They began leaving after the 1990 season. Sid Bream. R.J. Reynolds. Rafael Belliard. Wally Backman. Bobby Bonilla fled after the ’91 season.
Then, last winter, came the mass exodus.
Eleven players who helped the Pittsburgh Pirates into their third straight National League Championship Series hit the road via one route or another. Barry Bonds. Doug Drabek. Jose Lind. And Gary Redus, Cecil Espy, Gary Varsho, Alex Cole, Bob Patterson, Danny Jackson, Roger Mason, Danny Cox.
The constant, though, has been Jim Leyland, twice in the past three years the National League’s Manager of the Year.
Now Leyland faces his most difficult assignment since he took over those woeful Pirates in 1986. Leyland, considered by many to be the best manager in baseball, must rebuild a team that won more games the past three seasons than any team in the major leagues. He must try to patch together a competitive team from the nucleus that remains from three consecutive division champions and from rookies and veterans acquired during the winter.
If Leyland’s track record is any indication, he’ll succeed. Somehow.
“A manager can make his players perform at a higher level, a level at which they’re not expected to play,” center-fielder Andy Van Slyke said.
Leyland usually manages high marks in that category. Why?
“In theory, he’s a great communicator,” Van Slyke said. “He just does a real great job of making us believe in ourselves. And he does it by the way he handles players individually. Not all managers have that human skill to deal with players. But I think that’s the biggest asset he has-he treats us as individual people first and players second . . .
“There are a lot of politics involved in baseball. I think a lot of people may think that’s not true when you enter the locker room, but it’s true. But I think Jim Leyland has eliminated that. He has made an atmosphere where honesty and the way he feels about us is made clear. . . .”
With the mixed bag of talent and personalities he has this season, Leyland might find his patience and understanding put to severe tests. But the 48-year-old manager, whose 592 victories with the Pirates rank him fourth on their all-time victory list, can’t wait to get going.
“We have some concerns, but we also have things to look forward to,” Leyland said. “We have some pretty established holders left, and I’m anxious to see some of the kids. We’ve got a lot of new faces in camp-some young players, some veteran, six-year (minor-league) free-agent players.”
These Pirates will bear little resemblance to the teams that won 289 games in winning the NL East over the previous three teams.
As veteran Bob Walk said, “It’s almost like this is a new team.”
And as Leyland said, “There’s going to be a lot to do.”
The first thing for Leyland is to try to ease some of the concerns he has about this club.
“I have some major concerns about our pitching staff,” he said.
There are worries about Zane Smith’s left shoulder. Alejandro Pena missed most of September with Atlanta because of tendinitis in his right elbow. Is he healthy? And where do rookies Steve Cooke and Paul Wagner fit?
“And we have to try to find a way to get a little punch in the lineup,” Leyland said.
Last season, the Pirates managed to overcome the loss of Bonilla’s 102 runs scored and 100 RBIs. Now they must try to find a way to offset the departure of Bonds’ 109 runs scored and 103 RBIs.
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“And as I look at it-as I have most of the winter-I don’t know about the flexibility and the balance coming off the bench and the platoon-type situations that we’ve had in the past,” Leyland said. “The balance isn’t as good as it has been-who we’ve gt to pinch-hit, for example. There are a lot of intangibles here that we’ll have to look at.”
There also are at least three tangibles that Leyland is very eager to look at-rookies Al Martin, Kevin Young and Carlos Garcia. Those three rank as the cornerstone of the “new Pirates”-a trio of prospects that all had solid seasons at Class AAA Buffalo last year.
Martin, 25, a left-handed hitter who inherits Bonds’ turf in left field, was named the Pirates’ Minor League Player of the Year after batting .305 with 16 doubles, 15 triples and 20 home runs, 85 runs scored and 59 RBIs in 125 games.
Martin is scheduled to bat leadoff against right-handed pitching, with veterans Lloyd McClendon and Lonnie Smith sharing time against left-handers.
Young, 23, was named the American Association’s Rookie of the Year last season after batting .314, with 29 doubles, six triples and eight home runs, 91 runs scored and 65 RBIs in 137 games. A right-handed hitter who is by trade a third baseman, Young might move to first base, leaving Jeff King at third base.
“It’s not etched in stone,” Leyland said of that possibility. “You can look at it two ways. You can leave King and (shortstop Jay) Bell alone so that’s one side of your infield that’s just what it was last year. Or you can put one newcomer on each side.”
That latter option would put Young at third base and pair King at first base with Garcia at second base.
Garcia, who’s played far more at shortstop, has 38 games of experience with the Pirates spread over the previous three seasons. They’re still waiting for the 25-year-old to show the bat that produced a .303 batting average, 13 home runs and 70 RBIs in 113 games.
“We’ve got to fit Young, Martin and Garcia into our system,” Leyland said.
Leyland plans to do that by talking with each player frequently during the spring-his human touch.
“You’re always talking baseball,” he said. “That doesn’t necessarily mean you’re always out at second base showing baserunning or something, but during batting practice you’re out there talking to players, explaining situations.
“I like to do that isolated one-on-one rather than in a group-because when you’re in a group you get too many distractions. Not everybody’s listening. I mean, Andy’s heard me speak for six years. There’s not a whole lot I can really say to him that he doesn’t already know. Or Spanky (Mike LaValliere). I’m not being facetious. You have to be careful you don’t get stale. I like to do that one-on-one. I think it has a bigger impact.”