Dodgers notes: Employee relieved of duties
Clubhouse manager let go after 15 years

Gagne Wants to Close Deal

Having been warned about strange creatures in the water, Hawaiian tourists were stunned Thursday when they spotted one on the beach.

Baseball glove on one hand. Fastball coming out of the other hand. Goatee dripping on his shirt.

“People would walk past, staring,” Eric Gagne said. “I’d have to stop and say, ‘Yeah, it’s me.’ ”

It’s hard to imagine whether the Maui visitors were more shocked to see Gagne pitching barefoot … or pitching, period.

Recovering from June elbow surgery, the Dodger pitcher has spent the winter in relative seclusion, finally emerging this week on the island sands to offer an answer to every Dodger fan’s question.

Game Over says it’s Game On.

“I will be ready for the start of the season, no doubt,” he said in a phone interview late Thursday. “I feel great. I’m throwing strong. I’m doing more now than during winters when I was healthy.”

Good thing, because he will take the mound this summer in save situations not only for his Dodger team, but his Dodger career.

The club’s most popular player is also in one of the most precarious positions.

If you didn’t think his health and impending free agency didn’t land him on the Chavez ledge, then you must agree that Danys Baez has pushed him there.

I have several guesses why Ned Colletti traded for Tampa Bay’s 41-save relief ace a couple of weeks ago, and none of them are potentially good for Gagne.

The first guess: The Dodgers just aren’t sure Gagne can return to full-time closing form, even if he is judged to be sound.

The second guess: If Gagne is throwing well again, the Dodgers want the flexibility to deal him in July to avoid losing him to free agency.

Gagne says the first scenario will never happen.

“The job is mine until I lose it, I don’t think they want to pay a setup man $10 million,” he said.

As for the second scenario, Gagne said he can only trust.

“I want to play here, but if they don’t want me here … well, I doubt that,” Gagne said. “I trust them that the trade was made to make the middle of the bullpen stronger, and that was it.”

The last time he spoke publicly, at the end of last season, Gagne was ripping ownership for not putting a winning team on the field.

“The Dodgers made money…. You have to give back,” he said.

He said they needed to sign a 40-homer guy.

He said they needed to sign a .310 hitter.

He said they needed to re-sign Jeff Weaver.

They didn’t answer the first request. Only Kenny Lofton fills the second request. And Weaver is gone, replaced by Brett Tomko and Jae Seo.

Yet Gagne said Thursday he loved the moves, and during the 30-minute interview, he used the word “trust” as often as “fastball.”

“I like what they’ve done, I like it a lot, they’ve brought in some baseball players who know how to win,” he said.

After questioning the owner’s motives, he says he trusts him again.

“Frank McCourt has stepped up to the plate, big-time, with money and players, and he deserves praise,” Gagne said. “Last year he got crushed in the media. This year, you look at the players we have, what more can he do?”

After enduring an injury-plagued three months, followed by a dreaded surgery that proved to be somewhat less than a full Tommy John reconstruction, he trusts his right arm again.

“If I’m not good enough to close, I won’t close, but I know I’ll be ready,” Gagne said. “If I stink, then someone can take my spot, but I don’t think I’ll stink.”

Mostly, Gagne said that he trusts the Dodgers will be better.

“Getting guys like Bill Mueller, Rafael Furcal, Nomar Garciaparra, veterans who can play the game, that’s huge, that shows the Dodgers really care,” he said.

He said one of the biggest losses was Duaner Sanchez. “It is really, really hard to replace a guy who can eat up that many innings in middle relief,” he said.

But he said that the two guys from Tampa Bay — Baez and Lance Carter — can fill that role.

“They are both experienced guys, they are great pitchers, that is huge,” he said.

But, again, what if one of them replaces you?

“I never even thought of that, seriously,” he said. “When the trade was made, I thought, good, we have middle relief help. I never thought of anything else.”

Well, with Baez being a potential free agent at half the price, you never know.

For the record, Gagne said he would love to sign a long-term deal with the Dodgers whenever they are ready.

“Last year I wasn’t sure I wanted to stay, but I want to stay now. I’d love a long-term deal if they wanted to do it,” he said.

But, also for the record, the Dodgers probably won’t even consider such a thing until he shows he is healthy for an extended period of time. And even then …

“I know, they need to see something, I have to show I can do it four or five days in a row,” he said. “You can’t rely on what-ifs.”

Not exactly a catchy phrase, but, for now, folks better get used to it, from Game Over to What If.

*

Bill Plaschke can be reached at bill.plaschke@latimes.com. To read previous Plaschke columns, go to latimes.com/plaschke.

The following is the fourth in a series of weekly stories on MLB.com examining each Major League club, position by position. Each Wednesday until Spring Training camps open, we’ll preview a different position. Today: Corner infielders.LOS ANGELES -Fans of James Loney and Andy LaRoche, their time will come.

New general manager Ned Colletti had seen enough of the 2005 Dodgers to know that the corner infield positions needed help. He hadn’t seen enough of the talented Dodgers farm system to know if prized prospects Loney or LaRoche, neither having seen even a Triple-A pitch, were ready.

So Colletti went shopping for batting champs and landed a pair. First, he signed Bill Mueller to a two-year contract to play third base. Then he got creative and landed Nomar Garciaparra for one year to play first base. Both played for new manager Grady Little in Boston.

Colletti figures he knows what he’ll get from Mueller, having seen him play five seasons when they were together in San Francisco.

“Every successful team has true baseball players with the makeup, drive and desire of Bill Mueller,” Colletti said. “His ability to hit from both sides of the plate will give Grady additional maneuverability.”

