It's official
TORONTO — I don’t know if they accidentally examined Troy Glaus’ shoulder and Scott Rolen’s foot, but the pair of third basemen have passed their respective medical exams and are switching cities.
Monday night, the Blue Jays and Cardinals officially announced that the trade that’s sending Glaus to St. Louis and Rolen to Toronto was complete. Now, time will tell whether or not Glaus (left foot surgery in Sept.) and Rolen (left shoulder surgery in Sept.) can bounce back from their injuries and be the All-Stars they once were.
The Jays are flying Rolen to Toronto for a press conference on Tuesday. Once we’re all done interviewing him, us Toronto scribes can swarm GM J.P. Ricciardi and get back to backup catcher watch. I’ll be bringing play-by-play manana. Later all.
UPDATE: Tuesday, 9:44 p.m. — Coverage of the Scott Rolen presser should be on MLB.com before too long. I’ll blog some of the stuff I didn’t include in the story later on. For now, I need to hit the gym. In short, Rolen seems like a great guy, had the rooming in stitches at some points, and Ricciardi said the club has a few minor things still in the works to upgrade the bench. More to come…
Major League Bastian 
Now that all the specultation is over. It time to start speculating about the next unexpected move in the Jays “quiet” off season.
Will Rios get traded for more pitching? Can J.P. Swing a deal for Eric Bedard? Will a team make a worth while offer for A.J. Burnett when the Santana Sweepstakes are over?
It’s been a really fun offseason….
The Rollen trade makes signing Eckstein look really, really good. Jordan, you will have to ask JP if he planned it that way.
If this has talking since the Winter Meetings, the Eckstein signing makes even more sense now.
nraraoen
It clearly hasn’t been going on that long. St. Louis was trying to work out a deal with Milwaukee until just recently. So this deal really only started a week to maybe two weeks ago.
The interesting question, I hope someone asks JP today is who made the first call JP or St. Louis?
If you’d like to view the Scot Rolen press conference live at 5.45PM EST today, go to the following url:
http://click.mlb.com/ct/click?q=c5-8BcDQzO3TpRJAk0zSdILJosohq4R
Enjoy.
Sumner,
I’ve been wondering the same thing. It doesn’t really matter in the grand scheme of things but i’m really curious about it. If you read this soon J.p. will be interviewed on the fan after 3:20 I believe. Also thanks for the link.
Something else (nearly) official: Josh Towers is heading to Colorado. Not breaking news, surely, but nice to see him in the mix for a starting job with a World Series team.
enigma
missed the fan interview. Also the link I published takes you to the front page of the Jays web site where the interview is carried. I didn’t realize that at the time I made the last post since at that time the link wasn’t on the site.
I saw him with Barry Davis of sportsnet. He seems ligitimately excited about coming to Toronto.
Does anybody know how similar or different Rolen’s and Wells’ shoulder injuries are ? Considering that Rolen needed 3 surguries I am beginning to wonder if Wells will have a similar outcome?
enigma
Totally different. Rolen hurt his shoulder in a collision with the Dodgers’ Hee-Seop Choi and had two major surgeries on it. This last one was microscopic surgery cleaning up scar tissue to allow fullmovement.
Wells had a slight tear-I believe, and a cyst, so they are different problems.
In the Rolen interview, it certainly sounded to me that he was happy with the results of this last surgery.
Enigma
Watching the press interview, I felt Rolen was indeed happy to be here and start over. I also got the feeling he’s healthy and ready to go opening day.
The guy is really intense and doesn’t know neutral or reverse,only high gear and full throttle each time he plays. I now understand what one writer meant when he said Rolen had a burning desire to win. You can feel that in his words and body language.
I’m sure he’ll be one of the guys and joke and laugh right along with everyone else, but when the bell rings, Rolen puts his game face on and gives 150% from the time the game starts until it ends. This could be what cost him in the past, because I’d bet if another player is dogging it, Rolen will straighten him out right away.
If he was here when the Hillebrand sitation happened, it wouldn’t be Gibbons threatening to fight Hillebrand; Rolen would have already pounded him into submission.
I’m interested in other’s thoughts and Jordan’s response, being in the room, but I for one think we’re lucky to get him and Scot Rolen is exactly the guy we need to contend.
Rolen played 7 seasons in Philly before he was traded, and 5 in St Louis, so if we can get 3 years out of him before he gets mad at Gibby, that’s OK.
His hitting stats for last year are a bit spotty, because he didn’t have his best year at the plate, but from what I can see, he hit better with runners on 2nd and 3rd, and he hit .400 with the bases loaded. He’s a guy that wants to get to the plate when the game is on the line. We know he doesn’t like to sit and watch.
He has a really nice swing. Keeps his hands in, gets behind the ball, and keeps his legs under him. I can’t find a hitting chart, but it looks like he can use the whole field. There is definitely some power there when he squares it up.