As of right now, we don’t have any official word on who the Dodgers will be sending to the Phillies, but it appears to be a done deal that Jimmy Rollins is coming to LA. Obviously, any real analysis will be done after all the parameters are known (and by people smarter than me), but assuming the Dodgers aren’t giving up too much talent, I really like the idea of Rollins at short in 2015. He’s only signed for one more year, and one more year is about how long we need to fill the SS gap before Corey Seager is ready for prime time.
Rollins is fast — 453 career stolen bases and an 83% success rate — but he’s not an ideal leadoff man even though he has spent the majority of his career in that spot. The Dodgers currently have Dee Gordon in the leadoff spot, and it will be interesting to see if they put Rollins in the number two spot or down near the bottom of the order. I think Yasiel Puig and Carl Crawford are both better suited for the two-spot than Rollins, but let’s face it, they are probably both also better suited for the leadoff spot than Gordon.
So lineup composition will be interesting, but I think Rollins definitely represents a solid addition to the mix. He is definitely a better option than any of the in-house, all-glove-no-bat options (Erisbel Arruebarrena and Miguel Rojas), and while he’s a totally different type of player than Hanley Ramirez was, I think overall — factoring in health, defense, speed, etc. — he doesn’t represent a significant downgrade. I would definitely rather have one year of Rollins than four years of Hanley.
UPDATE (4:40 p.m. Mountain time):
Still no official word on who is going to the Phillies, but now it’s looking like Dee Gordon will be leading off in Miami instead of LA next season. If the Dodgers trade Crawford instead of Matt Kemp, then Rollins is probably the leadoff man. If they keep Crawford, it will be an interesting decision.