Former Southeast standout Moses stays involved in baseball a year after his release from Braves organization

In college, a shoulder injury was the turning point in a positive direction for former Southeast Missouri State baseball standout Trenton Moses.

At the professional level, injuries were the ultimate undoing of the two-time Ohio Valley Conference Player of the Year who was drafted in the 26th round by the Atlanta Braves after a monster senior campaign in 2012.

Three years after a promising season with the Advanced Rookie Level Danville Braves in Danville, Virginia, the former Advance High School star and Redhawks All-American can be found passing on his love of the game as a hitting coach for the Missouri Bulls 17u team and as an instructor at the Balls-n-Strikes practice and instruction facility in Cape Girardeau.

Lids Missouri Bulls 17u hitting coach Trenton Moses leaves the field after his team's at-bat Thursday, July 23, 2015 in St. Louis. (Fred Lynch)

"I really enjoy working with these high-schoolers," Moses said. "Any time you can help a kid out, you may not always do the right things or say the right things, but anytime you can help one of them out, it's really rewarding. I just really enjoy it whenever they experience some success. It's pretty cool to me."

At age 26, Moses is not far removed from an amateur playing career that few can parallel.

He batted over .500 his final two years of high school, then moved on to Southeast, where led the nation in on-base percentage (.531) and slugging percentage (.761) in pulverizing college pitching his senior year, batting over .400 and slugging 19 home runs in the process. In earning his second OVC Player of the Year award, the third baseman was just one of three players in conference history to achieve that distinction.

His mammoth senior season, which landed him on the Golden Spikes Award Watch list for the top amateur player in the country and a Dick Howser Award semifinalist for the nations' top collegiate player, came after a breakout junior season that gathered All-American honors and followed a year on the sideline.

He had totaled just six home runs and batted .264 over his first two years at Southeast before injuring his shoulder four games into his junior year and redshirting.

"That was kind of a blessing in disguise, I think," Moses said of a torn labrum he sustained diving back into a bag. "I really learned to appreciate the game. You don't realize how fast it cam be taken away."

That lesson point was cruelly expounded upon as a promising Braves prospect after a pair of training injuries, the latter a broken foot that ultimately led to two surgeries and being released by the Braves last summer.

"I never seemed to make it to spring training," Moses said with a chuckle. "It's kind of crazy. I'd be getting ready to go both times and something fluke happened."

After leading the Danville squad in batting after signing in 2012, Moses broke a bone in his right hand while batting at Southeast as he trained for the start of his first full season in the minors in 2013.

His season started a few weeks late, but after a move to first base he quickly was batting .388 with the Class A Rome (Ga.) Braves and was promoted to the Lynchburg (Va.) Hillcats, the Braves' high Class A team, in late June of 2013.

Lids Missouri Bulls coach Trenton Moses watches his players from the dugout Thursday, July 23, 2015 in St. Louis. (Fred Lynch)

He struggled at times at Lynchburg, hitting .220 through 36 games, but he managed to lift his average to .259 over the final 28 games.

"In low A I experienced a lot of success, and I hit that jump to high A, and those pitchers, they can really pitch," Moses said. "They know how to get people out. I struggled through it a bit, but I finished strong and I felt pretty good about my chances, but that's just the way it works. I think the biggest thing to me, I realize I'm not the first person that this has happened to and won't be the last."

What happened was a mishap early in 2014. After years of diving for ground balls, sliding into bags and getting hit by pitches, his career-ending injury came in a workout session at Southeast.

"I was warming up for my weightlifting and feeling pretty good that day and just rolled my ankle over and my foot broke," Moses said. "I at first thought I had just rolled my ankle, but it was my foot."

Moses said the injury was the same type sustained by the Oklahoma Thunder's Kevin Durant that forced the NBA All-Star to miss most of this past season.

"It's a tough injury to heal, they say, because there is poor blood flow to that spot in your foot," Moses said.

The injury required an operation, which eventually led to a lot of time that summer rehabilitating in Orlando, Florida, where he experienced his best and worst moments as a professional.

His down time allowed him to witness the major league debut of former Southeast teammate Shae Simmons, a Scott City native who was drafted four rounds earlier by the Braves in 2012.

"One of the coolest experiences of my professional career was, the shortstop from Austin Peay [Reed Harper], he was drafted by the Braves, too, we were both rehabbing down in Orlando at the time Shea got called up, and he actually made his debut in Miami, and we went down and actually got to go down and see his debut," Moses said. "To me that was one of the best moments of my pro career. I was probably more nervous than Shae was out there pitching."

The lowest of notes came shortly therafter.

"I was there [in Florida] from March until June or July, and we just found out that it was still broken, and I got released," Moses said. "I had another surgery in July of last year. That was the end of it for me. The end of my road, my playing career."

Lids Missouri Bulls coach Trenton Moses watches the game from the dugout Thursday, July 23, 2015 in St. Louis. (Fred Lynch)

The reality was hard to confront for someone who had started playing baseball at age 6 and had been on a tangible path to experience the dream played out in the heads of youngsters worldwide.

"It was tough at first," Moses said. "As a competitor, you never want to say you're hanging up your cleats or anything. And I tried giving it a go. I was in training for it a little bit in January and February [of this year] and my body wasn't really responding, so I just decided to go in a different direction. It was tough, like I said, but now that I'm away from it, I'm still involved with baseball. It's making it a little easier."

Moses said his initial thought was to catch on with an Independent League team like the Southern Illinois Miners or Gateway Grizzlies, but he was aware his classification was more suspect than prospect.

"I would have been a 26-year-old independent ballplayer, and not a lot of teams are going to look at that, and say, 'Well, we'll give him another shot,'" Moses said.

He has worked at Balls-n-Strikes the past couple of years and he volunteered with the Southeast Missouri State baseball team last fall to try to figure out whether he might like to coach on the college level.

He earned a degree in business management while at Southeast, and he married his high-school sweetheart, Angie, who has earned a master's degree and instructs LPN at the Career and Technology Center at Central High School. The couple lives in Jackson.

"She supported me through it all," Moses said about his wife. "I couldn't have done it without her."

His ultimate goal is to return to professional baseball in some capacity.

"Hopefully back with the Braves doing something," Moses said. "I'm hoping to get into the scouting aspect, but at this point it's just kind of a waiting game, and hopefully something transpires from that."

He said he keeps in touch with Terry Tripp, the Braves area scout that signed him.

"I bonded with him throughout the whole injury," Moses said. "It was pretty frustrating when you're sitting down in Florida in a hotel room all the time. He helped me through it a lot. He was there through it all."

As he tries to figure out the next stage of his life, he realizes he's already had some unique opportunities, including being an All-American about 30 minutes from his home.

"I feel very blessed," Moses said. "Getting to play in my own backyard, that was the coolest thing of all time."

As for his itch to play the game, and relive those glory days, there is still an option -- on the field he once starred, no less.

"At some time if I decide I want to play bad enough, I can always go and play for the Capahas," Moses said.