Here are some excerpts from an article written about Rolen and his HOF chances when he first became eligible, with which I agree although some of it I did not know (such as his ROY award)
https://www.beyondtheboxscore.com/20...ing-malcontent
Quote:
What is most striking about Scott Rolen’s baseball reference page is not the shiny career batting average, the nice on-base percentage, or the bevy of GGs (gold gloves). What is most striking about Rolen’s baseball-reference page is the simple fact that he never led the league in anything. Ever. Over the course of 17 years, Scott Rolen always played at best, second-fiddle to someone else in literally every statistical category listed.
Not only did Rolen never lead the league in any one stat, he was rarely the best player on his own team! Over a 17-year career, Rolen led his own team in bWAR only three times. Despite a seemingly strong .281 career batting average, and ten years of 20+ homers, Rolen never finished in the top ten in hits, home runs, or batting average ---- a testament to the powerhouse offensive environment in which he played. His only top ten finishes in any statistic at all are one each in walks, on-base percentage, and slugging percentage; he finished in the top ten in OPS+ only twice in 17 years and managed to finish in the top ten in bWAR only four times. Hardly exemplary.
Rolen won the Rookie of the Year Award in 1997, though even this was more coincidence and fortuitous timing than anything else. In his would-be rookie season of 1996 he finished one at-bat short of disqualifying for rookie status after being hit by a pitch in mid-September. He spent the rest of the year recuperating and resetting his rookie status in 1997.
. . .
Scott Rolen ended his postseason career with a .220/.302/.376 slash line, including going hitless in both the 2004 NLDS and World Series. His greatest chance of distinction was in the 2006 NLCS, but Endy Chavez ended that dream with an amazing catch; today, the batter is barely remembered.
With this context, it is unsurprising that management and ownership never viewed Rolen as a franchise player. In fact, for interpersonal reasons, Rolen was viewed as the complete opposite of a franchise cornerstone, since it’s impossible to build around a team around a roster piece who can’t get along with any of his bosses.
|
The story goes on to describe his relationship with managers and management, and while acknowledging that this is hardly a disqualifier for the HOF, may serve as another reason why most who saw him play did not consider him as passing the "eye-test" for the hall.
__________________
Now watch what you say, or they'll be calling you a radical, a liberal, oh, fanatical, criminal
Won't you sign up your name? We'd like to feel you're acceptable, respectable, presentable, a vegetable
If we are to have another contest in the near future of our national existence, I predict that the dividing line will not be Mason and Dixon's but between patriotism and intelligence on the one side, and superstition, ambition and ignorance on the other.- Ulysses S. Grant, 18th US President.
|