ESPN’s Jayson Stark is reporting, via Twitter, that the Phillies and Yankees had preliminary discussions about Jimmy Rollins but the Yankees balked at the high asking price. The talks never got too serious, as Rollins was never asked to waive his no-trade clause. Rollins has a full no-trade clause and has stated in the past that he has no desire to change locations.
A high asking price for an aging veteran?! Well I know I am SHOCKED. This is coming off a 2014 trade deadline which saw the Phillies make no moves because, according to the GM, “teams weren’t aggressive enough”. A laughable comment considering this past years trade deadline was the busiest deadline in history. So a high asking price for Rollins should not come as a surprise considering Amaro is still in charge.
But then again a high asking price for Rollins might be justified. Rollins has a very reasonable $11 million dollar price tag for 2015. Rollins had a pretty good year in 2014 and Fangraphs valued his 2014 season as a $19.7 million dollar player. In 2014 Rollins had a slash line 0f .243/.323/.394 while hitting 17 home runs, 55 runs batted in, scoring 78 runs and swiping 28 bags. His fielding percentage was .988 and he committed just 7 errors in 1170.2 innings. Because of his solid season at the plate and another tremendous year in the field, his WAR was 3.6.
Jimmy Rollins is a very attractive target for potential teams looking for a short stop because of his fielding ability, veteran leadership, and switch hitting ability. I do not think there is a chance that Jimmy Rollins gets traded, BUT the only team I can see Jimmy Rollins waving his no-trade clause to is the Oakland A’s. Jimmy grew up in Oakland, and has stated that he would like to finish his career in Oakland. Other than that I think you can expect James Calvin Rollins to be manning short stop come opening day 2015.
