Forget how things ended for Scott Rolen and the Philadelphia Phillies. Outside of T.O. vs. Donovan McNabb, perhaps no topic has been debated more over the last 25 years in the Delaware Valley. It is what it is, Rolen was traded to the St. Louis Cardinals in July of 2002, and all parties involved probably could have handled it better.
But whatever your feelings on Rolen personally are, there’s no denying how productive he was over the next four seasons. Between 2003 and 2006, Rolen hit .291 with 89 home runs, 351 RBIs, a .908 OPS and 56 defensive runs saved. The 21.8 WAR that Rolen posted during that stretch was eighth among all position players, trailing only Albert Pujols, Alex Rodriguez, Barry Bonds, Andruw Jones, Carlos Beltran, Jim Edmonds and Ichiro Suzuki.
Between 2007 and 2009, injuries limited Rolen, before he made two All-Star teams late in his career with the Cincinnati Reds in 2010 and 2011.
Rolen got to play with Jimmy Rollins and Pat Burrell, but never Chase Utley, Ryan Howard or Cole Hamels. He wasn’t even close to playing with Roy Halladay and Cliff Lee, but he was still productive when both were with the Phillies. Imagine one of those three great pitchers on the mound with Howard at first base, Utley at second, Rollins at shortstop and Rolen at third base. It would have been one of the greatest infields in MLB history.
Does Rolen ever wonder what could have been if he signed a long-term deal with the Phillies — he reportedly turned down offers of $90 million over seven years and $140 million over 10 years — and remained in red pinstripes for the bulk of his career?
“I don’t wonder that,” Rolen said Friday at Citizens Bank Park, after being inducted onto the Phillies Wall of Fame. “Not in the negative way that you may be thinking, but I think things happen and that is what happened. And that group won a World Series together. And they were fantastic. And I might have screwed it all up, who knows how it would have gone down.”
Among the former teammates on hand for Rolen’s induction were Bobby Abreu and Mike Lieberthal. His former manager Larry Bowa was in attendance. The only reason the induction didn’t take place on Alumni Weekend back in August was that it conflicted with when his daughter was going away to college for the first time, an experience Rolen wanted to be a part of.
Also in attendance was Jim Thome, who Rolen never was a teammate of. However, Rolen and Thome are now both members of the Phillies Wall of Fame and Baseball Hall of Fame. And while Thome wasn’t around for the 2007-2011 run, his decision to join the Phillies in free agency ahead of the 2003 season is widely credited with helping to legitimize the organization a year before they moved into Citizens Bank Park.
Rolen theorized that if he had taken one of the megadeals from the Phillies, Thome may never have been offered the six-year/$85 million pact that lured him from Cleveland to Philadelphia.
“Jim Thome was here, and there couldn’t have been a better guy to be an ambassador for your organization than Jim Thome,” Rolen said. “He probably wouldn’t have been here [if I stayed]. So everything happened the way it happened. I said, this team is back and in full swing and they were great in that time right there. So I say it that way not like ‘No, I don’t.’ I just think things kind of go down a path.”
Things did work out for both Rolen and the Phillies. Rolen got to team up with the aforementioned Pujols and Edmonds — among others — winning a World Series with the Cardinals in 2006. The Phillies won five straight division titles from 2007 to 2011, winning a World Series in 2008 and a second consecutive National League pennant in 2009.
But could both Rolen and the Phillies have won multiple titles if they stayed together? At the very least, would Rolen’s presence have given the Phillies an even better opportunity to make the playoffs from 2004 to 2006? What could have been if Rolen was a Phillie for life is a much more interesting debate to have than rehashing which side is more to blame for the fact that the Wall of Famer didn’t spent more than six-and-a-half seasons with the team that drafted him.
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