8/11/2013: Bridgeport, CT – It’s been just over half a decade since the inaugural season of the PEBA, and while in some ways it seems like it was ages ago, it’s also fairly recent.  The Nutmeggers were a miserable 64-98, finishing one game ahead of last place Manchester in the IL Pan Atlantic.  As anyone familiar with PEBA history knows, these two teams have had a dramatically different experience since then.  The Nutmeggers have yet to finish over .500 in a single season, while the Maulers are three-time postseason participants, winning the division twice and reaching the Planetary Extreme Championship series last year.

The 2007 Maulers and the 2013 Maulers have just one player in common: reliever Augusto León, who has been a key member of the team’s bullpen throughout the team’s history.  In fact, of the 44 players that represented the Maulers in 2007, only five have appeared in a game this year.  As for León, he’s been sidelined since late April with shoulder inflammation, just one in a string of injuries to key players that have dropped the Maulers near the bottom of the standings where Connecticut habitually resides.

Given the fates of the two clubs, one might think that those 2007 Nutmeggers were a bunch of bit players with shorter careers than their Manchester counterparts.  That’s not really the case, though.  There are twice as many Nutmeggers from 2007 in the league today than there are Maulers.  10 of the 38 players who appeared for Connecticut that season have worn a PEBA uniform this year.  Here’s what they’ve done since that season, starting with the three players who’ve been around the whole time, and then proceeding alphabetically through the seven that have moved on.

George John – Second Base

It would be accurate to say that the Nutmeggers have employed 22 second basemen over the course of their history.  It would also be accurate to say that John has been the team’s only second baseman.  He’s started approximately 85% of the team’s games at second.  John holds almost all of the team’s offensive counting stat records, including runs, hits, doubles, triples, RBI and stolen bases.  His name peppers the single-season team top 10 lists, as well.  He has been the one constant that Connecticut fans have been able to cling to through thin and thinner.  However, it’s looking increasingly likely that he will not be a part of the team next season, so this is probably the best time to start appreciating him for what he’s done.  The team’s early season hopes of a wild card berth have weighed anchor in a different port, and while John isn’t having the tremendous 200-hit season he had in 2010, he’s still a good player, and next season presents the great unknown.  At just 26 years old, John still has a lot of baseball ahead of him somewhere, wherever that may be.

George Taylor – Center Field

Taylor has never been a big contributor the way that John has.  He was the regular center fielder in 2009 and he was a regular lineup member the year before that, shifting between center, right and DH.  Except for a solid season as a bench player in 2010, Taylor’s struggles to hit over .200 have forced him back to the minors for periods of time in each of the past two seasons.  It wouldn’t be surprising to see this as his final year with the club, too.

Xavier Lara – Shortstop

Lara was John’s keystone partner each of the first four seasons of the league, aside from parts of 2008 when he was hurt.  His defense was solid, if not great, and he was a good base runner, but like Taylor, his bat was never been anything to get excited about.  The arrival of Ronald Lowry pushed Lara to the bench, and he gradually lost playing time over the past few seasons.  Like Taylor, he’s been sent down to AAA and his status is uncertain for next season.

Jeff Cline – Catcher

It’s surprising to think that a five-time All-Star and Royal Raker winner who also plays such an important defensive position has played for four different teams in seven seasons, but that’s Cline’s story.  More accurately, Cline’s been on the payroll of five franchises.  Canton had his rights initially but traded him to Connecticut immediately following the inaugural draft for Eric Morse, who hasn’t been too shabby himself.  At any rate, Cline’s been a stud that the Nutmeggers had no real replacement for until Samuel Kettley came along.  In the meantime, they’ve primarily been playing the guy they traded him for: Tsuneari Horiuchi.  The team also got Onne Adriaanse and a draft pick, which was later flipped for Wil Suárez.  Suárez is still trying to get a permanent PEBA gig.  Adriaanse went to Japan after a lackluster 2008, and Horiuchi did the same after his time as a Nutmegger came to a close in 2012.  To say Horiuchi was not at all like Cline is like saying a doghouse is not the same as Buckingham Palace.  Horiuchi never hit over .213, even in part-time roles, and his OBP never rose above .301.  A quote from the time of the trade: “Connecticut is getting some big-time talent interjected in the system.  Looks like the proverbial trade that works for both sides.”  Not so much.

