Now comes rebuilding. As part of their efforts at continuous quality improvement, and trying to pare payroll even further, the Moline Greens today traded 3B Scott Rolen, C Charles Johnson, and OF Aaron Rowand to the Baltimore Hons for 3B Sean Burroughs, C Toby Hall, and the Hons' first-round in the 2005 draft.
The move keeps the core of the team young, as Hall gains four years on Johnson and Burroughs is six playing years younger than Rolen, the All Star whose shoes Burroughs hopes to fill. The trade also considerably lowers Moline's coming financial obligations. By trading Rolen, Johnson, and starting first baseman Mike Sweeney, Moline has shed more than $21 million in salary since claiming another shoe last month. The team is now in full compliance with the league salary cap. "I feel lighter," said team CFO Mary Lamon-Smith. "I haven't felt this tight in the waist since before my children were born."
Trading away its starters at catcher, first, and third was no easy proposition. Still, the mother of necessity makes light work. "An axiom of accountable trading is that one surrenders quality to get quality," said scouting director Josh Logan. "The fiscal moves were imperatives. But getting younger is our ongoing project. I promised Fate Norris that we would never surrender the short term for the long term. This trade honors that promise." The extra first-round pick in 2005 means that Moline has at least three first-round picks in the next three supplemental drafts. "We cannot say who will present himself in any one of those draft positions," admitted Logan, "but we can suppose that we give ourselves greater chances at securing quality young men."
Logan also explained that Norris had long regreted not drafting Burroughs in 1994, when the pudgy youngster was a star for the Little League champions from Long Beach, California. League rules allowed drafting amateurs then, and Fate thought Sean was worth a late-round flier. It didn't happen that way, as it turned out, as the Greens spent their last pick that year on sabermetric journeyman and long-time Moline role player Rich Becker rather than the roly-poly wunderkind from California. "But now the fat boy has become a man with a powerful bat," oozed Logan. "And now he comes, resplendent, to Moline, to the green, green grass of home."
Reached for comment at his Long Beach home, Burroughs said, "Moline? Where's that?"
Foster hits apex. Nine slide in rain. How good are the Reds? We have been here before. Once more to the lake. Once more with feeling. The Greens again. Not inevitably, no, not the result of a years-long rebuilding effort, consolidated draft picks, loss leaders, but fortunately, suddenly, an echo of years past before the front office quite expected it. Fueled by a balanced lineup that led the league in home runs, batting average, and slugging, powered by young pitching that dominated in the aftermath of departed stars, lubricated by a rotation that featured five starters who won fifteen games or more, blessed by good health that saw six regulars play at least 157 games, and steered by the tiresome, impressionistic hand of Joe Morgan from an air-conditioned booth high above the field, the Big Green Combine is again atop the Shoeless Joe League hierarchy, up there in apex land like Mr. Foster, champions all the way, your name here, and so on.
It was supposed to take longer, this semi-rebuilding process. Instead, Moline won a record 111 games, topping the league mark they set two years ago. The Greens led the league in pitching, posting a 3.14 ERA, best in league history over a full season. They swept the Florida Panthers in the first round of the playoffs and won the championship series four games to two over Barry Bonds and the Carpetbaggers of Savannah, a series that featured three one-run victories after a season of lethargic (19-24) one-run play. And when the dust had settled on the field, Moline had itself another divisional title, its sixth in seven years, and another championship shoe, its fourth in five seasons.
"We bitch all year about one-run games, and then we win three one-run games in the championship," said team atheist Liane Luckman. "If I'm looking for evidence of godlessness, I don't need to look any further. Jesus, what load of . . . luck." Team ethicist Suzann Moertl refused to address the godlessness charge, but she admitted that Jehovah probably had "better things to do than smile down on the play of a few ballplayers." Still, "belief is the foundation, and these guys believed," said Moertl, "not like other guys on other teams." General manager Rolf Samuels said that this year's team came together "more quickly than I thought it would, far better than I thought it could." Samuels credited the farm system and scouting director Josh Logan and his assistant John Dark, who drafted three of the team's starters over the last two years: Mark Buehrle, Joel Pineiro, and Joe Kennedy. "Assiduous research, to be sure," said Logan, "but a fair share of fortuitousness as well." Said Dark, "You work, you slave, you worry so, but sometimes it all pays off." More plainly, said third baseman Scott Rolen, "we were good this year, but you have to admit that we were lucky to be this good."
