BY PAUL BETIT

Portland Press Herald

After spending the last two summers recovering from shoulder surgery, Mark Rogers may soon receive a new lease on his baseball life.

The Milwaukee Brewers, who made Rogers the fifth pick in the 2004 draft, must decide by Thursday whether to put the Orr's Island native on its 40-man roster.

If the Brewers don't add Rogers to their major league roster, he will become eligible for the Rule 5 free agent draft, which will be held Dec. 7 during the baseball's winter meetings in Las Vegas.

"We either have to place him on our 40-man roster or he gets exposed and another team can claim him for $50,000," Milwaukee general manager Doug Melvin explained, in a recent telephone interview.

No matter what happens during the next three weeks, Rogers, a right-handed pitcher who signed a $2.2 million contract five years ago following his graduation from of Mt. Ararat High School, intends to return to the mound next season.

"I'm not done," he said. "I'm either going to be with the (Brewers) or with somebody else."

Rogers, who was in Maine for a recent visit, hopes he will be able stay with Milwaukee.

"I really want to stay with the Brewers," he said. "We've come a long way together, and I have a lot of trust in them, and I hope they feel the same about me."

Melvin, who was running the Brewers at the time the club drafted Rogers, remained noncommittal.

"We won't know until next Thursday," he said. "We need to get some more input from our staff."

Rogers, who turns 23 in January, has not pitched in a baseball game since July 2006 when he injured his right shoulder while playing for the Brevard County Manatees in the Class A Florida State League.

The following January, he underwent surgery to repair a torn labrum and tighten a loose ligament.

Last June, Rogers underwent arthroscopic procedures to remove scar tissue that developed after the earlier surgery.

"A lot of people will have this kind of surgery and the scar tissue will break up naturally over time, and mine didn't," he said. "It was a real easy surgery, so I came back and I instantly felt a hundred times better. I had full range of motion and a full arm path, and I just felt like I did before the surgery."

In early August, Rogers, whose fastball has been timed in excess of 100 miles per hour, began throwing a baseball again.

When play in the fall instructional league ended last month in Arizona, where Rogers lives, he was up to throwing 45 pitches per session.

"I haven't seen him throwing to hitters, but from a rehab standpoint he's done well," Melvin said. "He's worked hard."

Melvin is impressed with how optimistic Rogers has remained through nearly two years of physical rehabilitation.

"The toughest part is the psychological part for a young player is not to get discouraged," he said. "He's starting to see some progress."

If Rogers is exposed to the Rule 5 draft and isn't claimed by another major league team, the Brewers retain the rights to him.

If another major league baseball team does claim Rogers in the December draft, it must assign him to their 40-man roster and he must spend the first 90 days of the next baseball season with the major league team.

"It's hard for me to be in this position because there's nothing I can do," Rogers said. "The only thing I can control is what I can control. For the last year and a half, it's been rehab and showing that I am healthy now and can get back on track to where I was before."