16-YEAR-OLD MAKES PITCH FOR MILLIONS.

Byline: KEVIN ACEE Baseball

As it all too often is in baseball, the speculation has been wild.

Ricardo Aramboles will get $3 million. Maybe $5 million. Wouldn't the Yankees pay $10 million?

All Rob Plummer will say is this:

``What is a kid worth when he could be the next Pedro Martinez?''

We'll find out later this month.

Plummer, the agent for 16-year-old pitcher Ricardo Aramboles, will host a workout for the young Dominican the fourth week of January in Tampa, Fla. Plummer has spoken with every major-league club and all have said they will attend. He expects teams such as the Yankees, Blue Jays and Dodgers to send multiple scouts to watch Aramboles, a right-hander in possession of a 91-mph fastball and a knuckle-curve.

Plummer has Aramboles under wraps to the extent that he let teams know if they attempted to contact his client it would be held against them. The Dodgers made such a mistake, but Plummer forgave them after a talk with scouting director Terry Reynolds. Aramboles is currently with family in the Dominican Republic.

Aramboles, who is 6-foot-4 and stocked with wiry muscles just like Martinez, is back on the market because major-league baseball ruled last month that in July of 1996 the Florida Marlins illegally signed him. It was illegal because Aramboles was just 14 at the time.

The Philadelphia-based Plummer counts 22 Latins among his 25 clients. He and others say the practice of signing underage players (younger than 16) is rampant in the Dominican and Venezuela.

Whatever Aramboles gets as a result of this workout, it will be hundreds times more than the $5,500 the Marlins signed him for in 1996.``I'm not putting a money value on him,'' Plummer said. ``I'm going to let the free market prevail. One thing I know is this kid is very talented. I'm not going to let them tell me he's not as good as I say.''

Now or never? Hopefully, Don Sutton got the nine votes he was missing last year for election into the Hall of Fame. Because if Sutton is not in the 1998 Hall of Fame induction class, which will be announced Monday, he may never get voted in.

Among those eligible next year is Nolan Ryan.

The knock on Sutton, who pitched for the Dodgers from 1966 to '80 and again in 1988, is that it took him 23 seasons to amass his 324 victories and he had just one 20-win season.Yes, Sutton's winning percentage of .559 is underwhelming, but anyone with 324 victories deserves to be in the Hall of Fame.

Also Monday: On the day of their first voluntary winter workout, the Dodgers will exchange arbitration figures with Raul Mondesi and Eric Young.

Predictions: Mondesi will not make it to arbitration, because the Dodgers will meet his contract demands of at least six years at $10 million per. Young's case will go to arbitration, and he will win a one-year contract for around $5 million.

HAPPIER NEW YEAR?

Taking just a moment to reflect on the recently completed year, here's a look at the five lowlights of 1997 that will haunt the Dodgers and their fans.

On the first day of June, rookie second baseman Wilton Guerrero grounded out to second base while the end of his bat flew toward first base. Cork went everywhere. Guerrero began serving an eight-game suspension the next day.

Later in the month, pitcher Pedro Astacio had to be restrained when he went verbally ballistic on manager Bill Russell in the dugout. Swinging a bat wildly, Astacio accidentally injured third-base coach Joe Amalfitano and first-base coach Reggie Smith.

Also in June, 1996 Rookie of the Year Todd Hollandsworth was sent down to Triple-A Albuquerque.

In August, on the day of his induction into the Hall of Fame, former Dodgers manager Tom Lasorda insulted (unintentionally, he said) current Dodgers manager Bill Russell when he said he would prefer Mets manager Bobby Valentine to manage a team he controlled.

After winning three straight to amass a 2-1/2-game lead in the NL West with just 11 to play, the Dodgers were swept in a two-game series at San Francisco and then lost three straight at home against Colorado. While the Giants did not clinch the division title until the second-to-last day of the season, that five-day stretch was what sealed the Dodgers' vacation plans.

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Photo, Box

Photo: GUERRERO

Box: HAPPIER NEW YEAR? (See Text)