Baltimore Orioles: Conner Greene, from living out of an RV to MLB mound
Conner Greene, 26, spends a typical day during the offseason in Venice, California, sitting outside of his house on the water with his dog, Jax. He has no problem staying busy, spending his time hiking, surfing, hanging out at the beach and doing gymnastics.
“I love doing more core and stability-based activities that you can only really get through gymnastic-types of workouts. I am a nut for any sort of cardio type of workouts” Greene said.
A 2013 draft pick straight out of high school by the Toronto Blue Jays, Greene began rapidly ascending through their minor league system, later spending time in the minor league affiliates of the St. Louis Cardinals and Kansas City Royals before coming close to his first real shot at big league action.
Beginnings
Heading into the 2020 regular season as a member of the Kansas City Royals, Greene was pitching in what was then his fifth consecutive spring training without cracking the big league roster.
Leading the Royals was Mike Matheny, a manager that Greene had played under in the past as a member of the St. Louis Cardinals organization.
“I was ready to go, pitching better than I felt I ever had before. I wanted to make him (Matheny) proud”, he said. Greene’s tenure in big league camp in 2020 was brief. “I walked the first three batters I faced in my first game but was hitting triple-digits on my fastball. They pulled me out of the game, sent me down to minor league camp and didn’t bring me to the alternate site. Then COVID happened. It sucked.”
When COVID-19 was running rampant throughout all of professional sports, Minor League Baseball suffered more than almost any other league. While the Major League Baseball season was shortened to 60 games, the minor league season was canceled altogether, leaving many, many players – including Greene – out of a job for the year.
When Greene was sent packing by the Royals, he knew that living with his father in a one-bedroom apartment was no longer going to be plausible. The demotion was a huge wakeup call, as he did not expect to be heading back home so early. He had his sights set on making the big league roster. “I just got left at home”, said Greene; “I didn’t have any money, I hadn’t made it to the big leagues yet and the pay is so different. I knew I had to find a new place to live and was just really down on my luck”. So began the search to find a new living situation.
“I prayed every day. ‘God, universe, anybody, please help me’, I need a place to live”.
As if God, the universe, or anyone in between heard Conner Greene’s prayers, help came along in a place he never expected it to. His girlfriend at the time told him that her parents had an old RV rotting in their yard that had gone untouched for years. Greene reached out to her parents, longtime close family friends of his, and got it … for free. Fix it up, change the battery, change the tires and he was golden. “Just had to continue working out, throwing weighted balls at a pad up against the RV and wait for the phone to ring.”
Overnight parking quickly became an issue for Greene. “It was so beautiful, so peaceful. Getting to park the RV in different places and see all the sights, it was an incredible journey. The cops didn’t like me parking the RV overnight in public settings, I needed to find land to park on.” Enter Geraldine Gilliland.
Geraldine Gilliland
Geraldine Gilliland, a well known Los Angeles-area chef, author and restaurant owner happened to be the very person that Greene adopted his dog, Jax, from a few months beforehand. Greene, feeling down on his luck, reached out to Gilliland, who he knew had landed in Malibu, and asked if he could maybe work out a deal with her. Turns out, there was a deal to be made.
“She needed help on her land running Chiquita’s Friends so I call her and say ‘Geraldine, I’m a pro baseball player looking to get my feet under me. Can I trade work for rent on your land?”, says Greene. He continued, “She was an absolute angel about it. She told me she supports me and my career and that she would definitely help me out and do the deal.”
Chiquita’s Friends is an organization that Gilliland has run since its inception in 2011. Gilliland’s mission is to rescue, provide sanctuary for, and adopt out to suitable homes senior dogs, dogs with special needs, or neglected canines.
Gilliland was thrilled to hear from Greene and thrilled for the opportunity to see Jax again. Jax, a sweet dog affectionately labeled as a “Tijuana Terrier,” mixed with a little bit of everything, Gilliland took him in when she saw him starving and alone in the streets of Tecate, Mexico. After nursing the dog back to health, Greene came calling and adopted him instantly.
“When Conner called, he instantly became a part of our family”, Gilliland said when we chatted over the phone, “He’s a wonderful person who I always knew would do well. He would take dogs to the vet, feed them, clean them, clean the land for me and do anything and everything I needed. Everyone who has ever met him has fallen in love with him.”
