Rollin' Over Scott

Isn't it strange when your predictions come true?

Well, kind of.

Way back in December, during Baseball's Winter Meetings, I discussed the prospect of the Jays doing exactly what they accomplished today: Picking up a new third baseman.

Now I'm wondering whether or not JP Ricciardi has tapped my phone and is opening my mail.

(Okay, so my scenario was a little harder to work as it involved two trades: The first, a three team swap with San Diego and Detroit that had Josh Towers leaving and Brandon Inge coming to T.O., and then a second deal involving Troy Glaus being dealt to San Fran. But we can't always get what we want, or else Megan Fox and Taylor Swift would be fighting over me...)

As of Saturday afternoon, numerous sources were reporting that the Toronto Blue Jays and the St. Louis Cardinals had agreed, in principal, to swap third basemen, while as of Monday afternoon, the only formality is to have each pass a physical.

In short, unless either has suffered a major setback in their rehab process, Scott Rolen is now a Toronto Blue Jay, and Troy Glaus will be hitting behind Albert Pujols under the arch in St. Louis.

From what I've heard however, fans of the Jays are looking at this deal very skeptically, as if to think that this deal is a deterrent from the squad heading into 2008.

Well that definitely isn't the case (and might I add, it's nice to have controversy in Toronto that doesn't stem from the Leafs and their futility).

The first area that Rolen pays immediate dividends, is his defense. Over a career spent exclusively at third base between Philadelphia and St. Louis, Rolen holds a .966 career fielding percentage, which is a full seventeen points ahead of Glaus' career .949 (Random Note: Glaus has a perfect 1.000 rating in 70 1/3 innings at shortstop. These are things I think you should know).

Despite playing in 300 more games than Glaus (1501-1200) on defense, Rolen's numbers (1145 put-outs, 3110 assists, 148 errors, and 278 double plays) are so far ahead of Glaus' (800 PO, 2238 A, 163 E, 221 DP) that even if Glaus were to post two consecutive years of his career-highs (226 PO, 348 A, and 37 DP) the only stat in which he would surpass Rolen is double plays turned (295-278).

Oh, Rolen's also won seven Gold Glove awards, but who's counting?

Now let's move on to offense shall we?

Well, aside the career home run totals (278-261 in favor of Glaus), Rolen leads Glaus in career average, runs, hits RBI, total bases, walks, on-base percentage, and slugging percentage, as well as accumulating fewer strikeouts (1097-1165) over his career.

Even with Glaus' inflated home run totals, Rolen's RBI-to-games played percentage (0.67) is four points greater than that of Glaus' (0.64).

The only place which Glaus trumps Rolen, is during post-season play. All of Glaus' offensive statistics are well above Rolen's, and he's even struck out fewer times (18 for Glaus, 22 for Rolen). Both also have World Series rings, but Glaus still holds the distinction of the World Series MVP award from 2002. (Ironically enough, the winner of the 2006 award, David Eckstein, played with Rolen in St. Louis on that championship team. I guess just go with what works.)

Then the question remains about Rolen's health.

Both he and Glaus sustained injuries during the season: Glaus to his foot, and Rolen to his left shoulder, but here's where we have to get a little inventive...

Both these players injuries (Rolen's shoulder and Glaus' foot) have the potential to be completely debilitating. If one were to flare up however (in a non-serious, no surgery kind of way) I would feel more comfortable about playing Rolen over Glaus and batting Scott at the bottom of the order.

The potential for both to be rendered useless by their injuries is fairly high, but Rolen could still play some semblance of his defensive self with his shoulder injury (depending on whether or not he could plausibly field and play defense effectively).

Meanwhile, with Glaus' injury, he's hampered on both ends of the spectrum. If his foot flares up, you are suddenly stuck with a slow-moving, stuck-in-the-mud defender, who would encounter the same issues running the bases.

So if any of you Jays fans out there were concerned about having Scott Rolen as your third baseman, then I hope I quelled your fears. If not, at least you've got a Matt Damon/Patrick Swayze/Ray Liotta look-a-like.

Oh the magic of face recognition.