Rick Glendenning – Third Base

Glendenning is the classic tempting power hit who really isn’t good at much of anything else.  He was so bad for the Nutmeggers in 2007 that he was put on waivers, where the Featherheads were tempted.  He bounced around the minors for a bit, got claimed on waivers again by Aurora and then traded to Tempe.  His current gig with Gloucester came courtesy of the Rule 5 draft.  In other words, everybody wants him but few want to pay for him.  He has hit for power when given the chance to play.  In 2011, he put together a high average and some walks for his best year.  The Fishermen have now signed him to a three-year contract extension, so perhaps he’ll be around for a bit.

Kevin Howell – Starting Pitcher

Howell is probably best categorized as a junkballer.  He mixes his pitches to keep batters off balance despite having underwhelming stuff.  Used as a reliever with the 2007 Nutmeggers, he was put in the rotation in 2008 by the Fishermen, and he’s been there ever since.  Never great but never terrible, his 15-7, 3.47 ERA season in 2011 has been the high point thus far in his career.  There’s probably little better term for Howell than “serviceable”, but that probably undervalues him slightly.  Gloucester picked him up from the Nutmeggers after the 2007 season, and despite the fact that there were five names involved, the only one that anyone bothers to remember is Howell’s.

Ken Krause – First Base

Krause’s poor 2007 earned him a permanent trip to the minors until West Virginia rescued him via the 2010 Rule 5 draft.  Naturally, he hit 24 home runs in 2011, most of which came with Palm Springs, who claimed him off waivers in early April.  Those Codgers won 96 games and still missed the playoffs – no wonder they’re so grumpy.  Anyway, as quickly as he came, he vanished.  Krause’s play has been pretty uninspiring since then, as he just hasn’t been able to keep his average up.

Miguel Lluea – Third Base

Of all the players on this list, Lluea is the only one that didn’t play all of 2007 with Connecticut.  Lluea began the season with the Coal Sox but was traded in early July to the Nutmeggers.  The trade involved eight players, but the two other players of note were reliever Chris McKinney going to Connecticut and starter Jorge Sánchez going to West Virginia.  McKinney had a couple of solid relief seasons, primarily with London, while Sánchez has bounced around a bit with no lasting success.  In contrast, Lluea stayed with Connecticut through the 2010 season, eventually developing into a 30-home run player and All-Star.  The team then traded him and some draft picks to New Orleans for starter Chandler Davis, which appears to have been just the right time.  Davis has been quite good since the trade, while Lluea has reverted to hacking and hoping.

Jason Oliver – Starting Pitcher

If you want to know a bit of what it’s like to be a Nutmegger, then it’s useful to hear that Oliver was an All-Star in 2008 despite going 6-16 on the year, his career high for losses.  His record indicates the highly anemic offenses that have typified Connecticut lineups, but his middle-of-the-pack ERA also indicates that there weren’t many other options on the team.  At 58 wins, it was the worst team in Nutmeggers history.  He was 4-10 with the Nutmeggers when they traded him and three other starters to the Coal Sox.  It’s unclear if this trade was merciful or merciless to Oliver, but it was definitely a move up in the standings for him.  On the Connecticut side, the players received were quite good.  Starter Hamilton Cole, first baseman Tom Kirkland and right fielder Bernardo Marín all had a positive impact on the team, although none of them would be around for too much longer.  Oliver has since been used where he really belongs; at the back of the rotation.  He also took a year off to recover a strained forearm but, in general, he’s been as good as or better than he ever was in Connecticut.  This year, he played a part in Omaha’s surprising early season push to put themselves in the playoff hunt.

Roberto Rodríguez – Left Field

There were only two All-Stars on the 2007 Nutmeggers.  Cline was one; Rodríguez was the other.  Yes, both are on this list, and neither lasted two seasons with the club.  Rodríguez’s strong play in 2007 earned him a big five-year contract extension, but as the team began looking for ways to build up the farm system, he was sent to San Antonio midway through 2008.  The 2007 Calzones had been to the postseason, but things weren’t looking as good in 2008.  In return, Connecticut got a number of prospects, as well as picks in each of the first four rounds of the draft.  None of the prospects ever amounted to anything, but the draft picks weren’t as bad.  First rounder Oliver Douglas has spent some promising time in the minors and is just now getting a real taste of PEBA pitching.  He hasn’t done much yet, but there is still hope for him.  If he were the best of the lot, then this trade would’ve been terrible, but the third round pick was none other than Ronald Lowry, one of the most productive hitters drafted that year.  As for Rodríguez, he’s been an All-Star twice more since leaving Connecticut, bouncing from San Antonio to New Orleans to Tempe and now Omaha, mashing opponent pitching at each stop along the way.