Guerrero Is a Real Impact Player

For a team and franchise plagued with so many complications that it all seems beyond solution, this latest injury is among the most significant of the complications.

Are we talking here about the loss of Darren Dreifort and how that dilutes the Dodgers’ dominant pitching and complicates the playoff bid of the Hitless Wonders?

(How else to describe an offense that had scored two runs or fewer in 20 games and three or fewer in half of the 60 they had played before Saturday night?)

Well, the loss of the dogged Dreifort is a serious development, indeed, but for the moment we’re talking about the herniated disk that has put superstar right fielder Vladimir Guerrero on the Montreal Expos’ disabled list for the first time since 1997 and left his future as uncertain as that of his team.

“There are a lot of teams out there that have these kinds of injuries,” General Manager Omar Minaya said Thursday, when an MRI test revealed the disk injury. “We’re going to have to gut through it. Fortunately, we were able to get off to a good start. The fact that we have a good start gives us a little bit of cushion.”

How the loss of the 27-year-old Guerrero -- who will see a back specialist in Miami on Monday -- affects the road-weary and virtually homeless Expos as they try to maintain their National League wild-card lead and keep the Atlanta Braves within hailing distance in the NL East is almost the least of the complications -- although it would be unwise to say that to Manager Frank Robinson and his undaunted players.

It’s simply that in the bigger and longer-term picture, the possible loss of Guerrero for an extended period seriously affects the Expos’ situation in several other ways.

For one, of course, back channel discussions between the Expos and Guerrero’s agent to see if it would be possible to re-sign the talented outfielder 1) within budget restrictions dictated by the commissioner’s office and 2) before Guerrero became one of baseball’s most coveted free agents at the end of the season are now on hold.

For another, without a clearer understanding of their possible ability to re-sign Guerrero before the July 31 trade deadline, would they still be able to trade a player whose physical status might also be in question, scaring off suitors?

Had there been enough negotiations for the Expos to know if they have or had a shot at re-signing Guerrero?

A club official was reluctant to talk about the situation but said, “We know Vlady likes his teammates and likes being in a situation where the spotlight isn’t as bright, but both sides were having trouble pinpointing where he fits in a market that a lot of people in the industry believe reached its pinnacle and began going in the opposite direction last winter.”

With the Expos playing the final game of their second Puerto Rican home stand today (the last six of the 22 games here are scheduled for September), the next few weeks will go a long way toward determining Guerrero’s physical status, the Expos’ ability to stay competitive without him and their hopes for a permanent home in 2004 -- a hope that might not be resolved.

Currently, as baseball’s relocation committee continues an investigation into the Washington, Northern Virginia and Portland, Ore., markets, Chief Operating Officer Bob DuPuy has also been talking with San Juan promoter Antonio Munoz about increasing the number of games that the Expos would play here next year while also continuing to call Montreal home, so to speak.

At this point, none of the three U.S. communities has actually been visited by the relocation committee, received legislative approval of stadium financing plans or had prospective owners meet with the committee, making it highly doubtful that baseball can reach a decision on a permanent home by the All-Star game, the initial targeting date.

As DuPuy said, during the Angels’ recent series here, “The longer this goes on [without a decision on a permanent home], the better the chance that San Juan will be hosting more games next year.”

Many of the Montreal players said they don’t mind the San Juan concept, but “it would be a big improvement,” said one, “if we would play a full season in either Montreal or Puerto Rico and avoid these ridiculous road trips.”

“Of course,” he said, “they’d have to push the fences back and make some other improvements in the stadium here [there are plans in place] if we were to play more games. It plays far too small the way it is.”

The Expos opened the season with 20 games on the road, including 10 in San Juan, and, including the current six here, are on a 22-game, 25-day trip.

The commissioner’s office understands the stress that the players are under by playing home games in two cities and would like to reduce costs by consolidating the club’s staff in one or the other, according to the club official.

He added, however, that the possibility of playing 81 games in San Juan seems remote, citing what he called an “absence of that kind of disposable income and fan base” and an “appreciable demonstration to this point” that fans here will regularly come out to see those teams that don’t have a Puerto Rican player or a core number of Hispanic players.

No team has more than the Expos, but that could change, and Guerrero is again in the middle of that.

Depending on his health, the Expos’ position in the race and the trade deadline approach of the subsidizing commissioner’s office (will the Expos be allowed to add players or be forced to drop them?), Guerrero, Jose Vidro and Javier Vazquez could all be gone.

Of course, if that happens, it will make it difficult for the relocation committee to get the $300 million that it is rumored to want from a new owner.

It would also make it difficult to take the Expos back to Montreal for even fewer games than they are playing there this year, although a larger slate in San Juan will do that no matter who’s in the lineup.

It remains a complicated mess, almost as painful as Guerrero’s herniated disk.