Happy Birthday Troy Glaus

Troy Glaus turns 47 today.

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

At the time, we had a glut of middle infielders, and Corey Koskie could have had a better 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. Miguel was a decent pitcher. He lost his spot in the rotation in 2005 but had 31 saves (with eight blown saves and a 4.10 ERA).

Troy had two good seasons with us. He hit .256/.360/.496 with 58 home runs, good for 39th on our all-time list (he’ll drop to 40th with Vlad’s next home run). Troy was an All-Star in 2006 and was 30th in MVP voting. He also won the All-Star Home Run Derby that year.

After the 2007 season, and after Troy’s name appeared in the Mitchell Report on PEDs, the Jays traded Troy to the Cardinals for Scott Rolen. Troy missed a fair bit of the 2007 season with plantar fasciitis, which he blamed on the hard surface at Rogers Centre. From the St. Louis side, Cardinals’ manager Tony La Russa didn’t love Rolen. They had some disagreements over an injury during the 2007 playoffs.

It was a trade of stars who play at the same position, which doesn’t happen often. GMs hate deals like this because they are too easy to call winners and losers (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 he signed with the Braves after the season. He had an ok year there, which was the end of his career.

I enjoyed watching him, but we did trade him at the right moment.

Glaus played for 13 years and hit .254/.358/.489 with 320 home runs (122nd on the all-time list for home runs). He had a good career, short of the Hall of Fame but squarely in the Hall of Very Good. Rolen, on the other hand, is in the Hall of Fame (finally).

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

Jim Gott turns 64 today.

Gott came to us in the Rule 5 draft, off the Cardinals.

He started the 1982 season in our bullpen. Then, in mid-May, he was put into the rotation and stayed there for the rest of the season. He went 5-10 with a 4.43 ERA in 30 games, 23 starts. He walked 66 and struck out 82 in 136 innings.

Jim spent most of 1983 in the rotation, going 9-14 with a 4.74 ERA in 34 games and 30 starts.

In 1984 he started the season in the rotation but moved to the pen in mid-July and stayed there for the rest of his career.

After the season, he (and a couple of minor leaguers) was traded to the Giants for closer Gary Lavelle.

Lavelle was 36 and coming to the end of a very good career. He did have one good season with the Jays, putting up a 3.10 ERA in 69 games. Then he missed all of 1986 and wasn’t good in 1987, and we released him in August.

Gott went on to have a 14-year MLB career. He had some terrific seasons, saving 34 games in 1988 and 25 in 1993 for the Pirates and Dodgers, respectively.

Career, he was 56-74, with a 3.87 ERA, with 91 saves in 554 games.

The trade wasn’t one of Pat Gullick’s better ones. Trading a young reliever for an aging one rarely works out well.

Happy Birthday, Jim.