TEMPE, ARIZ. — While his teammates dressed and boarded a bus for their exhibition game Sunday morning, Gary Matthews Jr. changed out of his uniform, pulled on his street clothes and left Angels camp.
Told in a meeting with Manager Mike Scioscia and General Manager Tony Reagins that he would begin this season as the Angels' fifth outfielder, Matthews did not take the news very well.
Instead of traveling with the team to play the Texas Rangers in Surprise, Ariz., Matthews asked for and received permission to take the day off, a 24-hour cooling-off period apparently necessary.
"Just give me a day, guys, OK?" Matthews said when approached by reporters. "Thanks."
Asked whether he was getting traded, Matthews said, "No."
Scioscia, Reagins and Scott Leventhal, Matthews' agent, would not say whether Matthews, in the third year of a five-year, $50-million contract, had requested a trade in the meeting, which was initiated by the manager and the general manager.
But Matthews, who hit .242 with eight home runs and 46 runs batted in during an injury-plagued 2008 season, in which he lost his starting job to Juan Rivera in late June, is willing to waive his no-trade clause for a deal to a team that wants him as a starter.
The problem: Matthews is coming off knee surgery and needs to play regularly for an extended period for any team to seriously consider trading for him. And with Matthews due $33 million over the next three years, his contract is virtually impossible to move.
The Angels would have to eat a huge chunk of the contract to trade Matthews, and they're not about to pay $20 million to $25 million for the switch-hitter to tear it up for some other club.
One possible solution would be to trade Matthews' contract for another bad contract, one belonging to a player, such as a starting pitcher, who might be a better fit for the Angels.
Matthews seems to have two options at this point. He could be a team player, keep quiet and accept whatever role the Angels give him.
Or, he could become such a distraction, perhaps by popping off regularly about his dissatisfaction, that he could leave the Angels little choice but to trade or release him, much as Manny Ramirez did with the Boston Red Sox last July.
"No," Reagins said, when asked whether he was concerned Matthews could become a distraction. "When you're honest with a player, the outcome can be positive. When you're not honest and forthright with a player, that's when it can go the other way."
