The Meaning of A-Rod …
Posted: October 30th, 2007 | Filed under: Baseball, Essays | 23 Comments »
So this is how the news of Alex Rodriguez opting out of his contract was reported in the English version of the Asahi Shimbun here in Japan. It was just a four paragraph mention, but you know, you can squeeze a lot of information into four paragraphs.
– The first paragraph says he opted out of his $252 million deal (or, as reported here, 28.9 million yen, which sounds much more reasonable — they actually meant 28.9 billion yen).
– The second points out that his agent, Scott Boras, made the announcement just as the Boston Red Sox finished their sweep of Colorado in the World Series.
– The third paragraph says that he led the majors with 54 homers and 156 RBIs.
– And the fourth paragraph, well, I’ll give you the full version.
“The Yankees join the Seattle Mariners and Texas Rangers as former teams for a player who outperformed all others during the regular season but choked regularly in the postseason.â€
* * *
The A-Rod choking thing is now such a part of his character that it is simply reported as fact in a Japanese newspaper brief. Never mind that there is some reasonable evidence that he has not, in fact, “choked regularly†in the postseason. In his first four playoff series, he hit .371 and slugged .629. When his Seattle team played the 2000 Yankees in the playoffs — the last Yankees team to win the Series, if you’re scoring at home — A-Rod was the best player on the field.
Even now his LCS batting average, on-base percentage and slugging percentage are all WAY higher than Mr. November, Derek Jeter.
This is not to say he has not choked. I don’t know. Maybe he has. He was brutal his last three and a half playoff series (so bad that at some point you no longer even expected him to get a hit), and it’s not unlikely that at some point along the way the whole “A-Rod chokes in the playoffs†pressure got in his head. It’s also not unlikely that he simply slumped at the wrong time. The guy did hit .362 with 10 home runs this September while the Yankees chased down a playoff spot. You would think there was some pressure during that time.
It really doesn’t matter much to me either way. Anyone can be a postseason hero. Bobby Kielty is a postseason hero. Mark Lemke is a postseason hero. I’m not especially impressed by regular players who deliver in their big moment. I’m happy for them. Just not impressed. The whole playoff setup bothers me. I realize that I’m very much in the minority on this, but I never have liked the wildcard and three divisions, and I still don’t. I’ve argued this directly with Bud Selig. I understand the value of the extra playoffs. I appreciate how the extra playoffs creates popularity in the game. I’m not even saying that I would do away with them — they make good business sense. Bud got what he wanted.
I’m just saying that the extra playoff rounds skewer what, for me, is great about the game. It places too much importance on these five-game or seven-game series in cold weather. It diminishes the season. And to me, baseball is about the long season. It’s about all kinds of weather. It’s about overcoming seven-game losing streaks when you look like the worst team that ever played the game. It’s about those blistering streaks when every ball seems to drop and you wonder how long it can last (I remember Johnny Damon having a streak like that in 2000 — for two months or so he hit .415, and that included every kind of bloop, infield dribbler, seeing-eye single you could imagine). It’s about a pitcher having three or four consecutive starts when nothing is working, and there’s talk about moving him to the bullpen, only then he finds a new pitch or a flaw in his delivery or something and he runs off nine victories in a row.
It’s about looking at the back of the baseball card at the end of the season and seeing how it all turned out.
In this back-of-the-baseball card way, there have not been many players in the history of the game better than Alex Rodriguez. I get why people don’t like him. He has Scott Boras for an agent. He signed that insane money deal with the Texas Rangers and then wanted out of it after three years. He has that lackadaisical look. He has Scott Boras for an agent. He has performed poorly in October lately. He says some goofy things sometimes. His agent leaked that he was leaving the Yankees during the World Series, which was tacky (you know, he has Scott Boras as an agent). He seems to be all about the money. He doesn’t appear to have many deep thoughts. He has Scott Boras for an agent.
On the other hand, I don’t know, he seems like a reasonably nice guy for a big star. He moved to third without complaint (as far as I know) even though he had won two Gold Gloves at shortstop. He has, best I can tell, tried in his own way to be a stand-up guy when he failed. He has played hard through the boos. He has, I think, tried to live up to the obscene expectations. He had one of the great years in Yankee history though the town hasn’t exactly been super supportive and people with the Yankees occasionally made snide (and often anonymous) remarks about him.
