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Scott Rolen
OK, if you want to be technical -- and we know that millions of you do -- the Reds didn't acquire Rolen during the winter. They traded for him in July 2009, minutes before the trade deadline. But that was a deal that was never supposed to be about last season. It was about this year and beyond. And at the time, we don't recall anybody saying: "Now there's a move that could change the face of the NL Central."
Well, check the record. Since Rolen showed up, the Reds are 54-27 in games he's played and 6-20 in games he's missed. And they've gone from a fifth-place afterthought in the Central to a team that's in first place at the moment, a game ahead of the Cardinals. And that, Reds GM Walt Jocketty said, "is not a coincidence."
Back when the Reds made this deal, it looked like a head-scratcher. The Reds took on more than $14 million money due to Rolen and sent two of their most coveted power arms (Zach Stewart and Josh Roenicke) to Toronto. And that, Jocketty told Rumblings, "was tough to do.
"But we had pitching prospects in our system, and I felt it was very important for us to change the culture and the mentality of our team. I know Scott well enough [from their days in St. Louis] to know what he brings to a club. And it's what we needed to bring to this club."
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? Leake frog: Is there a better story in baseball this year than Mike Leake jumping directly to the big leagues from Arizona State and going 4-0, with eight quality starts, in his first nine starts?
Just to give you some perspective, Leake is the 11th American-born pitcher in the division-play era to skip the minor leagues. Here are the starts the other 10 got off to in the big leagues:
Jim Abbott, 0-2
Eddie Bane, 0-5
Pete Broberg, 0-2
David Clyde, 1-3
Darren Dreifort, 0-5
Steve Dunning, 1-4
Mike Morgan, 0-3
Dick Ruthven, 1-5
Tim Conroy, 0-0 (in two starts)
Burt Hooton, 0-0 (lasted 3 1/3 IP, then headed for the minors)
That totals up to a combined 3-29 for those other 10 guys. And Leake is 4-0. Amazing.
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? On Arthur Rhodes: "He's amazing. He hit 94 [mph] on the gun the other night. I'm telling you, this guy's Methuselah, and I don't even know what that is."
