It's Unexplainable

Really, the obsession that baseball writers have with these two.

I don't love Jayson Stark or anything, but he's usually a pretty reasonable guy. And actually, this article isn't over-the-top; it just repeats pretty much everything said about Rolen and the most bad ass shortstop-turned-German-wrestler around.

The highlights:

DUNEDIN, Fla. -- It's 786 miles (and one trip through the customs line) from Busch Stadium to the Rogers Centre. But Scott Rolen and David Eckstein don't measure that journey on their odometers.

What are they measuring it on? Their rulers? Their yardsticks?

Oh. Yeah. Probably their hearts. There's a lot of miles on old Eckstein's heart, seeing as he's motorvated every team he's ever been on to many wins.

No matter what you've read or heard, they never wanted to leave St. Louis, a place where they won together. A place where they were once showered with sea-of-red adoration together. But stuff happens. And it sure did happen to them.

Stuff does indeed happen, Jayson.

So now here they are, bound for the left side of the infield in a city north of the border. Here they are, about to become the first two infielders to transplant themselves into some other team's infield, within two years of starting at least 80 games for a World Series champion, since Bill White and Dick Groat went from the Cardinals to the Phillies in 1966.

Classic Stark.

Here they are, in their blue jerseys and blue caps -- not even a red sweatsock in sight. And it sure is fascinating that their new employers don't seem the least bit interested in the events that propelled them toward their awkward exits from St. Louis.

Not just a regular sock, ladies and gentlemen, but not even a red SWEAT sock is visible.

"Those two guys exemplify what we want to be," Blue Jays GM J.P. Ricciardi says. "That's why they're better fits for us. They're grinders, and they're dirtbags. Not that the guys we had before weren't. But that might be the one piece we were missing, from the standpoint of getting in there with the Red Sox and Yankees and just grinding it out from a day-to-day standpoint."

In nearly every profession in America, being called a "dirtbag" is a pretty bad thing. Yet, in some strange fashion, Ricciardi seems to be using it as an endearing term. Strange.

Do not fear, AL East fans. The Blue Jays are in the hands of a man who thinks that the difference between his team and the Red Sox/Yankees juggernauts is a lack of grinding it out on a day-to-day standpoint.

"Just the style of these two guys is something we needed," manager John Gibbons says. "It's not like either of them are such great players that everything comes so easy to them; they're cruisers. They both get down and dirty. And teams that win always have their share of those guys. I think we needed more of that."

What? I would think that if they had to work hard at certain things, they would be the opposite of cruisers! I think of "cruisers" as players who are :

1. So good at baseball they seem to cruise their way to ridiculous statistics every year with little effort (see Pujols, Albert and Rodriguez, Alex)
-or-
2. Very average at baseball but have the happy disposition that makes them just cruise through the clubhouse, because nobody is really jealous of their skills and their MVPs. (see Casey, Sean).

OK, maybe these guys are cruiser #2. Also, I like how John Gibbons gives them a nasty backhanded compliment: they're not so good ... they have to work hard!

Once, their old team said the same stuff about these two men. And it was all true. The fit was perfect, for both of them. They played on a 100-win team together in 2005. They played on a team that won the World Series in 2006. Eckstein was a World Series MVP. Rolen ripped off a 10-game postseason hitting streak.

I like how Stark uses these gaudy stats to describe how these two men had such successful careers. I like how they pleasantly obscure the fact that, in the last three seasons, those two gentlemen put together one combined season in which they OPS+'d over the league average.

That's how "stats" are "good". They can make a way for a pretty below average player seem like the best player in baseball.

There's a bunch of other crap about Rolen fighting with LaRussa and Eckstein being small. But that's the worst of it. I hope that my boss never tells me I'm not too good at my job, but he likes how I grind my way through the work day.

More Baseball!