I have a friend whose son is a huge A-Rod fan, and he said to me, “Oh man, I wish he had a different role model.†But when I asked him why, he had a hard time explaining. He finally said, “A-Rod doesn’t play for love. He plays for money.†Maybe. Sure. But if we limit the role model field to those players and people in American society who would do things for free (or for less than offered), there wouldn’t be many posters on kids wall (I guess I could be a role model for doing this blog for free — how do I get one of those fathead posters? Um, OK, sorry, that’s a horrifying image). Maybe A-Rod should play for less money, I don’t know. It seems to me a kid could do worse than having A-Rod as a sports hero.
(I have another friend, a Yankees fan, who is enraged that A-Rod is leaving. “He won’t get more money than the Yankees offered,†he grumbled in an email. I wrote back, “So wait a minute … one minute we’re mad at A-Rod for taking the money. The next minute, we’re mad he walked away from money. I’m confused. Why are we mad again?â€)
Then, all of that is subjective. I don’t know what makes A-Rod tick. He might be a miserable ogre, he might be Gandhi in cleats, heck, I don’t really know. I once sat at the table next to him at a Miami restaurant and I once sat a few tables away from him at a PF Chang’s in Kansas City, and I’ve sat in a few press conferences with him and I once had a 10-minute talk with him when he was with Texas, and you know what? That’s just not quite enough to go on.
Here’s what I do know: In the course of his crazy career, the guy has averaged .306 with 44 homers and 128 RBIs over 162 games (and that’s another thing — the guy plays every day. Since 2001, he’s averaged 159 games a year). He’s been successful 81 percent of the time he tries to steal a base. He’s averaging about 128 runs scored per season, which is more than Rickey Henderson, Ty Cobb or Pete Rose.
I realize that the A-Rod bashers don’t deny his greatness as an every day baseball player. They reach for the heart instead. They gripe that he has some sort of far reaching character flaw — he loves money too much (unlike, you know, us monks), he does not perform in the clutch, his numbers are empty, his motives aren’t pure. Whatever. Baseball’s ultimate cliche is that it’s a game of failure. The best hitters make outs more than half the time. The best fielders botch routine plays. The best pitchers lose. All that stuff.
And to me the way you judge a baseball player’s “character†— if that’s the word you want to use — is to determine who, day in and day out, succeeds most in what I believe is the most challenging game around. Of course, I don’t think it really comes down to character. It comes down to talent and endurance and concentration and work ethic and the ability to control one’s emotions and the game intelligence to anticipate how the other team will try to beat you. It comes down to the every day.
I worked in the warehouse of a sweater factory one summer. It was brutal work. I moved boxes in startling heat. I unloaded trucks of yarn. I handled barrels of dye. There was a guy who worked in the warehouse, and he was, best I could tell, not MIT material (you know, like I was). He hardly ever said anything, and when he did say something it was usually along the lines of, “I like my bacon crispy, you know?†He also offered various groans that, I suspect, meant he wasn’t particularly happy with his life choices. He hinted that he had been in trouble with the law, and it wasn’t hard to imagine.
But every single day, he came to work, and he moved those boxes. He was naturally strong, I think. He had a talent for hand trucks — he could scoop up the heaviest boxes like they were lighter than David Eckstein. He would work twice as hard as me every single day, and I really thought I was working pretty hard. And at the end of the summer, I must admit, I admired him. I didn’t admire him personally, and I certainly did not want to be like him, and I was perfectly glad to never see him again after that summer. But I admired that, day-in and day-out, he was damned good at what he did. That’s how I feel about A-Rod too. He’s damned good at baseball. And, in the end, I think that’s worth admiring.
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I’m glad you wrote this because I agree with every word. I was particularly excited that you mention that you don’t like the 3 playoff format and the Wild Card. I argue this point all the time and most my friends think I’m insane or too much of a purist. I’m 24, so I can’t imagine I’m that much of a purist.
As for A Rod, I’m just happy I was alive and around to see him play. He’s one of the all time greats and just like I’m jealous of people who got to see Aaron, Mays, Mantle, Gibson, Koufax, etc play, I hope people will be jealous of me someday.
It’s true, the man is the Ted Williams of our generation, under appreciated, loathed for his demeanor and his awesome talent.
Nice piece.
Here’s the question about your box moving savant – if he left for another warehouse, would the productivity of yours increase? Would the other workers enjoy their jobs more? That seems part of the package with A-Rod’s unique talents….
Agreed about the downside of the expanded playoffs, but I still prefer the opportunities that it provides to make the regular season matter to more teams. And given the competitive advantages of the Yankees (and, I must admit, the Sox), short series in the playoffs provide opportunities for less fortunate franchises to slay giants.