It's a team that lost Roger Clemens, Kevin Brown, Manny Ramirez, Carlos Delgado, and Chipper Jones from the offensive dynamo that was the 2000 championship squad. Yet this year's model won one more game. Even so, those 111 wins were more a reflection of the league context, cautioned Shirley E. Johnson, team archivist. Three teams lost 100 games this year, led by the Hobgoblins of Hagerstown with 116, Johnson explained. "The league is one year away from expansion, and that has to be taken into consideration." If the fans of Moline were not as taken with the players on this year's team, perhaps it's because they didn't get much time to get used to them. This rebuilding year turned into a reloading year, as Pineiro and Kennedy and Mike Sweeney and Pat Burrell made fans forget Clemens, Brown, Delgado, and Ramirez. But the new faces haven't been around long enough for fans to have grown accustomed to them. "We heard about Chipper Jones for years before he even got here," said Jerome W. Garvey, president of the Greens fan club. "Ditto Andruw Jones. But here's these new guys coming in and just stepping up so quickly. It's great, sure, but we didn't get the buildup, nothing like we got five, six years ago. That kind of changes the pleasure you get."
But if this season's rebuilding march was incomplete, a tempo shift only begun, its steps resumed almost as quickly as the Greens reclaimed the shoe. Days after beating Savannah, Moline made its first post-season trade, shedding salary to acquire Eric Karros, Colby Lewis, Jason Grabowski, and two first-round draft picks from expansion New Orleans for Sweeney and infield prospect Omar Infante. "The fiscal climate continues to be difficult in this region," commented C.F.O. Mary Lamon-Smith. "I expect more rough sailing ahead." Samuels explained that Nick Johnson, acquired in the Carlos Delgado trade, was ready to assume first-base duties and that Sweeney's coming free agency made him too expensive to keep. Sweeney, drafted in the first round in 1997, never became the team's catcher of the future, but his strong bat helped the team off the bench while Delgado was with the squad and anchored the lineup in the last two years. If a bat can anchor.
More changes loom in the pages ahead. "The combine is like a Formula I racer in for a pit stop," explained Samuels. "Only the race never ends."
When good pitching meets good pitching, close games result. That's what the Greens discovered this week, going 2-5 and posting their first losing week of the season. Moline split in Savannah, dropping two of three in Florida, and were swept by Miami. It's no comfort that four of the week's losses were one-run affairs or that for the week the Greens outscored their opponents 30-27. Despite their 31-12 record, still best in the league, the Greens are only 4-8 in one-run games this season. Then again, the team has historically done poorly in one-run games: 17-24 in 2001, 18-20 in 2000, despite winning 110 games, 10-10 in the short season before that. Statistically, sabermetrically, such decisions come down to luck. Great.
"That may be," said Moline team atheist Liane Luckman, "but it is our luck and part of our team's heritage. If there were a God, I might curse him. In his ongoing absence, I'll just, hell, I don't know what I'll do." She bit her lip and shook her fist in no particular direction.
Assistant director of scouting John Dark offered a different take on the team's bad luck in close games. "Which luck? Mark Buehrle, Joel Pineiro, isn't it luck that they have turned out to be as good as they are? Pedro Martinez becomes Pedro Martinez? Isn't that luck? Sure, it is. We scout, sure, we do our homework, but who can tell about pitchers? We ought to be happy we got some guys who can take the mound every fifth day and not get shelled. That's more than some teams in this league can say."
The team is "not this good," said Scott Rolen, star third baseman of the Greens, after Moline completed a 6-0 week to run its win streak to eleven games and its early season record to 16-2, the best start in franchise history. "It's a solid team," said team atheist Liane Luckman, "but it's no great shakes. A quick scan of the roster shows its lack of depth." Erstwhile team ace Pedro Martinez agrees. "The 2000 team was better, definitely," said Martinez, his shoulder encased in ice. "That was a team that could bury you. But this team, I don't know about me, but these guys can pitch." Moline leads the league with a 2.17 era. Mark Buehrle is 4-0 with an absurd 0.96 ERA. Joe Kennedy has not shown the stellar control that got him drafted in the first round, but he's still off to a 2-1 start.
