Sandberg Setting a Tone

It’s high time that I weighed in on what I consider to be the fairly ridiculous Jimmy Rollins situation. As most of you who read this blog probably already know there is what the media describes as friction between the old standby Jimmy Rollins and the new regime that is Ryne Sandberg.

At the beginning of last week Jimmy was quoted saying something along the lines of “who cares” when asked about how putrid the Phillies offense had been during the first two weeks of spring games.

Guess who cared? The guy who decides whether Jimmy plays every day or not, that’s who. Ryno decided to sit Jimmy the next three days straight after those comments.  Sandberg also commented, “no comment” when asked about Jimmy’s attitude and leadership toward the ballclub. That was comment enough.

Cue the local media drumming this thing up way out of proportion. Let’s face it, the Eagles are in an offseason, the Sixers have lost 21 straight and counting (probably 22 by the time people read this), and the Flyers have their rabid fan base that isn't big enough to sell air time or generate page views. They need to talk about something, so why not make it a negative story about the Phillies?

Next came the national stories about how the Phillies seem to be shopping Jimmy Rollins. A story like that doesn’t surprise me given how the Phillies operate. They always want to look like the bad guy in any situation. Job well done.

Jimmy has made it clear for a while now that he doesn’t have any interest in being traded. He’s sixty-one hits away from breaking Mike Schmidt’s franchise record, and it’s borderline refreshing to hear his honesty about wanting to break that record.  I like the pride that he’s showing there, selfish or not. He’s been a Phillie his entire career and he has full veto power over any trade. He also has to get to 434 at bats for the $11 million option in his contract to vest next season. It's safe to assume he's staying put for the time being.

The bottom line is that these games don’t matter. Sure it’d be nice if the Phillies weren’t setting offensive futility records this spring, but whether or not they have a good season we’re not going to look back on the spring and say that caused it.

It’s no secret that Rollins isn’t Chase Utley when it comes to work ethic (who is?), but his work ethic shouldn’t be in question. He doesn’t show up late. There’s no reports of him not interacting well with teammates. He might not hustle on balls he rolls over to 2^nd base, but is it really that big a deal? It’s not a big deal when Jimmy is churning out 180+ hit seasons while bashing the ball out of the ballpark way more than a person his size should be able to. Of course, it is an issue when he’s coming off back-to-back .250 seasons where he continues to become less and less of an asset at the plate.

I get what Sandberg is doing. The beef on Charlie Manuel at the end was that he was not hard enough on the aging superstars that made up the Phillies roster. Sandberg was brought in to change the attitude of the ballclub and see if he couldn’t teach some of these old dogs new tricks.  So there will be some tough love he has to show to guys who aren’t adhering to his way of doing things. We saw that last week.

What I don’t get is the timing of it, or the way he has let it play out in the media. Maybe it was a rookie manager not realizing what he was doing, or maybe he knew exactly what he was doing and wanted to get the fans and the media on Jimmy early. 

We all know Jimmy Rollins and how he operates. We know for certain there’s going to be plenty of opportunity for Sandberg to make an example of Rollins, so why do it before things are even getting started? Why cause friction and a perceived riff before anything has truly happened? Set a tone early is the answer some of you might say, but spring training is too early for this for me. Let’s wait until Rollins pops up the first pitch of an bat 5 times in the first two weeks and makes it half way down the line. Let’s wait until the Phillies come out flatter than a leftover beer from a keg party. I don’t need this kind of turmoil this early.

Maybe you’re fed up with Jimmy Rollins, but he’s the best we have and it’s not close, so you might as well root for Jimmy Rollins.