Baseball is my favorite sport. I seem to be writing less these days because there aren't as many baseball articles. All that is being written under "baseball" on websites is about Clemens and Congress and some guy named George Mitchell who I've never heard of before yesterday (seriously though, anyone else getting sick of the Clemens saga?). None of those things have anything to do with VORP or SNLVAR, so my one-track sabermetric brain is too stupid to write anything meaningful about them (unless Howard Bryant (SMACK!) plays the race card). I have yet to decide whether this paragraph is primarily serious or sarcastic.

Anyway, Glaus and Rolen are swapping teams, that's pretty interesting huh? Jerry Crasnick said that it's good for both parties. I agree with him! But just for fun, let's see what bogus reasons he can spew at us in an attempt to write an article long enough for publishing, shall we?

Toronto manager John Gibbons had a couple of highly-publicized blowouts with Shea Hillenbrand and Ted Lilly two years ago. But if you talk to people around the team, they'll tell you Gibbons is a "player's manager" who creates a comfortable environment for his guys.

If you cut to the core of this paragraph, you get the meaning: "Except for dealing with problematic personalities, John Gibbons is excellent at dealing with people!" Wow, sounds like a super dude. Also, what moronic player is going to tell an ESPN reporter that the manager is doing anything BUT creating a comfortable environment for the team? You think they're just going to make waves and tell the public if there really is a problem? Most-to-all players will publicly say that they like their manager. Maybe you're right, Crasnick, and maybe Gibbons is pretty good at that, but ask any of LaRussa's boys over in St. Louis the same question, and you won't hear a different answer (except for maybe Mr. Rolen). This paragraph basically says nothing about the quality of John Gibbons as a manager, when you think about it.

That's a good thing for Scott Rolen -- the Blue Jays acquired the third baseman in exchange for Troy Glaus on Saturday -- because Toronto's newest addition doesn't have a particularly good track record with authoritarian types.

Let's try a syllogism based on these first two paragraphs!

Premise 1: John Gibbons has a history of having personal problems with players with confrontational personalities.

Premise 2: Scott Rolen has a confrontational personality.

Reasonable Proposition: Scott Rolen is likely to have a personal problem with John Gibbons!

Rolen's former St. Louis buddy, David Eckstein, recently signed a one-year deal to play shortstop for Toronto, so the Jays won't have to spend much time building synergy on the left side in spring training.

AAAAHHHHHH-CCCCHHHHHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!

With extreme apologies to the writers of I, Robot, I must confess, Jerry, I'm allergic to bullshit. "Synergy on the left side?" Is that an important thing? Are Joe Crede and Juan Uribe best buddies (do they even speak the same language?)? How about Julio Lugo and Mike Lowell? A-Rod and Derek Jeter get to the playoffs every year.....because they work so well together, right? Is THAT how these teams are doing it?

No seriously Jerry, exactly how many defensive plays per year involve both the shortstop and the third baseman? It's a stretch to say something like this about the shortstop and the 2nd basemen, much less 2 people who rarely throw the ball to each other.

And although the three years and $33 million left on Rolen's contract scared off some clubs, the commitment fits right in with Toronto general manager J.P. Ricciardi's timetable. The Blue Jays are built to win over the next three seasons, with Vernon Wells, Roy Halladay, Alex Rios, Lyle Overbay and B.J. Ryan all tied up contractually through 2010 or beyond, and now the team won't have to fill a potentially gaping hole at third base.

So these are the components of a "built to win" team.

1) An overrated CF who collapsed last year and has turned in 2 notably above-average offensive seasons in his last 6
2) A legitimate ace (with a good amount of injury history)
3) An above-average corner OF
4) A pretty mediocre starting MLB 1B
5) A very good closer with significant injury problems.

Well, I'm sold. Watch out, Red Sox and Yankees. This sounds completely different than the Blue Jays who have been mired in slightly-better-than-average-itude for the past several years.

I'm truly disappointed, Crasnick. You should take this as a compliment, because I refuse to write this about mostly anyone else I scribble about, but you can do better.