Posts Tagged ‘ed delahanty’

Will Rollins Stay or Go?

March 18th, 2014 by Kyle Lutz | 3 Comments | Filed in Baseball, General, MLB, Phillies, Sports

Multiple sources recently have speculated and alluded to the chance that Phillies’ veteran shortstop Jimmy Rollins will be moved sometime this upcoming season, depending upon attitude adjustments from Rollins, or a lack thereof.

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Rollins has vehemently expressed continuously that he’d like to stay put, especially to (eventually) become the Phillies’ all-time franchise hits leader. He’s currently ranked fourth all-time among team leaders in hits with 2175, just 59 hits behind Mike Schmidt, who leads the franchise with 2234 career hits. Rollins is also chasing two outfielders in Ed Delahanty and Richie Ashburn. J-Roll is 38 hits behind Delahanty and 42 behind Ashburn, the latter of which is second all-time to Schmidt by a deficit of just 17.

This is the primary reason for which Rollins wants to stay in Philadelphia; to break Schmidt’s record. With his signature laid back approach, he expressed to CSN Philly’s Phillies’ insider Jim Salisbury that it would be an honor, and a feat that only 30 men in MLB history have accomplished, considering the amount of teams within the league.

“There’s only 30 guys that are their team’s leader in hits.” “It’s a pretty high honor.”

As arguably the best shortstop in team history, Rollins has been a fixture at the six spot since making his Major League debut as a September call-up for the team in 2000. He debuted on September 17th, in a 6-5 Phillies’ victory over divisional rival Florida, with his first Major League at-bat coming against Marlins’ starting pitcher Chuck Smith (the former drew a walk and scored a run as well on a two-run Bobby Abreu home run). Irony at its finest: Abreu gave Rollins his first ever run, and 14 years later, albeit on two different occasions, the two are teammates.

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