Happy Birthday Troy Glaus

The Blue Jays traded for Troy Glaus in December of 2005. He and Sergio Santos came over from the Diamondbacks for Miguel Batista and Orlando Hudson.

At the time we had a glut of middle infielders and Corey Koskie didn’t have a good season in 2005. The trade opened room for Aaron Hill at second base. We figured he and Russ Adams would be the middle of our infield for years to come. Miguel was a decent pitcher. He lost his spot in the rotation in 2005 but he had 31 saves (with 8 blown saves and a 4.10 ERA).

Troy had 2 good seasons with us. He hit .256/.360/.496 with 58 home runs, good for 38th on our all-time list. He was an All-Star in 2006 and was 30th in MVP voting.

After the 2007 season, and after Troy’s name appeared in the Mitchell Reports on PEDs, he was traded to the Cardinals for Scott Rolen. Troy missed a fair bit of the 2007 season with plantar fascitis which he blamed on the hard surface at Rogers Centre. And Rolen wasn’t loved by Cardinals’ manager Tony La Russa.

It was a very rare trade of stars who play at same position. GMs hate trades like this because they are too easy to call a winner and a loser (we were the winners).

Glaus had a good season with the Cardinals, hitting .270/.372/.483 with 27 homes. Next season he played 14 games and after the season he signed with the Braves. He had an ok year there, and that was the end of his career.

I enjoyed watching him and we traded him at the right moment.

Glaus played for 13 years, hit .254/.358/.489 with 320 home runs. A very good career.

Happy Birthday Troy. I hope it is a good one.