Rookie of the Year Spotlight: Scott Rolen

Some of the collections I have been working on over the years are starting to get filled out and my goals are being reached. As a result, I'm starting to slow down a little when it comes to acquiring many cards for some of my mini-collections. Now that the collection is feeling more and more complete, I wanted to start showcasing the cards I have, player by player.

One such collection is my Rookie of the Year collection. I love collecting players who have won the award as the top newcomer in each league. This wasn't born of hot rookie hype and the desire to prospect. Rather, I became fascinated thinking about the careers of guys like Eric Karros, Jerome Walton, and Tim Salmon, who experienced varying degrees of success but may not have become superstars. I thought it would be fun to have a collection that chronicles the individual career journeys of rookie stars--whether they burned bright and flamed out quickly, regressed to the mean, or wended their way to Cooperstown.

 

My goal has been to fill a binder page for each player who won the award in my lifetime and to fill a row for older players. I may expand that later as I expand my vintage collection. The ultimate goal of my binder is to show a card from every different uniform the player wore, from fresh-faced rookie to grizzled vet. This series is to commemorate each Rookie of the Year's career and show my collection of their cards. I have a randomized list of winners that I use to determine the order of these posts, but for the second time in a row, I'm going away from that order. Today we highlight

Scott Rolen

 

It's not every day that I get to do one of my regular series posts on the guy who is the talk of baseball at the moment. Well, one of the topics of conversation, at least. Scott Rolen was just elected to the Hall of Fame, to be officially inducted alongside one of my other collecting project PCs, Fred McGriff.

 

Rolen broke into the Bigs in 1996, appearing in 37 games for the Phillies and putting out a .254/.322/.400 slash line. He remained on the roster in 1997, becoming the full-time 3rd baseman for the club. His 1997 season saw him hit 21 HRs with a strong OPS of .846 over 156 games. It was enough to earn him all the first-place Rookie of the Year votes in the National League. The two closest players behind him in the voting were Florida's Livan Hernandez and St. Louis' Matt Morris, who both received 25 total voting points--well behind Rolen's 140.

 

Though his rookie-year defense was the shakiest of his career (24 errors and a career-low .948 fielding percentage), it developed nicely in 1998. In his second season, he took home the first of his eight Gold Gloves. Not only that, but his OPS improved to .923, his home runs to 31, and he played in all but two games. Scott "Rockin'" Rolen's numbers stayed steady at the top of his position for the next 5 1/2 years before he finally got his first All-Star nod. 

 

It was just after that All-Star appearance in 2002 that Philadelphia traded him (along with Doug Nickle) to St. Louis for Placido Polanco, Bud Smith, and Mike Timlin. Over the next six seasons with the Cards, Rolen played in four more All-Star games, won three Gold Gloves and one Silver Slugger, and finished as high as fourth in the MVP voting (2004). 

After the 2007 season, the Cardinals traded him to the Blue Jays in a swap of third basemen, receiving Troy Glaus in return. Though his play had declined in 2007, he bounced back in Toronto with a WAR over 3 in both of his seasons there. He was traded at the deadline in 2009, going to Cincinnati for Edwin Encarnacion, Josh Roenicke, and Zach Stewart. He played in Cincinnati until 2012. He retired after 2012 at the age of 37, but not before being named an All-Star at ages 35 and 36 with the Reds.

 

 

For his career, Rolen slashed .281/.364/.490, picked up 2077 hits, and slugged 316 homers. He drove in 1287 runs, too. Those numbers aren't too shabby and earned him one Silver Slugger. However, he may have been even better known for his defense. In 2023 career games at third base (the only position he would play in the Majors), he finished with positive runs saved above average in every season but one. (Since the stat started being kept in 2003. He won eight Gold Gloves in his 17 seasons.

To be completely honest, I remembered watching Rolen play and was impressed. Maybe it was because of my anti-St. Louis Cardinal bias. Or maybe it was because he never really led the league in anything. Either way, I didn't ever think much of his Hall of Fame candidacy. Seeing how solid and consistent he was throughout his career as I wrote this post, however, has opened my eyes. I think he was absolutely a good candidate and I'm glad to have a ROY PC of another Hall of Fame player. He makes the 19th former Rookie of the Year to make it to Cooperstown.