The fact is that baseball is an entertainment business, and because the business of baseball is part of what determines the cast of your favorite team, contracts become a big story. A-Rod chose to sign an almost quarter-billion dollar contract, at the time doubling the next highest contract out there, $100m ahead of the next offer.
Now, no reasonable human being would turn that down, but the reality is that if you sign that deal, you are setting yourself up for scrutiny and expectation that is a couple of orders of magnitude beyond that of any other player. When you then take that contract to New York, add a few orders of magnitude. When your agent starts talking about a $300 million contract going through your age 42 season while you’re still undder contract, add a few more.
Plus, given that sportswriters and the sports punditocracy have bought hte ownership story hook, line and sinker, pummelling into fans the idea that contracts drive ticket prices, A-Rod became the lightning rod for fan vitriol, the embodiment of the “greedy player” who’s the reason they can’t afford the box seats.
It doesn’t matter that these ideas are irrational or flat-out wrong. It doesn’t matter that basic supply-demand economics tells us ticket prices drive salaries, or that postseason series are small samples. Expecting rationality of a population whose label is short for “fanatic” is in itself irrational. And Scott Boras has to know this, and one would presume A-Rod knows this.
So A-Rod gets his hundreds of millions, but he also gets the non-monetary cost that goes along with it, and the burden of the highest of expectations. Such is the price of being so far above everybody else, and I say so be it. If fans were purely rational human beings they wouldn’t be half as attached or interested and baseball wouldn’t be half as profitable and A-rod wouldn’t be half as wealthy.
Darnit, Joe. Stop making so much sense! Pretty soon I’m going to realize the whole nonsensical sports media is a dream, and I’ll soon wake up to read the paper (or the Interwebs) and nod affirmatively. Will you please write my sports section for me? You and Buster Olney have been a lifesaver for MLB, at least is it pertains to me. BBTN sadly has become stale and hardly viewable. But there are still a bunch of good writers around the country doing good work. Thanks to Buster for bringing it to me. And thank goodness for your free blog! Just thought I’d share – been reading for a while now, dating all the way back to the Soul of the Game stuff.
I was at a Royals vs Mariners game sitting in old left field G.A. (you know where I am talking about), this is when A-Rod played for the Mariners. Anyway, if my memory serves me correctly, believe it or not the Royals were up big, and it was late (8th inning or so). The game was by all means over. A-Rod came up and trashed one. It hit the back of the bullpen wall in left field. That was when I realized that this guy was awesome! He was still trying to jump on any mistake the pitcher made, and mash it into next week! This type of effort is now being discredited because it was in junk time, when I perceived it as him not giving up! I don’t get it. Put A-Rod in the middle of the Royals’ line up any day! Heck, put him in the middle of any team’s line up, and they are automatically better. The Yankees are getting “Boras-ed”. They have no bargaining power. Sucks to be them… NOT!
I agree with Chris. Shoot, baseball is OVER (at least, here in the USA) and I’m still enjoying it every day through your writing here and in the Star. This is great stuff.
You should write a book or something.
Peace
The Royals need to bring back the outfield G.A.
And the wild card sucks.
I think Andy’s point gets exactly at what A-Rod’s all about. If the game’s pretty much been decided, he gets some hits. If the outcome is in doubt (especially in the last three years in October), he doesn’t. Look at his LDS average against the Indians this year; he got his hits in games 3 and 4 when the outcome was pretty much decided.
Did any of you watch the debate on MSNBC last night? I think I won obviously, but the biggest news is that I came clean and admitted that I saw a UFO at Shirley McLaine’s home. Tim Russert did not give me enough time to drop this other bombshell, which I will now share with you. Tomorrow I will be endorsed by the leaders of Xiphyyz and Metrulon. I expect their support to make all the difference in this race and allow me to winning stunning victories in Iowa and New Hampshire. Let’s see the Clinton machine try to stop me now!
http://blog.washingtonpost.com/thefix/2007/10/ufos_and_alien_life.html?nav=rss_blog
Joe, first, I find myself so very much in agreement with you about the state of the playoffs and the beauty and grind of the long season. And your comments on A-Rod really made me think, especially since you’re giving a point of view so different from almost all the other ones that are being put forth right now (not only that, but it’s refreshingly froth-free). I have been doing my best to give A-Rod the benefit of the doubt for a while, especially given the kind of year he had in 2007 and the fact that I know that most stories are more smoke than fire.
