Four Angels, Eight Dodgers in Arbitration : Valenzuela and Hershiser May Seek Huge Contracts

The Dodgers’ 1-2 pitching punch--that’s 1-2 as in a potential $1 million and $2 million in annual salary--of Orel Hershiser and Fernando Valenzuela filed for salary arbitration Wednesday.

Eight of the nine Dodgers eligible for arbitration beat the 9 p.m. PST filing deadline. In addition to Hershiser and Valenzuela, they are Mike Marshall, Mike Scioscia, Greg Brock, Ed Vande Berg, Dave Anderson and Carlos Diaz.

Len Matuszek was also eligible but is apparently close enough to an agreement on his 1986 contract that he figured there was no risk in forfeiting his arbitration rights.

Four Angels--outfielder Gary Pettis, shortstop Dick Schofield, pitcher Ron Romanick and utility player Rufino Linares--were also among the 159 major league players who filed.

Two other Angels, pitcher Doug Corbett and reserve catcher Jerry Narron, were eligible for arbitration but elected not to file.

General Manager Mike Port said he was close to a contract agreement with each.

Any player who has more than two years of major league experience can file for arbitration, although the new collective bargaining agreement will require three years of service starting next winter.

The player and his club have three days from the date of filing to submit their salary figures, with the arbitrator choosing one or the other. The hearings are scheduled between Feb. 1 and Feb. 20, but the player and club can continue negotiating until the hearing begins, at which point they are subject to the arbitrator’s judgment.

Ninety-seven players filed for arbitration last year, but 84 signed before their hearings began. Of the 13 cases that went to arbitration, the clubs won seven and the players six.

In 1983, Valenzuela, after only two full major league seasons, became the first player to receive $1 million through arbitration. Valenzuela avoided that often antagonistic process after each of the next two seasons, demonstrating what his agents say was good will and good intentions by accepting consecutive raises of $100,000, bringing his 1985 salary to $1.2 million.

Now, after a season in which he was 17-10 with a 2.45 earned-run average, good will may yield to dollars and sense. Valenzuela is believed to be seeking a $2-million annual salary, which would make him baseball’s highest-salaried pitcher. He is also eligible for free agency after the 1986 season, raising the possibility of a multiyear contract.

“Both sides are interested in a multiyear contract,” Tony DeMarco, Valenzuela’s agent, said Wednesday. “If Fernando continues to get what he deserves, he would like to spend his entire career with the Dodgers, not just the next few years.”

DeMarco and attorney Dick Moss had their first meeting with Dodger Vice President Al Campanis and attorney Bob Walker Tuesday. DeMarco said he would file an arbitration figure on Valenzuela’s behalf Monday, then meet again with the Dodgers early next week.

“Our position is a very good one,” DeMarco said, alluding to Valenzuela’s imminent free agency. “I’m optimistic we can reach an agreement (short of an acrimonious arbitration).”

Hershiser, meanwhile, was 19-3 with a 2.03 ERA and is expected to cite Valenzuela’s salary pattern as precedent in seeking $1 million for 1986. That’s a considerable boost from his 1985 salary of $212,000, but attorney Robert Fraley will contend that Hershiser’s two-year record, 30-11 with a 2.33 ERA, is superior to the two years that netted Valenzuela his $1-million arbitration judgment. Valenzuela’s figures for those two years were 34-20 and 2.62.

Campanis said that the Dodgers have no objection to the players protecting their rights by filing for arbitration and that good-faith negotiations would continue with each of the seven.

Besides Valenzuela, catcher Scioscia is also eligible for free agency after the 1986 season and is expected to seek a multiyear contract that will include a considerable increase on his 1985 salary of $435,000.

Outfielder Marshall made $333,000 last year, reliever Vande Berg $315,000, first baseman Brock $150,000, shortstop Anderson $120,000 and reliever Diaz $125,000. Utility player Matuszek received $185,000.

Among other players filing Wednesday were New York Mets pitcher Dwight Gooden, New York Yankees first baseman Don Mattingly, Montreal Expos outfielder Tim Raines, St. Louis Cardinals pitcher John Tudor and Boston Red Sox third baseman Wade Boggs. Boggs received a $1-million contract through arbitration last winter and responded by hitting .368 for his second American League batting title in the last three years.

On Wednesday, the 26 major league teams completed the two-day annual draft of junior college players and players who have dropped out of school, and the 1986 edition was unusual for two reasons:

--It was the last in a series of 21 January drafts. The junior college selections will now be incorporated into the more productive June draft of high school seniors and four-year college players.

--The draft was conducted in comparative secrecy, with no names being released to the media, except for a few exceptions.

All of the selections will be revealed by the commissioner’s office next week. There will be no mention, however, of the round on which the players were selected.

The concept stemmed from a recommendation by Angel scouting director Larry Himes to the owners’ player development subcommittee, which approved it during the winter meetings in San Diego.

The June draft will be conducted in a similar manner.

Himes said that the absence of immediate publicity will enable the clubs to get a jump on agents and four-year college recruiters who use the draft to verify their own reports on the top prospects.

The clubs will now have a week in which to make the initial contacts, although it seems likely that the leading January and June candidates will have already been approached by the four-year colleges.

“I have nothing but good things to say about the college coaches and their programs, but we’ve paid for the right to be first in expressing our interest,” Himes said.

“We spend as much as $1.5 million gathering information and making evaluations, and the result of that research should be private. The colleges have their own networks, but they often wait for our drafts to verify their own rankings. I see this as giving us a running start.”

Said Bill Murray, an administrator with the commissioner’s office: “We don’t have the advantage that football and basketball do in drafting finished products. Aside from the money we spend on scouting and evaluation, we then have to spend that much more on development. There was a feeling that this might be a way to protect some of that money.”