Jeter or A-Rod?

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.

Where Have You Gone, Joe DiMaggio?

I take back everything bad I've ever said about Carlos Beltran. Not really. 

I've often argued that the reason Carlos has the greatest stolen base percentage of all time is that he never steals a meaningful base. In fact, I'll go one step further. The reason Carlos has such a great career stolen base percentage is that he attempts steals in situations where it's actually a bad baseball play. 

Well, Carlos stole a big, big base tonight, allowing the Mets to tie the game with a productive out supplied by Luis Castillo. The Mets came back to win a game they trailed by three runs heading into the 8th, and by a single run heading into the 9th. These kinds of wins have got to mean a little more to a team. Snatching victory from the clutches of defeat, beating a team's closer. 

Beltran led off the 9th with a double off Mike Gonzalez, especially impressive after falling behind in the count. Beltran has been fantastic with the bat all season (in his quiet, pious sort of way). For the second time in the early season, David Wright found himself in a position, in the 9th, facing the opposing team's closer, to move a runner on second, representing the tying run, to 3rd with less than two outs. Both times I've screamed at my wife for the lovable slugger to sacrifice the runner over to third with a bunt, knowing full well that that's not how we play the game in the United States.

Let me back this truck up a bit. I got into a sizable argument with my father during the World Baseball Classic. We were both watching the semifinal game between the U.S. and Japan when he called me up, and told me that all his life he had viewed the World Series Champion as the best team in baseball, but now, after watching Japan and Korea, he wasn't so sure. I, of course, argued that the Americans weren't in mid-season form, that Venezuela was playing without Johan Santana, that Japan had four Major League Players in their starting lineup, but he wasn't having it. We were sort of having two different conversations, but that's neither here nor there. 

There were a couple of things about what I saw in the World Baseball Classic that I found very significant, and both of them relate to the Mets' decision not to bunt with David Wright.

When you watch the team from Japan, for example, the best hitters know how to bunt. Even the cleanup hitter that might be known for hitting home runs most of time, knows how to bunt if the situation calls for it. If an American born player has been a stud on every team he's ever played for, the chances are good that he simply doesn't know how to do it.  

The other thing I noticed about Japan and Korea is that they don't strike out. Not like we do.

When the Mets faced the Marlins at home last week, Wright was facing Matt Lindstrom. Obviously, David Wright is an above-average hitter, and many would argue that he should be able to swing the bat and, at the very least, advance the runner to third with less than 2 outs. However, at the time, David Wright was leading the league in strikeouts. In an incredibly similar situation tonight, David ranked third in the league in strikeouts, and in both cases faced a strikeout pitcher. 

Last week, I loved the bunt partly because, since there were runners on 1st and 2nd, and assuming all of these overpaid, overfed Americans are hustling, the bunt takes away the chance of the double play. Tonight I loved the bunt because there was no force at third. A bunt has to be pretty lousy for a tag to be slapped on the speedy Beltran. Of course, I knew in both cases he wasn't bunting, and in both cases our best hitter didn't advance the runner to the next base. 

Now, I don't know what the deal is with the best hitters in the game striking out 125 times a year, but there's something wrong with it. When my father and I have the quintessential generational argument about progress vs...whatever he's arguing for, he often sites Joe DiMaggio's strikeout totals.

Take a look at Joe D's lifetime numbers: 

http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/d/dimagjo01.shtml

Notice how those 39 strikeouts his rookie year were the most he ever racked up. Why is it that great hitters in today's game have to strikeout 125 times a year? They don't shorten up, I guess is the answer, but why don't they shorten up? Are they more concerned with stats, with launching the occasional long ball? That's what it looked like when we played in that Classic. A lot of guys with long swings.

In the W. B. C., I saw a lot of at bats where Japanese batters flicked balls into the outfield with two strikes. You might call such a Texas Leaguer lucky, but there's no shot at a Texas Leaguer if you don't make contact. That's one of the reasons why all of the best pitchers are the pitchers that strikeout so many batters. When they get into a tough spot, they don't allow poor contact to beat them. Because after all, a hitter battling, a hitter flaring something out into no man's land may not be pretty, but it's beautiful baseball.