The offense is getting it done through balance, despite playing with a AAA catcher some of the time in Charles Johnson's ongoing absence. Rolen has enjoyed a strong start, leading the club with 11 doubles and 6 home runs. Having
discovered the base on balls, Vladimir Guerrero has scorched the ball. He went 11-24 this week with a triple, two doubles, two homers, and 9 RBI. Guerrero complements his .348 average with a .447 on-base percentage. Even Andruw Jones is drawing walks, 14 in 18 games. Such progress in discipline gives minor-league hitting instructor Randy Bass some comfort as he looks over the early-season strike-zone confusions of some of his troops. "Huh, would you look at that? Selectivity from some Latin guys. Took a few years, though, didn't it?"
This season, Moline has even won its close games, picking up another one-run win this week over Bird-In-Hand. The team's record in one-run ballgames has been a thorn in its side for years, but Moline has yet to lose a one-run contest this season and has won both its extra-inning affairs. "Edenic, halcyon days," says team ethcist Suzann Moertl, "but nothing compared to the glory that Jehovah has in store and soon." Rolen has been with the team long enough to know that the season is long. Harrisburg also put together a perfect week and is only two games back. "We're not going to play close to .900 ball, I'll tell you that much," says Rolen with a laugh. "And we're hardly a lock for another divisional title. But it's a sweet ride for now."
It was, on the whole, a mild winter in the Middle West. Not much snow, temperatures in the twenties and thirties. No snow-bound cars or shut-down schools, except maybe in the highest parts of Minnesota, Wisconsin, and the Upper Pennisula. It was a winter of few shoveled sidewalks, a winter of few sweater vests, wool socks, or thermals. It was a clear, dry winter, a season of certainty amidst uncertainty, a winter of rippling flags on antennae and porches, of mild flu strains, of steady gas prices, despite the war, an aerial bombardment farther away than the slumped eastern towers of six months ago today. It was a winter of renewed patriotism and bloodlust
and xenophobia. It was a winter as soft as the late fall, when Midwesterners chanced upon a November disguised as Indian summer.
Then March
The South foreshadows as much. Well south of the storms of winter, Greens' players and coaches gathered at their training facility in Homestead, Florida, shaking off the light snows of the mild winter, stepping and stretching beneath the bright grapefruit sun, tossing and jogging and joshing their way into another spring.
Having fallen from the top of the hill, the Greens are eager to prove that 2001 was an aberration. They are optimistic about reclaiming their place as the best team in the Shoeless Joe League. "You still have to like the offense," says manager Joe Morgan. "We haven't got Ramirez and Chipper and Delgado anymore, but we've got some guys who can put runs on the board and know how to win. When I was in Cincinnati--" but here he is cut short by a shaving-cream pie, courtesy Pedro Martinez. Moline shortstop Derek Jeter notes that the key members of the team's offense--Andruw Jones, Vladimir Guerrero, Scott Rolen, Mike Sweeney, and himself--are still young. "There's a lot of upside in this team yet," says Jeter. "I think we've got the firepower to get back to where we were two years ago."
Then again, two years can be a long time in baseball. Dynasties die in such spans, and doubters emerge. Team atheist Liane Luckman heads their party. "The league is a smarter place than it once was two or three years ago. It's a bigger place and a more competitive place, at the major-league level and in the minor leagues. We lost Brown and Martinez for most of last year, and we still managed to win 93 games, thanks to Mark Buehrle and a decent offense. But Brown is gone now and Buehrle has to show that he's more than a one-year wonder. Pedro's shoulder is uncertain, and Harrisburg remains strong. Only a Panglossian optimist would suppose we will do better this year. Where's the starting pitching, for one? Past Martinez and Buehrle, how do we line up with Harrisburg?" The team better get some pitching help in the annual SJL supplemental draft, says Luckman, because Aruban Sidney Ponson remains erratic, Texan Chris Holt has ceased to be even a useful fifth starter, and Dominican Ramon Ortiz has aged suddenly, passing from a young pitcher with room to grow to a middle-of-the-rotation veteran, who is now as good as he likely will ever be.
Ortiz and infielder Enrique
With the annual SJL supplemental draft just days away, Logan and assistant scouting director John Dark confess to what Logan calls a "heightened sensitivity" to ages. The whole scouting department finds itself more xenophobic than team ethicist and Jehvoah's Witness Suzann Moertl can condone, although she too is saddened by the age revelations, which she calls a "disappointment to Jehovah." Dark defends the scouts' position. "Skin color isn't the point. We're not racists, we're ageists. Consider what we've learned this spring. We have to be looking twice at Dominican prospects." Among the newly old Latin Americans, after all, is one-time Greens prospect Pablo Ozuna, picked fourth overall in the 1999 draft, when he looked like a promising eighteen-year old shortstop rather than a twenty-year old liar. Ozuna was lost to London in the expansion draft of 2000, "but we'd still like to have that pick back," says Dark, himself then a mere high schooler.
