Finley Is Headed North

Angel fans won’t have Steve Finley to kick around anymore.

The underachieving center fielder and object of summer scorn was traded to San Francisco on Wednesday for third baseman Edgardo Alfonzo, whose decline from All-Star status has been nearly as pronounced as Finley’s.

A blockbuster deal, this wasn’t. This was more a case of Angel General Manager Bill Stoneman and Giant GM Brian Sabean dealing from the discard pile.

Finley, 40, suffered through a dismal, injury-plagued 2005, batting .222 with 12 home runs and 54 runs batted in, and Alfonzo, 32, was just as disappointing, hitting .277 with two homers -- both coming in the first week of the season -- and 43 RBIs.

But the Giants needed a fourth outfielder to spell aging Barry Bonds and Moises Alou, and the Angels needed some insurance in case young third baseman Dallas McPherson doesn’t fully recover from hip surgery and/or struggles at the plate.

The Giants had no need for Alfonzo, having declared Pedro Feliz their third baseman, and the Angels had no need for Finley, having all but handed his job this winter to Chone Figgins or Darin Erstad, though Stoneman said Wednesday’s trade “makes it more likely that Figgins will play more center field than he has in the past.�

The salaries were a wash --Finley and Alfonzo will each make $7 million in 2006, the final year of their contracts -- so the Giants and Angels decided to consummate a deal that was first discussed at the trade deadline in July.

“It gives us one more alternative in case Dallas is not 100%, but I don’t suspect he won’t be -- so far, everyone says he’s on schedule,� said Stoneman, who added that he does not consider Alfonzo a candidate for designated hitter.

“Alfonzo also hits right-handed, and if Mike [Scioscia, Angel manager] wants to rest Adam [Kennedy, Angel second baseman] against certain left-handers, Alfonzo would be a candidate. All that will be sorted out in spring training.�

Finley, who nearly signed with the Giants as a free agent in 1999 and 2005, parlayed his 36-homer, 94-RBI season for Arizona and the Dodgers in 2004 into a two-year, $14-million deal with the Angels last winter.

But he hurt his right shoulder crashing into a wall in the second game of the season and developed bad habits at the plate trying to play through the injury. Finley was hitting .225 when he went on the disabled list in late June, and a three-week break did nothing to rehabilitate his swing.

Scioscia continued to start Finley and was criticized by many for sticking with the veteran too long, but by late August, with Finley batting .143 in the month and the Angels in a tight American League West race with Oakland, Scioscia had no choice but to bench him.

“I’m disappointed in the year I had last year,� Finley said Wednesday. “I wanted to show them what I could do, but they only got to see brief flashes.�

Does Stoneman believe Finley is washed up?

“I wouldn’t say that at all,� Stoneman said. “We were hoping for a better season from him, just like the Giants were hoping for a better season from Alfonzo. Neither had a career year last year. But there’s no reason why he won’t have a good year.�

Alfonzo excelled for the New York Mets in 1999 (.304, 27 homers, 108 RBIs) and 2000 (.324 with 25 homers, 94 RBIs), helping the Mets reach the World Series in 2000, but he never seemed comfortable in San Francisco after signing a four-year, $26-million deal with the Giants before the 2003 season.

The former second baseman, who spent 12 years in the Met organization, hit .259 with 13 homers and 81 RBIs in 2003 and .289 with 11 homers and 77 RBIs in 2004. After sitting out five weeks last June and July because of a strained left quadriceps, Alfonzo lost his third base job to Feliz.

“For some reason, once he left New York, where he was so loved and played for an organization he knew so well -- it may have been a little culture shock -- I don’t know if he ever broke those ties,� Sabean said, when asked to explain Alfonzo’s struggles.

“It was a combination of factors. He’d be the first to admit that our expectations of what would transpire just didn’t happen. But he gave us the effort we desired. Performance-wise, it didn’t turn out the way it should have or could have.�

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Alfonzo’s record

The year-by-year batting record of infielder Edgardo Alfonzo, acquired Wednesday by the Angels from San Francisco in a trade for outfielder Steve Finley:

*--* Year Team G AB HR RBI BA 1995 Mets 101 335 4 41 278 1996 Mets 123 368 4 40 261 1997 Mets 151 518 10 72 315 1998 Mets 144 557 17 78 278 1999 Mets 158 628 27 108 304 2000 Mets 150 544 25 94 324 2001 Mets 124 457 17 49 243 2002 Mets 135 490 16 56 308 2003 Giants 142 514 13 81 259 2004 Giants 139 519 11 77 289 2005 Giants 109 368 2 43 277 Totals 1,476 5,298 146 739 287

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