Angels Get Smart, Hire Herzog

NEW YORK —  For years, they were the team with the brain you couldn’t trust.

Now they have a brain trust.

For years, they conducted their business with the style and efficiency of a Saturday morning cartoon.

Now the people conducting their business have the sound of a Saturday morning cartoon.

Buck and Whitey.

In concept, this isn’t a first for the Angels. They have hired respected managers before--Bill Rigney, Dick Williams, Gene Mauch. They have hired respected front-office executives to run their baseball operations--Harry Dalton, Red Patterson, Buzzie Bavasi.

But seldom have they had both at the same point in time. Mauch broke in a rookie general manager, Mike Port, and chain-smoked through the growing pains. Dalton hired three rookie managers--Del Rice, Bobby Winkles and Norm Sherry--and fired them all.

Out of sync in experience at the top, is it any wonder that the experience on the field has been out of sync as well?

Today, the Angels have hedged their bets by fleshing out command control. Two weeks ago, they hired a new manager, Buck Rodgers, who put in 10 years previously at Milwaukee and Montreal--five of them, in Sparky Anderson’s estimation, as “the best manager in baseball.” Friday, the Angels added the name Whitey Herzog to the corporate ledger, giving him the title of Senior Vice President and Director of Player Personnel, and we all know Whitey’s history of directing player personnel.

Often, it leads to the World Series.

If nothing else comes of the Angels’ 31st year of pennantless existence, 1991 might be remembered as the year the Angels finally got serious. Whitey Herzog is an idea that’s about a decade too late, either in the corner of the dugout or behind a mahogany desk. The Angels had him in 1974; Herzog actually managed four games in the interim between Bobby Winkles and Dick Williams, finishing with a winning percentage (.500) that beats all other Angel managers except Mauch and Doug Rader.

For the past 17 years, the Angels have been paying for letting him get away.

Less than a month shy of birthday No. 84, Gene Autry remains as cantankerous as ever. Fed up with also-ran No. 28, he has decided to bring in his people, like a posse in one of his old Westerns, where things actually went right every once in a while.

Richard Brown was Autry’s lawyer. Now he’s Autry’s CEO.

Buck Rodgers was one of Autry’s favorite Angels. Now he’s Autry’s manager.

Whitey Herzog is one of Autry’s favorite people, period. Now he runs the baseball side of Autry’s business.

After padding their major-league lead in press conferences held this season, the Angels are contractually set with Herzog for the next three years, Rodgers for the next three years and general manager Dan O’Brien for the next three years.

Apparently, the Angels have a three-year plan.

It’s an improvement over the standard-issue three-month plan, which has been in place ever since Autry reached retirement age. Pay lip-service to the farm system and youth movements and 1991 is what you usually get. But pay people who believe in farm systems and youth movements enough to enact them and you have a chance at 1982 and 1985 and 1987--the years Herzog hand-crafted the St. Louis Cardinals into National League champions.

Rodgers says he’s “delighted” by the hiring of Herzog. Obviously, Rodgers subscribes to the can’t-beat-’em, join-’em theory. In Montreal, Rodgers’ best surges with the Expos were blunted by Herzog in St. Louis. Sometimes, Rodgers blunted back. On those occasions, the the Mets or the Cubs won the National League East.

As an alliance, Herzog-Rodgers believes in pitching, speed and defense. Pre-August ‘91, the Angels believed in home runs. Get all the big names you can and hope they hit all the 400-foot fly balls they can.

It was marquee baseball.

It was last-place baseball.

Now, Herzog and Rodgers swear that will change. “You can’t rely on the three-run home run,” Rodgers says. “Power should be a plus.”

Herzog also believes in pitching and speed when it comes to contract negotiations. If you have a potential free agent you want to keep, pitch him an offer and do it in good speed.

Note to Wally Joyner: This means you. Among other things, Herzog’s hiring was intended to serve as a sign that the Angels want to re-sign their soon-to-be-liberated first baseman. Joyner is Herzog’s type of first baseman--.300 hitter, good fielder, drives the balls in the gaps, very similar to another first baseman who played for Herzog in St. Louis, Keith Hernandez.

Ironically, Herzog might find himself competing against his old team for Joyner. Joe Torre, the current Cardinal manager, knows and likes Joyner from his days in the Angel broadcast booth. He would like to know him even better on the line drive-friendly artificial turf of Busch Stadium.

Herzog would also seem to be Joyner’s type of baseball exec. Joyner likes his baseball with a flattop, not a three-piece suit and Roget’s thesaurus. His past contract negotiations with Port and O’Brien have been acrimonious, and although O’Brien’s domain will remain with contracts, Joyner just found a no-manure buffer zone in Herzog.

Most of all, Herzog helps close the Angels’ credibility gap. In baseball, it’s not always what you know, but what the other guy thinks you know. The appearance of savvy can be as important as savvy itself. Case in point: Ron Darling. When the A’s stole him for two minor leaguers, Brown and O’Brien insisted that the Mets had demanded a much more expensive return from the Angels.

But in the baseball front-office network, Oakland general manager Sandy Alderson carries a deal-with-me-at-your-own-risk reputation. The Angels are the Kansas hayseed in the bib overalls who wanders off the New York subway and wants to know more about this three-card monte.

Friday, the Angels got a whole lot smarter. They have traded thinking-with-our-hearts for thinking-with-our-heads. As an organization to contend with, Herzog finally gives them their chops--as well as someone who speaks the language, which, during the Port era, was only rumored to have been English.

Autry also got smarter about spending his money. The three-year, big-bucks contracts for free agents remain his preference, but now the free agents he signs are heavy hitters where it matters most.