By now you may have read or read about Geoff Baker’s article about the acquisition of Josh Lueke and the apparent disconnect between Mariners then-pitching coach Rick Adair, GM Jack Zduriencik, President Chuck Armstrong and Rangers GM Jon Daniels with regards to the felony charges, jail time and baseball suspension Lueke and the Rangers dealt with in 2009.  In case you do not remember, Lueke faced two rape charges before pleading no contest to a lesser crime (false imprisonment) as part of a plea deal that year.

Before we start breaking down the actual “he said, she said” I wanted to address some fans out there who are upset by the article.  Many of you have been chastising Baker for bringing up this story again, opening old wounds and keeping this dark cloud over the heads of Lueke and the Mariners.  It’s bad for the team!

Don’t be silly.  Yes, the team would be better off if this would just go away, but Baker does not work for the Mariners.  It is not his job to make the Mariners look good.  It is his job to report on the team while helping bring traffic to the Seattle Times website and sell their newspapers.  In that regard he did a helluva job.  His article featured fair, straight forward and interesting reporting while gaining national attention.

Back to the Lueke story.  Here’s what we knew coming in: When the Cliff Lee trade went down, thousands of beat writers, bloggers and fans quickly found out via a simple Google search about Lueke’s incident.  This became a point of interest for obvious reasons and the stories began pumping out.  Armstrong was apparently blindsided by this information, stating that he was “not aware” of the rape charges prior to the acquisition.  Armstrong, as president of a club that is heavily invested in Refuse to Abuse and has shown zero tolerance in the past with this sort of thing (Julio Mateo), was understandably upset.

Upset enough to demand Zduriencik to get Lueke out of the deal, as we learned in Baker’s more recent writeup (which you should go read to get further context, detailed account of what happened to Lueke, and quotes).  And the Rangers weren’t necessarily opposed to this.  Based on Zduriencik’s comments, it seems as though Daniels downplayed the Lueke situation a bit, and that he said Lueke had been acquitted, exonerated, cleared, or whatever– which simply was not the case.  I can understand how a slip of the tongue could lead to that misunderstanding.  Again, Lueke took a plea bargain that helped him escape the rape charges in exchange for a false imprisonment charge, which helped him close the book on the case as he had already spent more time in jail awaiting trial than he wound up being sentenced.

Lueke couldn’t simply be swapped out by the time Armstrong and Zduriencik caught on, however, but Daniels offered to take Lueke back in a separate trade, an offer that reportedly still stands.

As if that wasn’t messy enough, Adair, who knows Lueke and other Ranger prospects from his time working in the Ranger farm system, claimed to have warned Zduriencik of Lueke’s off-field trouble.  Zduriencik denied this, saying his conversations with Adair only included on-field ability.  Adair is also quoted as saying Lueke’s arrest was “common knowledge”.  Well, it should have been.

What does this all mean?  Yeesh.

First of all, can the Mariners send Lueke back if they want?  It’s not that simple.  Sending him back means coming to terms with division rival Texas on another player to take his place.  Even if Daniels feels like he goofed by saying Lueke was “acquitted” (or whatever he said), he’s not just going to roll over and give the Mariners a good player.  Besides, off-field issues aside, Lueke is a guy Zduriencik presumably wanted who figures to play a big role on the Mariners next season if he isn’t sent away.

And maybe he will be.  I have wondered since the trade if Armstrong might order Lueke away, perhaps thrown into an offseason trade or something.  Or maybe they’ll move past it.  Lueke was flown in to Seattle to meet with Armstrong and Zduriencik.  Armstrong has reportedly met with Refuse to Abuse about the situation.  Perhaps Lueke will get a shot.  We’ll see.

Also since the first “Armstrong unhappy” reports I’ve wondered if Zduriencik might have known more than he is willing to let on.  Is he trying to cover his tracks while keeping a player that he really wants?  Maybe.  Or maybe he really didn’t know.  No one except Adair is accusing Zduriencik of knowing the situation, and even Adair’s comments leave one to wonder how straight forward he was with Zduriencik.  If Adair thought it was “common knowledge” perhaps he only alluded to it.  And if he only alluded to it, perhaps he though Zduriencik knew what he was talking about, when Zduriencik only knew what Daniels had told him about Lueke getting arrested following a bar incident and being acquitted.

But when it comes down to it, it doesn’t matter whether Zduriencik knew or not.  He should have known.  It was the first thing that popped up on a Google search at the time of the trade.  How does a team miss that?  (For what it’s worth, Zduriencik says that it is now the team’s policy to perform internet searches on any player they’re interested in.)  And that question leads to the “fire Zduriencik” talk, which is… tiring.

In the end there is no way of knowing , but it still makes an interesting drama in a season full of them.

What a mess.  This team is a mess.  Here’s to a drama free offseason! (Yeah, right.)

Jeff Sullivan and Rob Neyer are among those who have weighed in on the most recent chapter of this Mariners-Lueke saga, so check them out as well.