This year's Latin American age scandal has hurt several teams in the league, and even for Moline, things could be worse, to which Luckman replies that they "may yet be." Still, star Latin outfielders Andruw Jones and Vladimir Guerrero lost no years to the INS. For the moment anyway, infielder Tony Blanco, drafted in the first round a year ago, retains his 1981 date of birth, as do fellow 2001 draftees Omar Infante and Anderson Machado. Age revelations even once helped the Greens. Wilson Betemit, last year's minor league player of the year, improved his prospect status in 2000, when league investigations discovered him to be a year younger than what he represented when he signed.
For more perspective on Agegate, Dark and Logan need only to look outside the organization. Whatever the revelations of the spring, whatever their effect on the future roles Wilson and Ortiz play with the Greens, no Moline player aged as much in the off season as London outfielder Mike Darr, killed in a February car accident. Darr joins Gerik Baxter and Brian Cole in the graveyard of the SJL. "Suzann would say that they're closer to Jehovah," notes Luckman, "And the Mormans might try to retrospectively convert them, but the view from here is that they're just dead. And you can't get any older than that. There's not much development upside at that point."
Through a hooded spokeman, the Greens announced two transactions to prepare the team roster for the coming supplemental draft: the acquisition of catcher Ramon Castro from Chicago and the release of catcher Mike Rose and outfielder Tony Mota. Castro, once a prized prospect and now a minor-league journeyman, has finally learned to hit and awaits a major-league opportunity. Rose came to the Greens last year in a trade of late-round picks with the Kansas City Whirlwind. He promptly stumbled at AAA and became expendable with the addition of Castro and fellow reservists Todd Greene and Marcus Jensen, both waiver-wire refugees. Mota was a fourth-round pick in the March, 2000 draft, the weakest draft in team or league history. Only infielder Enrique Wilson remains from that draft's crop, and he has become no more than a reserve.
ACCELERATION
April 23, 2002 Ancient spot spotter Ramon Ortiz, perhaps chastened by his extra clubhouse duties since Agegate bumped him from the starting rotation, has been an early season surprise with three wins in three starts. Still it's the bullpen that has been a revelation. Joel Pineiro has allowed just one run in 9.1 innings. Tandem closers Byung-Hyun Kim and David Riske have yet to allow an earned run in 16.1 innings pitched.
SUPERANNUATION
March 11, 2002came to town, howling, whistling. Blistering winds rattled windows, froze car locks, and sculpted snow drifts into frothy meringe. Faces turned into parka hoods and bodies bent against the wind, hustling through the cold, ears boxed by the seasoned schoolmaster who'll learn you to suppose you can slip through winter so easily. Ana Pulak and the folks in the Greens' ticket office bundled against the late roar of winter in Moline as they trudged from home to car to office. Outside Moline Park, the shrouded remains of some ancient Sauk or Fox Indian moved not at all, frozen in cold soil and ongoing adjudication. Early March made Midwesterner wince, but without such ferocity could they suppose themselves to have even had winter, to have passed through the full cycle? And aren't the seasons by their very existence an inherent promise? Hidden within the howling of March, after all, lies a murmur: "Come. Look what lies ahead."
Wilson were among the fifty-plus Latin ballplayers who aged rapidly over the winter. Stricter INS scrutiny of documents revealed that Wilson and Ortiz were both born in 1973, not 1975 and 1976, respectively. "I can understand their arguments for self-interest as impoverished Dominicans," conceded Luckman, "but that self-interest doesn't help the Moline Greens any." While Morgan shrugged his shoulders and spoke of the "maturity" and "veteran presence" that the older Ortiz and Wilson would bring to the major-league squad, farm director Josh Logan was livid. "They lied. They distorted, prevaricated, dissembled. They misrepresented themselves as prospects they were not." While of necessity the team would still have a place for Wilson and Ortiz, Logan explained, nevertheless "we hold them to be superannuationists, cunning thieves, mendacious men who sold us false hope and robbed us of draft selections we would otherwise have spent on players more honorable and more authentically precocious."
EMENDATION
March 9, 2002