Saturday, January 19, 2008

Jon Heyman vs. Keith Law Re: Glaus/Rolen

A few days ago, I caught Jon Heyman’s take on the Scott Rolen for Troy Glaus trade and was going to comment on it, but Keith Law has done my job for me. Not my real job, I’m still selling vacuums door to door. Keith can’t take that away from me.

Anyway, let’s see Heyman’s take:

• The Scott Rolen for Troy Glaus trade makes sense -- for the Blue Jays, anyway. They get the better defensive player and a player not involved in the steroid mess. (According to SI, in 2003 and '04 Glaus received multiple shipments of steroids through an allegedly illegal Internet distribution network.) Execs were accused of looking the other way during the Steroid Era; now some of them are disregarding what we already know. You'd think if any team would be sensitive to the issue it might be the Cardinals. Apparently not.

I was pretty sure that was backwards. I was going to comment on it, but someone asked Keith Law during his ESPN chat on Thursday.

Jonathan Rosenberg (Toronto, Ont): Thoughts on the Glaus for Rolen deal.

Keith Law: I have yet to come up with an argument that justifies this deal for the Blue Jays. They got the older, more hurt (back troubles dating back a decade), worse-hitting player who's under contract for an extra year.

They are both injury proned and in a decline phase production wise. But the most important point when talking about a deal between two past-their-prime, injury prone players? How long you have to pay for them.

Glaus is due $12.75 million in 2008, then can exercise a player option for $11.25 million in 2009.

Rolen is due $11 million in 2008, 2009, and 2010.

Glaus still managed to produce pretty well when he was in the lineup last year. He had an OPS+ of 120 last year with 20 homers (115 games) and a line of .262/.366/.473.

Rolen had a robust 89+ OPS + with 8 homers in 112 games and a line of .365/.331/.398. He was decent in 2006, but his 2005 was another injury year.

No comments: