Several major league sources are reporting that the St. Louis Cardinals and the Toronto Blue Jays have agreed to swap their starting third basemen. The Cardinals would be sending disgruntled Scott Rolen and likely some cash to Toronto in exchange for Troy Glaus. Both third basemen have a history of hitting for power and are former All Stars, but both had their reasons for wanting to leave.
Rolen also publicly feuded with manager Tony LaRussa and asked for a trade earlier this off season. Glaus was seeking a move away from Toronto's tough astroturf to a natural playing surface. He's been bothered by foot injuries and is hoping a softer surface will help him return to form.
Neither player played exceptionally well last year and both missed significant time to injury. Rolen batted just .265 with only 8 home runs in 112 games while Glaus hit .262 with 20 home runs in only 115 games. The amount of money changing hands is still unknown and will largely determine which team comes out ahead on this trade. Glaus is due only $24 million over the next two years while Rolen is due $33 million over the next three.
{ 10 comments… read them below or add one }
Once again, ill miss rolen, but glaus will be fun to watch (i hope).
Wish Scott Rolen the best. Looks like team may have gotten the best
value possible. I have a problem understanding why Tony was kept and
Scott was shipped out of the country. This is the same manager who
fiercely proclaimed Jose Canseco to be a liar, transported the trainer
from Oakland to assist Big Mac, was personally guilty of DUI, and failed
to recogenize that Josh Hancock a had very serious problem and says
that he has no clue that Scott Spezio was chemically dependent. I
personally have no problem understanding that Rolen, Ozzie Smith,and
others would refuse to be directed by a man of such low moral fiber.
How do you wish me to moderate my coment? Perhaps I should
describe Tony as simply being an enabler.
Lol Howard, comments on the blog are held in a queue for ME to moderate. This allows me to keep out spam and inappropriate language, topics, etc. It had nothing to do with your depiction of Tony.
However, I will say this. Tony isn’t the only person in this that has had issues with other people in the past. The reason the Cardinals got Rolen was because he couldn’t coexist with Larry Bowa. Whether Tony was in the right on this issue or not, players are not the managers no matter what their agents might think. Scott apparently struggles dealing with authoritative managers and that’s just fine, I wish him all the best in Toronto.
But the bottom line is that Scott Rolen hurt his team by not being truthful about his injury status and by going out there when he was not able to perform as he would have if he had been healthy. The whole drama between the two I don’t much care about one way or the other. It’s done and the team will be better for it.
Well, i met Tony Larussa, and i got the impression he was one of the most laid back coolest people…. And HOWARD ROBERTS, thats a pretty stupid comment to try and say that tony somehow had somthing to do with hancocks death. HE WAS A YOUNG MAN! THEY DRINK, THEY HAVE FUN, or maybe your just the stiff shirt, “alcohol is bad” kinda guy. somewhwere in our society we have decided its just horrible to let loose and have a few.
Are the Cards even going to be competitive this year?
Are the Cards gonna be competitive!?!… Thats a silly question.
The answer to that “silly” question is “NO”!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Oh yeah, that would of been a “silly” question to ask in 06′ too i suppose… You know, its funny, if you look at the 06′ cardinals.. they had a bunch misfits and washups but they still are the WORLD CHAMPIONS of 2006… The Cubs can spend 175 million for what SHOULD be a ALL STAR team.. and still cant have one (a world championship).
Who was talking about 2006? Aren’t we talking about 2008!?!?!?!?
Typical Cardinal fan crap………….I never even mentioned the Cubs!
But it is great to see you living in the past and hanging on to the old glory!