Padres Make a Power Play, Obtain Clark

SAN DIEGO —  The Padres, who looked like a pennant contender in the final 4 months of the 1988 season, strengthened the resemblance Monday by acquiring slugger Jack Clark and pitcher Pat Clements from the New York Yankees for pitchers Lance McCullers and Jimmy Jones and outfielder Stan Jefferson.

In a trade that left Manager Jack McKeon smiling around his cigar and several Padres laughing in disbelief, the power-poor Padres picked up a four-time All-Star who has averaged 21 homers and 74 RBIs in his 12 full big league seasons. Clark hit 27 homers and had 93 RBIs last season.

In return, the Padres gave up three players who, by the end of this season, had worked their way out of the the Padres’ 1989 plans. McCullers had been replaced by Mark Davis as the bullpen stopper. Jones was dropped from the starting rotation on Sept. 20. And Jefferson got just 7 at-bats after Sept. 1.

More important to the deal was who they didn’t have to give up. The Padres still have their two good young catchers, Benito Santiago and Sandy Alomar Jr., one of whom will now be saved for a later deal that McKeon intimated could be “even bigger.”

While waiting for the other cleat to fall, Padre fans can content themselves that later this week, the club will likely send third baseman Chris Brown to Detroit, where they nearly sent Keith Moreland this summer.

McKeon is so confident of making another big trade later, he said he hasn’t even thought about where Clark, who will become his starting first baseman, will bat in the lineup. “I won’t need to know that until next spring, and our team will change some more by then,” said McKeon.

For now, this deal will do. Although Clark has only 1 year remaining in a $1.5 million per year contract--which makes him the highest paid Padre--he cannot become a free agent after the 1989 season because he left the St. Louis Cardinals for the Yankees as a free agent after the 1987 season. And a player cannot be a free agent twice within a 5-year period.

After finishing last season in third place in the National League West, compiling the division’s best record since McKeon took over as manager (67-48), the trade has left the Padres looking forward to March.

“If Jack Clark does anything that we hope he will, you’d have to consider our club pennant contenders,” McKeon said.

Of the Padre responses Monday, that was the mildest.

“A good deal? That’s the understatement of the year,” said league batting champion Tony Gwynn. “If we had Jack Clark last year, we might be riding through downtown San Diego right now. People were already excited about last season, and now this? When I was called about the trade, first I was told who we gave up and I said ‘Oh man, I hope we got something good.’ When I was told Jack Clark, I thought, geez, what a trade!

“The worst part about this trade is that it’s still October. We still have to wait 4 months for spring training. That’s going to be a long 4 months.”

Pitcher Mark Grant was equally excited.

“Can you believe it?” asked Grant, who played with Clark in San Francisco in 1984 and lobbied this summer for the Padres to trade for him. “Even though I talked about it, it seemed far-fetched. But we do it. We get exactly what we need. Can you believe it?

“Clark is the power hitter we need and a leader in the clubhouse. He doesn’t say much but it’s like, when he talks, everyone listens.”

Earlier this summer, Clark talked about leaving the Yankees, even though he had just joined the team as a free agent from the Cardinals. He was unhappy about the acquisition of Ken Phelps, who cut into his playing time as a designated hitter. He was unhappy because, with Don Mattingly playing first base, he was moved to several different positions, none of them full time. He talked about being traded “home,” to the West Coast, where he lives and where he once played for the San Francisco Giants.

Monday he talked about how happy the Padres had made him.

“I’m so happy about coming back to the National League, to where I started, to what I’m used to,” Clark said in a conference call from his home. “This takes a lot of pressure off my mind.”

That, and the prospects of playing for McKeon.

“I’ve heard so much about Jack and how he’s gotten the players to believe in themselves,” said Clark. “I believe in the team, and I’m not even there, I haven’t even seen them. The Padres have some good players to begin with, and now to bring somebody else in there, I think they are in a real good situation to contend.”

Clements, 26, a left-handed curveballer, last year spent more time in the minor leagues (6-7 with a 2.75 ERA in 32 games at triple-A Columbus) than with the Yankees (0-0, 6.48 ERA in 6 appearances). But at least he’ll be happy. Despite the fact that this was his fourth team in the last 4 years for the former Angel, coming to San Diego literally was a wish come true.

“I had not heard about the trade when I got home from playing golf and me and a buddy flipped on ESPN,” Clements explained. “I saw Jack Clark on there, and how he had been traded, and I thought, ‘Man, it would be nice if I was also in that deal.’ Then they announced my name . . . and it was a great feeling.”

That feeling was not quite matched by at least two of the departing Padres, who were contacted by phone Monday. They were happy, but with strings attached.

“I was there through the reformation, and it’s going to be hard to leave now that things are turned around,” said Jones, who last year was 9-14 with a 4.12 ERA. “But Bob Quinn (Yankee general manager) called me and told me that the Yankees were also going for the pennant, and that I would be in their plans, and that made me feel good. A fresh start will be nice.”

McCullers, who was 3-6 with a 2.49 ERA and 10 saves but 6 blown save opportunities, said: “I’ll miss San Diego, it’s a great place. But you’ll be hearing from me again. I think it will be good to leave a place where I was always supposed to be somebody else (Goose Gossage), and go somewhere where I can just be myself. I think it will be good for both teams.”

McKeon definitely thought so. He began asking the Yankees about Clark late this season after Clark made his displeasure known. McKeon was not given an answer, but the lines of communication were opened.

“When a player of Clark’s magnitude asks to be traded, you can easily sit back and think it’s not going to happen,” McKeon said. “But we say, what the heck, and always ask anyway. It never hurts to ask.”

Especially since they wanted Clark badly--so badly that they refused the Baltimore Orioles’ offer of first baseman Eddie Murray for Santiago, even up.

At the time of his first contact, the Yankees wouldn’t tell McKeon who they would take for Clark. But after the season came the big question, and one of the biggest bluffs of McKeon’s career.

The Yankees asked for one of McKeon’s catchers. Knowing that this could be a deal-breaker, McKeon nonetheless responded, “We’re going in a different direction with the catchers, you can’t have either one.”

The Yankees said, fine. They then settled for McCullers and Jones, with Jefferson, like Clements, as a throw-in.

What if the Yankees had insisted on one of the catchers? “Then we would have had to expand the deal,” McKeon said.

But they still have the catchers, which means there is a still a big deal somewhere out there, which surprises even McKeon.

“I would have doubted that we could pick up a power hitter without using a catcher,” he said. “Now, we feel we can get another power hitter, and a pitcher, and we’ll be set.”

That power hitter could be Kansas City’s Danny Tartabull, or Houston’s Kevin Bass, as both teams desperately need catching. Or, according to league sources, it could be the New York Mets’ infielder Howard Johnson, who could come over with outfielders Len Dykstra or Mookie Wilson and maybe pitcher Sid Fernandez for Santiago.

HEADED FOR THE PADRES

JACK CLARK

Year, Club AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI SB AVG 1975, San Francisco 17 3 4 0 0 0 2 1 .235 1976, San Francisco 102 14 23 6 2 2 10 1 .225 1977, San Francisco 413 64 104 17 4 13 51 12 .252 1978, San Francisco 592 90 181 46 8 25 98 15 .306 1979, San Francisco 527 84 144 25 2 26 86 11 .273 1980, San Francisco 437 77 124 20 8 22 82 2 .284 1981, San Francisco 385 60 103 19 2 17 53 1 .268 1982, San Francisco 563 90 154 30 3 27 103 6 .274 1983, San Francisco 492 82 132 25 0 20 66 5 .268 1984, San Francisco 203 33 65 9 1 11 44 1 .320 1985, St. Louis 442 71 124 26 3 22 87 1 .281 1986, St. Louis 232 34 55 12 2 9 23 1 .237 1987, St. Louis 419 93 120 23 1 35 106 1 .286 1988, New York (AL) 496 81 120 14 0 27 93 3 .242 Major League Totals 5320 876 1453 272 36 256 904 66 .273

PAT CLEMENTS

Year, Club IP ER HITS BB SO CG W-L ERA 1985, California 62 23 47 25 19 0 5-0 3.34 1985, Pittsburgh 34 14 39 15 17 0 0-2 3.67 1986, Pittsburgh 61 19 53 32 31 0 0-4 2.80 1987, New York (AL) 80 44 91 30 36 0 3-3 4.95 1988, New York (AL) 8 6 12 4 3 0 0-0 6.48 Major League Totals 245 106 242 106 106 0 8-9 3.88

HEADED FOR THE YANKEES

STANLEY JEFFERSON

Year, Club AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI SB AVG 1986, New York (NL) 24 6 5 1 0 1 3 0 .208 1987, San Diego 422 59 97 8 7 8 29 34 .230 1988, San Diego 111 16 16 1 2 1 4 5 .144 Major League Totals 557 81 118 10 9 10 36 39 .212

JIMMY JONES

Year, Club IP ER HITS BB SO CG W-L ERA 1986, San Diego 18 5 10 3 15 1 2-0 2.50 1987, San Diego 145 67 154 54 51 2 9-7 4.14 1988, San Diego 179 82 192 44 82 3 9-14 4.12 Major League Totals 342 154 356 101 148 6 20-21 4.04

LANCE MCCULLERS

Year, Club IP ER HITS BB SO CG W-L ERA 1985, San Diego 35 9 23 16 27 0 0-2 2.31 1986, San Diego 136 42 103 58 92 0 10-10 2.78 1987, San Diego 123 51 115 59 126 0 8-10 3.72 1988, San Diego 97 27 70 55 81 0 3-6 2.49 Major League Totals 392 129 311 188 326 0 21-28 2.96