With that, I think it’s interesting how fast the NYC writers have turned on A-Rod. As a Yankees fan, I’m pretty happy to let him go, figuring that while we’ll lose some run production, with luck next year’s pitching will make up for it. And also figuring, after watching the circus that surrounded him the past few years, that this fall he had a chance to make a choice that could have defined him and really put a lot of this to bed. And it’s kind of my argument with your really well put ideas of A-Rod as hard worker, as dedicated to his job.
If A-Rod wanted to show, outside the numbers, that he was that show up, work hard, do right guy, he could have either stated unequivocally that he was not opting out and just wanted to play, or he could have let the Yankees give him a raise and just kept playing. That would be dedication to a job, especially when you’re already making more than everyone else on the sweater docks. Why let that distraction continue? You can say that because A-Rod’s at the ballpark every day, because his numbers are so consistent, he’s doing his job and showing heart at it, but even for ballplayers, jobs aren’t quite so one dimensional. His job isn’t _just_ playing baseball, the same way mine isn’t _just_ editing manuscripts and yours isn’t _just_ filing stories. There are all sorts of other things, some explicitly defined by your job description and some not–some that obtain just because we are living in a society, people!–that are inescapable parts of jobs. Getting along with your coworkers. Being ready to do what you can for the “team.” Being part of the solution, not the precipitate. Now A-Rod is under no more compunction to do these things than is weird close-talker IT guy down the hall, especially if people are willing to keep paying him. But if you’re at all concerned about reputation, legacy (since in baseball, with his skills, you get one), or even having a pleasant time at the office, you have to take the whole range of what work is into account. And I don’t think that his obvious dedication to the physical aspects of playing should _necessarily_ give him a free pass on all the others. Especially since the physical parts should be the easiest for him. He’s an athlete. And let’s face it, with what we ask of athletes, the other parts aren’t that hard. There’s a whole industry out there to keep athletes from looking like total toolboxes. But some toolboxery just defies even that, it seems. Ah, me. Where have you gone Joe Girardi-o? And where’s Scott Brosius, anyway?
Thanks for your blog on ARod. My objection to the divisional breakup of the leagues and the playoffs is that it debases the value of the 162 games of the regular season. What is the point playing so many games to accomplish so little? Three 10-team leagues, one winner per league and a three-team round robin World Series would make a lot more sense (and possibly a lot less money). Barring that, baseball might as well go to playing a LOT fewer games during the season. It would accomplish just as much and the best pitchers could start every game. Each team could carry 15 guys in the bullpen. LaRussa would love it.
I agree with Joe 100% about the playoffs and the three division format. It was better when it was two divisions. To me, the 1993 season was the last regular pure baseball season. Back when there were 7 teams per division it really meant something if you came in 3rd. Not today. Also, we had some amazing races that we will never see again. Does anyone remember the 1993 season with the Braves and Giants each winning over 100 games and battling to the last weekend of the season? Now it’s about which mediocre teams still have a chance to back into the playoffs. I’m also not a fan of interleague play with its unbalanced schedule and fake rivalries like the Astros vs. Rangers.
Andrew,
This past season, Rodriguez hit 318/448/776 with two outs and runners in scoring position, and hit 357/439/686 in late and close spots (data from BB Ref).
Cherry-picking two games is pretty pathetic – try harder.
Just to pick one stat, 518 home runs at age 32.
Don’t you think we will be watching a player this durable chase Bonds? He could hit over 800 home runs (Boras is looking at right handed hitters’ ballparks, right now).
Great ballplayer. Incredible talent.
First, great blog, maybe the best around.
Second, agree with you 100% about the wild card. Until 1969, a pennant was something to celebrate in and of itself, with the world series a nice cherry on top. Even from 1969-1993, a division title — the only ticket to postseason — was a nice accomplishment.
I’m a Rockies fan, and now that the Series is over, I’m not sure what to feel. Yeah, they “won the pennant.” To do that, they beat Arizona in a short series, after Arizona won the 162-game season playing in the same division. On the last Friday of the regular season, the D-backs beat the Rockies — their only loss between Sept. 15 and the World Series — and celebrated on the field at Coors because they’d clinched the division title. A few days later on the same field it was the Rockies celebrating after knocking the D-backs out. I was as happy as anyone that the Rockies won, but honestly it did not, and does not, feel right. The Snakes got hosed by the system, just as the ‘05 Cardinals did, proving over 162 games they were better than the Astros and then losing 4 of 6 in the LCS. And just as the ‘04 Yankees did, beating the Red Sox fair and square over 162 but losing the 7-game season tacked on at the end. Any wild-card “championship” is bogus — so congrats to the Red Sox for their first legitimate one since 1918.
