Stars feature new look for '99

There won't be too many familiar faces around when the Las Vegas Stars open their season April 8 at Cashman Field against Omaha.

Popular slugging star Eddie Williams, who made team history with four home runs and 10 RBIs in one game at Calgary last April, has signed a contract with the Minnesota Twins.

All-Star second baseman Dave Hajek, who led the Pacific Coast League with a team-record 177 hits, has signed a contract with the Colorado Rockies so he could be closer to his Colorado Springs home.

All-Star third baseman George Arias, who clobbered a team record 36 homers last season, is the heir apparent at third base to Ken Caminiti with the parent club San Diego Padres. Stars pitchers Matt Clement and Stan Spencer have been penciled in as the No. 4 and No. 5 starters for the defending National League champs.

But perhaps the biggest change will occur in the dugout, where manager Jerry Royster departed after three seasons to become a minor league infield instructor with the Montreal Expos.

Royster's replacement will be another former major league infielder, Mike Ramsey, who skippered San Diego's double-A team in Mobile to the Southern League championship a year ago.

That Mobile squad, voted the minor league team of the year for 1998, will likely make up the bulk of the roster for the new-look Stars.

Ramsey, San Diego Padres general manager Kevin Towers and Padres manager Bruce Bochy were in town Thursday for a luncheon at Caesars Palace to meet with Stars sponsors and supporters.

"It's a good time to be a Padre right now," Ramsey told the group. "We've got some terrific young talent coming here."

Three of baseball's top 100 minor league prospects -- catcher Ben Davis and outfielders Mike Darr and Gary Matthews Jr. -- are expected to move up to triple-A after starring at Mobile for Ramsey last season.

"I think those guys are going to be big-league, every day players," Ramsey said. "It's not too often you have three players of their caliber come along through at the same time."

Davis recently was rated the No. 2 prospect in baseball by Baseball Weekly.

"He's got the total package defensively," Ramsey said. "I played a while back in the big leagues and Johnny Bench was as good as I saw for a while. And then Tony Pena was as good (defensively) as I saw for a while. In my opinion, Ben is physically in that class."

Darr and Matthews are expected to start in the outfield along with a couple of Las Vegas holdovers, Chris Prieto and Aaron Guiel. Other returnees from last year's Las Vegas squad could be shortstop Juan Melo, OF/1B Dusty Allen, utilityman Greg LaRocca and pitchers Brian Tollberg and Bryan Wolff, both of whom also pitched for Ramsey in Mobile.

Whether folks like Prieto, Guiel, Allen and LaRocca return to Las Vegas or move up to the big club in San Diego may be determined during the next six weeks of spring training, which begins Monday in Peoria, Ariz.

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