Verducci with a darn good piece about A-Rod

The single-most telling offensive stat.

Better than your subjective, inaccurate horseshit ..."I don't like how pretty he is, or how much a fag he looks like."

 

Some people are setting themselves up for the Grand Disillusion, here.

Don't have long to wait . . .

 

He's already hitting .305 with power (and getting on base a ton) in the postseason and you spew this sewage.

So, I can only imagine what the guy would have to do.

 

How many times do we have to run thru this argument?

It's all well and good ARod had a great 2004 ALDS against the Twins. But when the Yankees needed him the most, he sucked over the final 3-plus games against the Red Sox. WHEN THE PRESSURE WAS THE HIGHEST, he was at his least effective.

And he was god awful last year against the Angels. So, again: Three hits in his last 28 at-bats.

And you know what? No, he has not earned the right to rest on his overall body of work. Because he has no rings AND HE WAS A VITAL REASON WHY THE YANKEES HAVE NOT WON THE LAST TWO YEARS. Simple. He produced most of his gaudy stats either in Seattle or during a historical offensive run by the Yankees in the first three games of the 2004 ALCS. Maybe Jeter's overall numbers don't match up (though, of course, his average is weighted down by many many more ABs) but he has made tangible contributions to championship teams.

Do you have a ARod clutch moment you can think of? If you are of the belief that anyone can be Francisco Cabrera for a moment, do you have several ARod moments that spring to mind when you consider his postseason wizardry?

I've got one, and it's stretching it: The go-ahead double against the Twins in Game four of the 2004 ALCS. That's it.

Jeter? Let's see here. The Maier-aided HR against the Orioles in 1996...the leadoff HR against Bobby Jones in Game Four of the 2000 WS after the Mets had gotten back into the series with a Game Three win...the flip play in Game Three of the 2001 ALDS...the walk-off homer in Game Four or Five of the 2001 World Series...

All ARod has to do to change his image this fall is not suck. That's all. If he goes 8-for-15 in the first round and the Yankees lose anyway, do you really think we're going to find a way to blame it on ARod? Well, I'm not.

But to presume a .500 average for ARod over four or five postseason games would be silly, because he's. going. to. flop. miserably.

 

Rodriguez may hit .083 this postseason. He may hit .750. I don't know. But you already know he's going to fail. It's only natural that you'll look for any evidence to support that. And unless he's perfect, you'll have it. Trouble is, not many baseball players are perfect. So, unless Rodriguez delivers the World Series-winning hit, he will have failed in many of his critics' eyes. If he plays great but the Yankees lose, his performance will have been meaningless. If he plays poorly or just OK and the Yankees win, the critics will say he didn't really contribute anything, and thus still hasn't validated himself in their eyes. And if he plays poorly and the Yankees lose, heaven help him, no matter how badly the Yankees' other multi-millionaires play.

I do know that a player's performance in one short series, or one playoff run, doesn't make or break his reputation. It doesn't for me, anyway. And it certainly doesn't when he has proven himself at a Hall-of-Fame level over the last decade.

Jeter was 6-for-44 in the 2001 LCS and World Series. I think that would qualify as awful by anyone's standards. So when the 2002 playoffs came around, was Jeter a terrible player until he proved otherwise? That would have been ridiculous, because Jeter had done well in the past. Well, guess what? So has Rodriguez. He hit over .300 in every playoff series of his career until the 2004 LCS (when he, like all of the Yankees, tailed off over the last four games) and last year's Division series. Please explain to me why his experience in Seattle doesn't count. And it had better be something more than, "Well, he's in New York now. This is different."

 

A-Rod has had exactly two very good playoff series: the 2000 ALCS and the '04 ALDS.

In the '97 ALDS, he homered in the ninth inning of a 9-2 loss in Game 1. He went 3-for-12 afterward, with 1 2B, 0 R, 0 RBI. That .312 BA and .874 OPS is misleading.

In the '00 ALDS, he hit an empty .308 (4 singles in 3 games, 0 R, 0 HR, 2 RBI).

The '04 ALCS has been well-covered. His series numbers are padded by his 3-5, 5 R, 2 2B, HR, 3 RBI performance in Game 3. (So are the rest of the Yankees.) ... He's not going to live that slap down until he "proves himself" with something different.

His '05 ALDS was terrible -- again, as it was for most of the Yankees.

And as BYH said, where are his moments? He's certainly had the opportunities -- but, the thing is, he's always failed when the chips are down. The hand-slap of Arroyo is his DEFINING PLAYOFF MOMENT over the course of a 10-year career.

Like BBonds, whose defining playoff moment was his failure in every NLCS of the early '90s until he redeemed himself in 2002, A-Rod does have to prove himself in October in order to have a different legacy.

(If he doesn't, he'll be Ted Williams -- nothing wrong with that. But there's a reason didn't-win-the-big-one always comes up in the discussion of the greatest players in any sport.)

A-Rod's overall numbers are nice, but like most stats, they don't tell the whole story.

 

No offense... but good picthing is SUPPOSED to beat good hitting.

Two great postseason series and the rest, blah? Sounds better than most.

Overall numbers do tell the whole story.

 

A-Rod is overrated there is not question about that. His overall numbers look nice but he does that against weak to medicore pitching. Given the chance to hit against good pitching his numbers take a precipitous drop. He never will considered a all time great no matter his overall numbers.

 

He will be considered the greatest player who ever lived.... If you don't fucking shoot him.

Moron.

 

His experiences in Seattle don't count because his stats were fairly empty. The Mariners won one series in his time in Seattle. And the defining image of his performance in the 2000 ALCS, when he hit .409, was he and the rest of the M's going down without a whimper after Clemens threw at ARod in the first inning of Game Four (??).

Again: ARod doesn't have to hit .800 and he doesn't have to deliver the series-winning hit three straight times. He just has to make a legitimate, tangible contribution. The reason we're convinced he won't is because we've all seen him fall short so many times...and heard/read him sound completely clueless and unchanged in the SI article. He's still outthinking himself, still obsessed with his failures every time he steps to the plate, still believes he's the prettiest and most accomplished girl in the class because he's good looking and has good stats.

Well, he's not, and I guarantee he proves it yet again this fall.

EDIT: Buck, I agree with everything you've posted except the Ted Williams thing. He only made the playoffs twice and actually did much better down the stretch in playoff races than was portrayed back in the day. The criticism of ARod is far more justified than the Williams criticism (and anyone who really evaluates the stats and the amount of opportunities ARod had to change his image/rep will say the same thing 60 years down the line).

EDIT PART II: I think Barry Bonds was facing good pitching in 2002, too, Columbo.

 

So you think Bonds sucked before 2002?

OK ... as long as you are consistent.

 

Not necessarily. Just saying good hitting (and the best darn flaxseed oil money could buy!!) beat the crap out of good pitching that year.