ‘It’s nothing new. This happens to free agents around here.’ �

Indeed, it happens to most of them. But not all of them.

Zahn signed a three-year contract worth about $2 million in 1981 and was 52-42 in five seasons. In 1982, he won 18 games to help the Angels win the AL West.

Langston, who signed a five-year, $16-million contract in 1990, went 88-74 in eight seasons and won 19 games in 1991.

Both, however, won only 10 games--and had a losing record--in their first season with the club. Zahn was 10-11, Langston 10-17.

Jim Barr, the Angels’ first big free-agent pitcher, also won 10 games--and lost 12--when the team won its first division title in 1979. Of course, he didn’t pitch in the playoffs, having broken his right hand during the celebration following the pennant clincher.

“That’s the history of the Angels since 1961,� Buzzie Bavasi said. “Stuff like that doesn’t happen to other clubs.�

LIKE FATHER, LIKE SON?

Angel mistakes are not all ancient history.

In 1996, the Angels signed Jim Abbott to a three-year, $7.8-million contract after he had filed for free agency. Abbott went 2-18 that season.

Belcher also seemed like the right move after the Angels were outbid for Brown and Johnson. For $10.2 million over the next two years, they picked up a grinder who had churned out more than 200 innings each of the previous three seasons when he was 42-37 with Kansas City.

Once an Angel, he struggled immediately.

Belcher gave up five runs in 4 1/3 innings in the season opener. He was given a 10-0 lead on April 28 and couldn’t hold it. Things got so bad that when he gave up six runs in 5 2/3 innings against the Red Sox on May 8, his ERA actually dropped, from 9.96 to 9.89.

“My mistakes in April went a half-inch toward the plate,� Belcher said. “The mistakes I was making [in June] were going a half-inch away from the plate. It made a difference.�

Belcher lowered his ERA to 6.53. He had gone seven innings or more in five of his last seven starts before his injury. He was 3-3 in those seven starts.

While those are more sigh-of-relief than Cy Young numbers, they aren’t too far off what the Angels expected.

“We thought we would get a solid year out of Tim,� Bill Bavasi said. “If we signed Tim Belcher with the expectation that he would go 20-9, then I would be worried.�

Belcher’s injury was made worse when Ken Hill followed him to the disabled list less than two weeks later.

Hill’s elbow began sounding like a creaky door hinge every time he threw. Finally it had become loud enough that even he had to listen.

Of course, Hill already rated as a free-agent flop.

After the 1997 season, Bill Bavasi shelled out $16.05 million over three years to retain Hill, whom the Angels had acquired in a midseason trade. Hill depreciated almost immediately. He is 12-14 since signing the contract.

Hill missed nearly three months last season after elbow surgery and finished 9-6. He was 3-8 with a 5.58 earned-run average this season before going on the DL.

“There is a lot of pressure on a pitcher who signs a big contract,� said Hill, who won 16 games for Texas in 1996 after signing as a free agent. “If Kevin Brown doesn’t throw a shutout, people start asking what’s wrong.�

People have stopped asking that about Jack McDowell.

The Angels, at least, were cautious with McDowell. Elbow surgery limited the 1993 Cy Young winner to eight games in 1997. Bavasi signed him to a $1 million deal that would be worth $5 million if he made 30 starts and pitched 210 innings in 1998.

The performance clauses saved the Angels money. Elbow problems limited McDowell to 14 starts. He was 5-3 in 76 innings last season.

“I don’t believe a pitcher is worth $8 million a year,� Bavasi said. “A pitcher has one tool, his arm. If that goes, what have you got?�

Too often, an Angel free-agent pitcher.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

BIG DEPOSIT, LITTLE RETURN

Angel free-agent pitcher signings, with contract terms, and record and earned-run average in the season after signing:

1979

Jim Barr

3 yrs, $1 million

10-12

4.20

*

1980

Bruce Kison

5 yrs, $2.4 million

3-6

4.91

*

1981

John D’Acquisto

4 yrs, $1.2 million

0-1

10.71

*

1981

Jesse Jefferson

Not Available

2-4

3.62

*

1981

Bill Travers

4 yrs, $1.5 million

0-1

8.38

*

1981

Geoff Zahn

3 yrs, $2 million

10-11

4.41

*

1984

Frank LaCorte

3 yrs, $1.1 million

1-2

7.06

*

1990

Mark Langston

5 yrs, $16 million

10-17

4.40

*

1996

Jim Abbott

3 yrs, $7.8 million

2-18

7.48

*

1998

Ken Hill

3 yrs, $16.05 million

9-6

4.98

*

1999

Tim Belcher

2 yrs, $10.2 million

5-6

6.53