A Way Too Early and Semi-pointless Look At the Scott Rolen Trade

I've seen a lot of media attention being paid to Scott Rolen lately and I think it's totally justified and deserved.  The guy is hitting, playing above average defense, and being the quiet, veteran leader some Reds fans have been pining for since Rich Aurilia left town.

I saw one of the commenters compile some win/loss numbers in the comments section of an article or game thread that has a comments section (my memory sucks... I think it was Red Poodle in a game thread, but that's probably wrong), so I took the time and liberty to take it a step further and update everyone on W/L and ‘where-are-they-now’ since the trade went down.

TOTAL W/L SINCE SCOTT ROLEN JOINED THE TEAM:  52-40

with = Scott Rolen appeared in the game
without = Scott Rolen did not appear in the game whether due to injury or day off

2010 with:  19-9
2010 without:  0-4

2009 with:  27-13
2009 without:  6-14

TOTAL with:  46-22
TOTAL without:  6-18

Not too shabby...

Edwin Encarnacion went on the 15-day DL (retroactive to April 15) with a sore shoulder.  Prior to that, he homered once and knocked in 5 in 37 plate appearances.  He slashed .219/.270/.406, but he did have 3 doubles.  Eddie is playing full extended spring games so he could be ready to rejoin the Blue Jays within the next two weeks.  He will likely begin playing Minor League rehab games with Class A Dunedin soon.

It’s not a guarantee that Eddie’s position is going to be available when he’s ready to rejoin the big club, however. 

When Encarnacion was placed on 15-day DL, Jose Bautista shifted from right field to third base, and Fred Lewis and Travis Snider moved to left and right field, respectively. It is not clear how Toronto will handle Encarnacion's return. [Blue Jays GM Alex] Anthopoulos was not ready to say whether Encarnacion would immediately move back into a starting role at third.

"Right now, we haven't even talked about it," Anthopoulos said. "The team's playing so well. Bautista's done a good job, Fred Lewis has done a good job. It's one of those things, you cross that bridge when you come to it. The team's playing well. It's a great problem to have."

I always liked Edwin so if his current team isn’t too high on him, I hope he gets the opportunity to play regularly elsewhere.

Zach Stewart is far from where I thought this 23-year-old would be this season posting a 6.84 ERA in 6 starts for the AA New Hampshire Fisher Cats.  He has given up 20 runs (all earned) in 26.1 innings pitched with 4.8 BB/9, however he is striking out 6.2 per 9.  Seeing that, and taking into account Mike Leake’s, Aroldis Chapman’s, and Travis Wood’s level of play, it turns out that I don’t really miss the kid a certain Louisville Bats relief pitcher said will be the next Huston Street (source, one of my softball games last summer).  Though we wouldn't have had much room for him to be in the immediate plans, it still would have been nice to keep building the stable of young pitchers who were on the verge of breaking into the bigs.  Best of luck, Zach.

Josh Roenicke is the other piece of the trade and I still wish we could have found a way to keep this fireballer.  Despite one bad game where he gave up 4 earned runs in 1.1 innings of work against the White Sox, he has posted bagels out of the ‘pen in 6.2 IP since his call-up on April 28 (he even pitched 2.1 innings of scoreless ball against the Red Sox on Monday night).  With Carlos Fisher and Logan Ondrusek indicating that they are able to pitch at this level, I guess I don't miss Roenicke THAT much, although I think this guy is going to turn into one hell of a set-up man. 

So what I’m left with is a trade that, so far, seems to be favoring the Reds quite a bit.  We obviously won’t be able to tell just how good we made out, but at this moment, Rolen appears to be a steal. Regardless of what his offensive numbers look like, the team wins when he plays which is good enough for me.  Here's to hoping the geezer stays healthy because I think it's obvious that the team is going to struggle if he happens to wake up one morning with a stiff back.