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Wednesday, January 30, 2002

There was a time when Pokey Reese was the best fielding second baseman this side of Roberto Alomar, a time when not even the prospect of acquiring Ken Griffey, Jr. could lure him away from the Cincinnati Reds and a time when he was a solid building block for a championship team.

And now we hear he's very likely to become a Pirate? Is this someone's idea of a joke? Is it April 1?

Quality free agents don't sign with the Pirates. They sign with the New York Yankees, New York Mets, Boston Red Sox and Los Angeles Dodgers. The Pirates sign free agents like Derek Bell, Terry Mulholland and Pete Schourek.

So what's the catch?

Reese, whose signing is expected later today or tomorrow if he passes a club physical, is coming off a disappointing offensive season. Never more than above-average offensively and with little power, his batting average plunged to .224 last season, down from .255 in 2000 and .285 in 1999.

Reese and the Pirates have agreed to a two-year contract with the club option for a third year that could be worth as much as $10 million.

The Pirates believe Reese, who will be 29 in June, can regain his offensive touch, which made him a solid top-of-the-lineup hitter to go along with brilliant fielding skills. Those skills earned him Gold Gloves in 1999 and 2000. He had little opportunity to win a third Gold Glove last season because he played 51 games at second base and 78 at shortstop in place of injured Barry Larkin.

The Pirates probably see Reese batting second behind projected center fielder Adrian Brown, a combination that would give them more speed than they've had in years at the top of the lineup. A downside is Reese is a free swinger who does not draw a lot of walks.

In Reese's final three seasons with Cincinnati, he stole 92 bases and was caught 14 times, an exceptional success rate. Kevin Young led the Pirates with 15 steals last season.

This signing isn't one of those Cam Bonifay specials, where the Pirates were frantically bidding for the services of a player against, uh, themselves, which is how Bell squeezed them for $9 million over two seasons.

No less than the Boston Red Sox, a perennial contender in the American League East, were hot after Reese. The Red Sox believed Reese to be the best answer for them at second. Of course, Reese was a better fit for Boston, where his questionable offensive skills would be less glaring in their much-stronger lineup.

The Pirates were in drastic need of a defensive upgrade at second base. None of the four second basemen on their 40-man roster -- Pat Meares, Warren Morris, Mike Benjamin, Abraham Nunez -- figure to be capable of filling the role.

The Pirates haven't had a second baseman with exceptional range since Chico Lind was snapping up virtually everything between first and second base in the early 1990s -- except, of course, crucial ground balls in the ninth inning of the seventh game of the National League Championship Series.

The Pirates tried Tony Womack, Morris and, most recently, Meares and found none of them acceptable defensively.

The signing was especially surprising because the Pirates were said to be watching not just their dollars but their nickels. It's a brilliant stroke for General Manager Dave Littlefield and a substantial commitment to bettering the team by owner Kevin McClatchy.

How Reese became available is an intriguing story. He had spent all five of his major-league seasons with the Reds, but they traded him to Colorado Dec. 18. Two days later, he was traded to the Red Sox.

The Red Sox lost him when they didn't offer him a contract in December. Once they did that, he became a free agent.

If the Red Sox had offered a contract to Reese, who made $3.2 million last season, he would have been eligible to receive about $4 million in arbitration. The Red Sox preferred to work out a long-term deal, where the average salary would have be been less than $4 million.

That gave the Pirates an opportunity, and what resulted was the truly rare case of a small-market team signing a coveted player over one of baseball biggest spenders. The Red Sox payroll topped $100 million last season.

How this happened isn't exactly known, but credit must go to Littlefield and to Manager Lloyd McClendon, who was active in recruiting Reese to the Pirates.

Reese turned down a four-year, $21 million offer from Cincinnati last spring.

If Reese can turn his game around, the Pirates have that rarest of baseball commodities: a free-agent bargain.

Bob Smizik can be reached at bsmizik@post-gazette.com.