In the early 2000s, it became trendy in baseball circles to refer to Derek Jeter as the fourth best shortstop in the game. Jeter was baseball's most marketable player, and after 4 championships in 5 years, in the nation's largest city, playing for professional sports' most storied franchise, baseball enthusiasts started to wage war against the pristine Jeter. Yankee haters and OPS lovers alike argued that Jeter was not only the least valuable of baseball's big three shortstops (A-Rod, Nomar and Jeter), but that Jeter was actually far inferior to Edgar Renteria.It was around this time that I started to like Jeter, and to defend his honor if ever it came up in conversation. Jeter seemed like a throwback. A middle infielder that wasn't a power hitter. With A-Rod and Nomar dwarfing Jeter's regular season offensive production, we lovers of the common man turned to Jeter's uncanny knack for coming through on the sport's largest stage as proof of his greatness.
When Alex Rodriguez was traded to the Yankees, it gave all of us arguers a unique opportunity to see the game's two largest figures side by side. No longer was A-Rod playing in the relative obscurity of the Pacific Northwest, or the dry heat of Central Texas. Now we would know if Jeter was simply a byproduct of his charmed circumstances. I mean surely A-Rod would win a bunch of rings, and play well in the postseason, and Jeter's accomplishments would be diminished because he doesn't bat third or fourth. Right?
Rob Neyer wrote in a recent blog post, "...Rodriguez' career batting line is .304/.389/.576. Not for nothing, when games are close and late, he's batting .278/.378/.539 (and in those spots he's often faced tough relief pitchers). I just don't see anything there, or at least not anything that would justify consulting Freud's notebooks. Ah, but of course there is October. In postseason games, Rodriguez has indeed struggled, relative to his regular-season performance: .279/.361/.483. You might argue that 167 plate appearances isn't enough to prove -- or even suggest -- anything. I don't think I would argue much with you. But let's assume that those numbers mean something. Should we now scurry to expert witnesses to explain why Willie Mays hit just one home run in 99 postseason plate appearances? Have you seen Joe DiMaggio's postseason numbers? They're significantly worse than A-Rod's and DiMaggio finished with 220 World Series plate appearances. Has anyone resorted to pop psychology to explain DiMaggio's October struggles? Maybe someone should. But it seems to me that the rules are different for Rodriguez. It might be natural, given the current state of sports coverage, but it sure isn't fair."
There are of course different ways of framing the argument. Joe DiMaggio was a loveable figure, and A-Rod is borderline toxic, so of course people are going to find ways to criticize A-Rod just as they probably found excuses for DiMaggio.
A-Rod's postseason numbers were good up to a point. And although it's easy to say that it's a big coincidence, that it's too small a sample, he was a lot better in the postseason when he was young and theoretically didn't know any better in Seattle than when he was a Yankee and was supposed to excel.
A-Rod's career postseason line through the Yankees/Twins ALDS in 2004 was .361/.403/.611. Since that series it's .200/.310/.360. If you crunch his postseason numbers before and after Game 3 of the infamous 2004 ALCS the fun really begins: .436/.456/.709 in 55 abs before vs .185/.299/.348 in 92 abs after.
In his last three postseasons, A-Rod has been punched out 15 times in 44 abs.
You're more than welcome to say that this is overly selective, but isn't part of the fun of being a fan deriving meaning from performance? And in this case these are all the numbers we have. We're not talking about 2 for 20, we're talking about 17 for 92. And 17 for 92 isn't good.
Don't we judge superfluous athletes based on whether they reach the pinnacle of their sport? A-Rod hit 50 homers three years in a row for a last place team. Is that the pinnacle of the sport?
I wholeheartedly agree that if A-Rod pulls a Barry Bonds or a Peyton Manning the argument will end. But until that time, the number crunching non-athletes that write about Baseball like Rob Neyer are either just being contrary, or they're missing one of the fascinating stories of this era in baseball: the Babe Ruth of his generation's career will be defined partly by his inability to perform in the postseason as a Yankee.
Plus the guy that plays next to him made the most unbelievably intuitive, pube-boy-being- everywhere-on-the-field-play the sport has ever seen. The teams he led won every year, and the teams A-Rod leads never win. He shows up on the scene, and the team is immune to winning important games. The team collapses in a fashion that no team in the history of the sport has duplicated. That's the story.
Joe DiMaggio's career postseason line of .272/.338/.422 is a far cry from his career line of .325/.398/.579, however, in Joe DiMaggio's day a huge part of being clutch meant leading your team to the World Series and winning it, with fewer postseason series the regular season meant more. In 13 major league seasons, Joe DiMaggio's Yankees appeared in 10 World Series and won it 9 times.
I'm not sure Joe DiMaggio should be characterized as a lousy postseason performer.
The fun part may be yet to come. A-Rod's stacked Yankee teams should continue to make the postseason with the regularity of DiMaggio's stacked Yankee teams, so A-Rod should have plenty of opportunities to silence his critics.
I really hope he doesn't. I hate that guy.