Baltimore Orioles
With his living situation becoming a little bit clearer, Greene began to train at a local gym in the Malibu area with a whole slew of Major League Baseball players including Joe Ryan, Andrew Lambo, Hunter Greene, Tyler Heineman, Scott Heineman and, perhaps most notably, Ryan Braun, who was staying in game shape before announcing his retirement from the game later in the year.
After electing minor-league free agency at the conclusion of the lost 2020 season, Greene was officially on the market and optimistic about his chances of finding a job for the upcoming 2021 season. After training tirelessly and believing that his time was coming, Mike Snyder, the Director of Pro Scouting for the Baltimore Orioles called and told Greene that he had a real shot at making the big league team and that the Orioles would like to bring him aboard on a minor-league contract with an invite to major league camp.
Through grit, belief, conviction, confidence and faith, Greene rode a solid 2.00 Spring Training ERA in nine innings to put himself firmly on the Orioles’ radar. While he didn’t make the big league club out of camp, he spent the first portion of his 2021 season at the Triple-A Norfolk. While his numbers did not look all that great on the surface, he finally received the call to the bigs on July 24.
After calling every member of his family and friend circle, Greene made his big league debut three days later against the Miami Marlins and struck out Magneuris Sierra and Sandy Leon, pitching two innings of two-hit, one run ball while regularly hitting nearly triple-digits on his fastball. “I hit (Starling) Marte with a fastball which wasn’t that great”, he laughs, “But to have my dad and my best friend and his family there in person to see me strikeout my first major league batter on three straight pitches, that’s what it was all about right there.”
Through three games with the Orioles, Greene’s ERA had ballooned to 14.73 after two consecutive poor outings after his debut. Suddenly, he found himself on waivers once again. “You want to win the (bleeping) championship with your boys. Being called into the manager’s office is never a good feeling. Getting DFA’d sucks”, said Greene. “It comes back to the grit of grinding your way through life. I was thankful to Mike Elias and the Orioles for taking a chance on me, but I knew there was a light at the end of the tunnel for me and was looking forward to the next opportunity”. The light at the end of this tunnel came in the form of the injury-riddled Los Angeles Dodgers.
Los Angeles Dodgers
On Aug. 9, Greene was claimed off of waivers by the Los Angeles Dodgers, his hometown team. “I knew exactly what I needed to work on to get to and stay in the game’s highest level”, he said.
Joining a championship-level organization like the Dodgers, Greene knew he had to make mechanical adjustments if he was going to stick with his new club. Already an owner of an above-average changeup, Greene immediately took to work with the Dodgers’ coaches, making minor tweaks to both his change and slider to make the pitches harder to pick up on out of his hand and add some movement on to both. Unfortunately for Greene, his tenure with the Dodgers was a short one, as he made just two relief appearances for the club, allowing zero earned runs and striking out two over two innings. When the Dodgers signed free agent pitcher Shane Greene, it was Conner Greene who lost his spot on the 40-man for the newest member of the team.
Second tenure in Baltimore
Encouraged by his mechanical changes with the Dodgers, Greene was once again optimistic about his chances to continue his major league career. In what was the best possible scenario, the Orioles re-claimed him off of waivers, allowing him to return to the only big league organization he had known before he moved to Los Angeles. “I got to apply the things I learned out west and had a brand new mindset to succeed in the big leagues”, he said on the move back to Baltimore.
After he was added straight to the big league roster, Greene’s numbers began to quickly improve on his stat-line. In 11 games after rejoining the Baltimore Orioles staff, Greene posted a 1.88 ERA in 14.1 innings and lowered his ERA on the season all the way down to 4.05 with a 2.97 FIP. Thanks to a few poor outings near the end of the season, his ERA rose back up to 7.11 but his FIP remained at 3.41, suggesting that his second tenure through the O’s organization was by no means a failure.
On November 3, the Orioles outrighted Greene back to the minors; he rejected the assignment and became a free agent for the first time in his career.
“Believe it or not, the phase I’m currently at has been the peak of my career. More than my MLB debut. It’s been exciting hearing from multiple clubs who want me on their team, it makes me feel like everything I’ve gone through in the past year has been worth it tenfold”, he said.
Just a short while later, news broke that the Baltimore Orioles have once again signed Greene to a minor-league contract. His improved repertoire showed the team all they needed to see before opting to bring him back once more.
Reliever Conner Greene has reported to camp #orioles
— Roch Kubatko (@masnRoch) March 16, 2022
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