Third base was a revolving door for the Dodgers last year. After getting 48 home runs and 121 RBIs from third baseman Adrian Beltre the year before, the Dodgers opened the 2005 season with Jose Valentin at third base, but he blew out his knee. When the dust had settled, the Dodgers used seven different third basemen, totaling 61 RBIs.

The switch-hitting Mueller, 34, has a .292 lifetime average in 10 seasons. In 2003 he won the American League batting title and Silver Slugger Award with a career-high .326, 19 home runs and 85 RBIs. He hit .295 with 10 homers and 62 RBIs for Boston last year.

With Garciaparra, the decision wasn’t driven by the defensive position, but by the former All-Star’s offensive potential. Colletti needed a bat for the fifth spot in the order to protect cleanup hitter Jeff Kent. Preferring not to deal away prospects, Colletti decided Garciaparra provided the most value as a proven hitter.

Around the Horn: Dodgers Remaining schedule • Starters: Dodgers bolster strong staff • Bullpen: Gagne, Brazoban are key • Catchers: Youth catching on • Corner IF: New faces: Nomar, Mueller • Middle IF: February 1 • Outfielders: February 8 • Bench: February 15

“He adds a legitimate threat to the heart of our lineup and is a true competitor,” said Colletti. “He’s extremely athletic, versatile and mentally tough, and he is a tremendous addition to the team.”

He also is a physical risk. The 32-year-old missed about a half of each of the last two seasons, first with a wrist injury, last year with a torn groin muscle. He has a .320 lifetime batting average, five All-Star appearances and was the AL Rookie of the Year in 1997.

Garciaparra has the greatest challenge. He not only is playing a new position, but predecessors Hee-Seop Choi and Olmedo Saenz actually finished the season with respectable platoon numbers at first base (a combined 31 homers and 104 RBIs).

Choi, however, had another erratic season, looking like Babe Ruth for a week, but also disappearing offensively for stretches that seemed endless. He is expected to back up Garciaparra and provide a left-handed threat off the bench. Oscar Robles and Willy Aybar have experience at third base, as does Saenz, although his strength is his bat off the bench, not his glove in the field.

Ken Gurnick is a reporter for MLB.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.

LOS ANGELES — In the credential department, new Dodgers pitching coach Rick Honeycutt lacks very little.

“There isn’t a pitcher on this staff who is in a position that I haven’t been in,” said Honeycutt. “I was a starter and a reliever. I had good years and bad. I can feel their pain.”

That’s figuratively and literally, because Honeycutt also had to battle back from arm injuries during a remarkable 21-season playing career.

Honeycutt, who retired from active duty in 1997 and spent the last four years as the Dodgers’ Minor League pitching coordinator, was recently promoted to pitching coach for new manager Grady Little.

In addition to his playing experience, Honeycutt has familiarity with top pitching prospects in the Dodgers farm system like Chad Billingsley, Jonathan Broxton, Justin Orenduff and Scott Elbert. He would seem to be the perfect fit for a franchise hoping to transition from expensive veteran pitchers to homegrown youngsters.

“We’ve added some depth with Brett Tomko and Jae Seo to our returning three of Derek Lowe, Brad Penny and Odalis Perez,” Honeycutt said of the starting rotation. “And we’ve got a lot of young arms on the way. We have a good combination, so hopefully we can stay good for a long time.”

That’s the way the Dodgers did it a long time ago, as Honeycutt can recall, because he participated. He was acquired by the Dodgers during the 1983 stretch drive in a trade with the Texas Rangers, at the time leaving the American League with the ERA title.

He pitched four more years with the Dodgers, appearing in the postseason in 1983 and ‘85, until being traded to the A’s for rookie Tim Belcher at the end of the 1987 season. A starter for 10 years, he suddenly was told it was time for a job change. To Tony La Russa’s bullpen he went, setting up for another starter-turned-reliever, future Hall of Famer Dennis Eckersley.

Honeycutt thus embarked on his second career as a reliever, which lasted another decade. With the A’s, Honeycutt went to two World Series, winning in 1989. He was the oldest active player in the Major Leagues when he retired at age 43.

Honeycutt, now 51, said he hopes to handle the Dodgers bullpen the way the A’s did.

“Each guy has to know his responsibility and role,” he said. “In Oakland, everybody’s job was to get the ball to Eck, just like we’ve got to get the ball to [Eric] Gagne.”

Honeycutt said that, from everything he’s been told, Gagne is expected to be fully healed from last year’s elbow surgery by the start of Spring Training.

“I have no reason not to believe that he’ll be healthy and able to do what he’s done in the past,” Honeycutt said of the Dodgers closer, who can be a free agent after the 2006 season.

Just in case, however, general manager Ned Colletti reinforced the staff by acquiring proven closer Danys Baez. If Gagne is healthy, Baez becomes a $4 million setup man and everyone moves down a chair in the bullpen pecking order, with Yhency Brazoban pitching the seventh inning, Lance Carter taking over Giovanni Carrara’s middle role and Broxton being groomed to step in if and when both Gagne and Baez are gone.

The Dodgers finished 12th in league ERA last year at 4.38, the third-worst mark in Los Angeles history. Lowe gave up a career high in home runs. Perez made only 19 starts and had a career-worst ERA of 4.56. Tomko lost a career-high 15 games. Gagne didn’t pitch after June. Brazoban lost 10 games and the closer’s job. There’s no clear left-hander in the bullpen.

“The game hasn’t changed. They still have to throw the ball over the plate and get guys out,” Honeycutt said. “My job is to get each of them to pitch to his potential. I’m on their side. I’m bringing my knowledge to them and I’ll do whatever I can to help them succeed. The Dodgers have always prided themselves on pitching. I hope we can put together a staff that puts us back on top again.”

Ken Gurnick is a reporter for MLB.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.