The Phillies will celebrate former third baseman Scott Rolen on Friday with a spot in the Wall of Fame. He earned induction into the Baseball Hall of Fame earlier this summer.
Rolen was a second-round draft pick by the Phillies in the 1993 draft. He broke into the Majors in late 1996 before winning the Rookie of the Year Award in 1997 while hitting .283 with 21 homers and 92 RBIs.
The Indiana native was a seven-time All-Star and won eight Gold Gloves. He posted a .282 average over seven seasons in Philadelphia with 150 homers and 559 RBIs.
"I feel like I've always cherished my time in Philadelphia," Rolen said in a media availability this past summer. "I still have lifelong friends that came from Philadelphia. I have people here that I've invited, you know, my neighbors in Philadelphia, John Brasier. People have been texting me back and forth. So I still have a ton of friends there.
"I truly believe I learned to play the game there. You have to be real honest out on the field and real genuine with your effort when you're playing the game there. And there's a toughness instilled in you to go out there and play it the right way and play it hard."
During his 17-year career with the Phillies (1996-2002), St. Louis Cardinals (2002-07), Toronto Blue Jays (2008-09) and Cincinnati Reds (2009-12), Rolen hit .281 with 316 home runs and an .855 OPS in 2,038 games, ranking fifth in the majors during that span in doubles (517), 11th in extra-base hits (876) and hit by pitches (127), 16th in RBI (1,287) and 17th in runs scored (1,211).
As good as Rolen was with the bat, he was even better with the leather.
The eight Gold Gloves ranks fourth most all-time for third basemen behind only Brooks Robinson (16), Mike Schmidt (10), and Nolan Arenado (10).
The Phillies dealt Rolen to St. Louis at the 2002 trade deadline. The move followed a tenuous stretch regarding contract negotiations and a public dispute between Rolen and Phillies ownership over a commitment to putting a winning product on the field.
"I looked at this whole thing," Rolen told ESPN's Jayson Stark before the 2002 season. "I looked at history. I looked at the whole deal. And let's start with a fact. Let's go back 15 years. Thirteen times in the last 15 seasons, they've had losing seasons. That's history. That's a fact. And that's a 15-year period. That's a long time.
"I'm not just a player. I'm a fan. I'm a fan of the game. And the way I look at this is: Fans deserve better than that. Fans deserve a better commitment than this ownership is giving them. I'm tired of empty promises. I'm tired of waiting for a new stadium for the sun to shine."
From 1997-2004, Rolen’s 46.2 WAR ranked third in MLB, trailing only Barry Bonds (71.2) and Alex Rodriguez (62.4). Rolen’s WAR was higher than every Hall of Famer who played within that period, including Jeff Bagwell (44.1), Chipper Jones (43.7), Larry Walker (43.4) and Derek Jeter (41.7).
According to Baseball Reference, Rolen's 70.1 WAR ranks 10th of the 16 third basemen enshrined in Cooperstown.