Michael (1:06 pm 10/31, above) is a Yankees fan who is “pretty happy to let him go,” and I’m a Sox fan who absolutely doesn’t want him in Boston (regardless of whether the Sox will stupidly fail to sign their MVP, Lowell).
And just as Michael noted that there is more to being a team player than mere production, there is also more to following an entire baseball club than watching them win or lose. Whether its a bunch of Idiots from 2004, or this present group of Grinders and Kids from 2007, I want My Sox Team to have a chemistry and personality that will fit with in with my visions of teamwork, success, and perhaps even failure and redemption.
It’s what makes watching sport so compelling.
There’s an antiseptic and loveless demeanor about A-rod, underneath those fabulous numbers. And a drive toward the almighty dollar that just hits me the wrong way. I fear the chemical balance of a team that includes these ingredients.
And I’m not sure that I would spend my money or my time to support a Red Sox team that didn’t understand, at least in this case, winning isn’t everything.
Joe, you are the best!
Joe: Great piece, but rather than clear up my feelings about A-Rod, you’ve actually made me more conflicted. Although your conclusion is positive, I could’ve used 2/3 of your column to draw the opposite one. And my quandry sums up the A-Rod debate: he’s too debatable. Unlike Ripken, Brett, Ernie Banks, and even Santo, he just doesn’t leave you feeling positive about him. It perhaps all boils down to personality. But you did leave off one of his better attributes: unlike Bonds, A-Rod doesn’t antagonize the fans and media. This alone assures that he’ll make the HOF and always have supporters. – TL
Another good piece Joe, thanks for doing this blog it has become one of my daily “must reads”.
I wonder if I agree with you though when you say: : “And to me the way you judge a baseball player’s “character†— if that’s the word you want to use — is to determine who, day in and day out, succeeds most in what I believe is the most challenging game around.”
I might argue that there is a more complicated test, that requires you to look at the impact of the player on the team as a whole (’cos in the short-medium-long term contexts it is teams who win at baseball, not individuals and definitely not position players).
Put another way I think a combination of the likes of Brosius, Tino, O’Neill, Girardi, Cone etc. both define character for me and are the glue that gets winning teams through both the long 162 marathon and the short post-season sprints. Even if, by individual measures they may not have “succeeded” as much as an A-Rod.
…..and I have many Ranger supporting friends who, four seasons on, still declare loudly how many of A-Rods stats come in meaningless situations. Even if they are only partially correct, I’m surprised by the continuing anger that fuels their passionate disparagement.
I rooted for A-Rod as a Yankee, but I mostly rooted for my Yanks and, honestly, will be happier without him as a Yankee.
You know, here’s the thing that I just am not seeing mentioned very much. Maybe A-ROD opting out is actually NOT about the money (everyone just assumes he is trying to get more of the green stuff). Maybe, just maybe, he REALLY hates NY. He hates living in a fishbowl, he hates the traffic, he hates the weather, he hates the slobby-ass drunk fans who constantly berate him no matter what he does, and he hates the constant media attention and 24/7 coverage.
I know such thoughts are impossible to fathom for those living in the “center of the universe” NY City. But still, I am just saying.
Just finished reading “Soul of Baseball”. GREAT book. Just thought Id let you know how much that book, affected my outlook on life. I picked up “Right on Time” last year by Buck hoping to learn more about him. However, as you know, he doesnt like to talk about himself, so I was wanting more. I picked up your book and read it cover to cover in just a couple of days and LOVED it. And YES, I did cry haha. Anyway, thanks for the book, its not only a great baseball book, but a great book about the best of humanity!
Nice piece, Joe. It always amazes me to think that one day my grandkids are going to ask me what it was like watching the guys who were star baseball players in the 80s, 90s and 2000s. You know, like Rickey Henderson, Roger Clemens, Barry Bonds, and A-Rod. And I’ll say “Well, everybody thought they were a bunch of jerks who destroyed clubhouse chemistry. But people liked Kevin Millar because he even gave John Olerud a noogie!”
I don’t know any of these baseball players personally, and I’m loathe to judge them based on how the press perceives them. I don’t care who’s got a stabbin’ cabin or who thought he was worth 14% more than the Yankees wanted to pay him. But I do enjoy watching them play baseball…