Angel Notebook : Negotiations Sour Joyner and McCaskill

MESA, Ariz. — Doug DeCinces stepped into the Arizona morning sun and took a look at the blue sky as he prepared for a session in the batting cage Tuesday. “It’s great to be young and an Angel,” he said with a grin. “Isn’t that what they say?”

Not if the young Angels in question are named Wally Joyner and Kirk McCaskill.

Joyner, who drove in 100 runs as a rookie, and McCaskill, who had a 17-10 record in his second major league season, remain unsigned for 1987. With Mike Port’s self-imposed contractual deadline set for Thursday, time for a settlement is running out for both players.

So is their patience.

“What they’re telling me is, ‘Thanks for nothing, Wally,’ ” Joyner said. “ ‘Take it or leave it.’ That hurts.

“Last year was a lot of fun. We had a lot of great times. But now, it looks as though they’re more concerned with saving money.

“The only downfall to my contract negotiations is how they have treated and how they are treating Wally Joyner. And I’m not the only guy they’re treating bad. Everybody who’s unsigned and in camp, the Angels are beating them around the bush.”

McCaskill, one of nine unsigned Angels, said he knows the feeling.

“I kind of relate it to Bob Boone’s deal,” McCaskill said, referring to the Gold Glove catcher the Angels failed to re-sign two months ago.

“I thought I was a priority to them. I thought I had a good enough season where I finally had the opportunity to work out a contract early and concentrate on baseball during spring training. Last year, I signed my contract during the Freeway Series.”

Instead, McCaskill’s negotiations, as with Joyner’s, began last week. And according to Port, they will end--either with a signature or with an automatic renewal by the club--by Thursday.

“Guess there’s no way to beat it,” McCaskill said. “Smart move on their part. To me, that’s the irony of the whole thing. They expect 100% on the field, but when you get away from the baseball field, where’s the incentive?”

Joyner said: “Feb. 24 was the very first time they called us. We talked with Mike a month before that and he told us he was very busy, that he’d talk to us later. We tried to get the negotiations started and he stopped it.

“But that’s not important. What’s important is that we start talking the 24th, I report the 26th and the deadline is March 10. All of a sudden, Mike says, ‘We’re doing something new. The deadline is March 5.’ That gives us eight days to negotiate. Eight days out of the 200 or whatever we had off.

“It doesn’t make sense. If they’re trying to show their power, fine. But it’s coming to the players as if they have no interest in winning. The players do. The players are going to play hard. But the attitude from the negotiations is, ‘I could care less how you feel when you go out on the field or what you think of the California Angels. This is what you’re going to get.’ ”

In money, Joyner and the Angels are not miles apart. Joyner is seeking $200,000 and the Angels are offering $160,000. McCaskill, however, is believed to be asking for a contract in the same range, with the Angels offering him far less.

“I’m not asking for the world,” Joyner said. “We’re $40,000 apart. That’s 7,000 people in the stands. You’re telling me I didn’t bring 7,000 people to the stadium? I brought at least 7,000, because my parents came to all of them.

“Mike Port got rid of $5 million in contracts (by releasing veteran players during the winter) and the Angels drew 2.4 million fans. To say they can’t afford to pay me $200,000 . . .

“But I’m not ticked off because I’m not getting what I want. I’m upset that I’m not getting treated fairly. I thought I was when I came to camp, but they’ve been jerking my chain a little bit.”

Publicly, Port has taken a cavalier approach to the contract talks. He said he expects players to walk out after Thursday and was surprised to have no holdouts. He said no extensions will be granted to any players, and Joyner’s negotiations do not merit any more special consideration than, say, Mark McLemore’s. He called player claims of unfair treatment “the usual rhetoric.”

“We all have our moments of disappointment,” Port said. “But I feel our fellows are professional enough to go out and play baseball.”

Port also said: “Whatever happens, we’ll have nine functioning individuals out on the field.”

That comment particularly irked Joyner.

“We had a great season last year,” Joyner said. “Let’s pat people on the back, tell them ‘Thanks a lot for what you did. We enjoy you. We’re glad you’re back with us.’ Instead of ‘Well, we can get somebody else. You’re not that important.’

“That’s basically what they’re saying--’We could’ve done it without you.’ Well, maybe they could have. But I was on the team last year. There was nobody else.”

Joyner and McCaskill were asked if they would walk out if an agreement was not reached by Thursday.

Said Joyner: “Right now, on Tuesday, I don’t think that’s a good thing to do. When you walk out, you hurt your teammates.”

McCaskill said: “No comment.”

McCaskill said his agent, Marvin Demoff, will fly in for a meeting with Port Thursday.

“I’d rather not say anything about it now,” McCaskill said. “I don’t want to get into trouble. We’ve got a few more days.

“Thursday’s gonna bring some interesting news. Wait until then. I hope I have some nice things to say.”

Angel Notes Wally Joyner said he had second thoughts about reporting to camp early and not holding out until a new agreement was reached. “I talked with some players and they enlightened me how risky it is for me playing in intrasquad games being unsigned,” Joyner said. “If I get hurt and break my leg, there’s no way they’re going to give me $160,000. They’ll give me $62,500 (the major league minimum) and say, ‘We’ll see how you’ll do when your leg heals.’ ” Joyner said he sought advice from Manager Gene Mauch. Mauch’s response? “If you were my son, I’d tell you to go out there and play,” Mauch told Joyner. “Good players don’t get hurt.”

John Candelaria, offering a different opinion on the plight of the Angels’ unsigned: “I can see the Angels’ point of view. It’s just business. That’s the way it is. I’ve always felt that if you have one good year, hey, do it again . . . and then we’ll really sit down and talk.” Candelaria was asked how he would deal with the unsigned if he ran the Angels. “If I had as much money as the Autrys, I’d be on an island somewhere,” he said. . . . Candelaria and Mike Witt impressed Mauch with their pitching in Tuesday’s intrasquad game. “Candelaria wasn’t really airing it out, but his control was uncanny,” Mauch said. He also liked what he saw of Devon White and Gary Pettis, the anticipated speed leaders of the Angels. “Even in a game like today, you can see what speed can do for you,” Mauch said. “Guys going from first to third on a single or moving up on a hard grounder, holding extra-base hits to singles.”

Pitching rotations for the Angels’ three-game series against the San Diego Padres this weekend in Yuma: Friday--Candelaria, Willie Fraser, Chuck Finley; Saturday--Don Sutton, Miguel Garcia, DeWayne Buice; Sunday--McCaskill, Vern Ruhle, Mike Cook.