I guess I’m slow- did he make the Yankees a better team, results wise?
Without Rodriguez, I think it’s pretty sure they wouldn’t have made the playoffs.
Next year, if they get some pitching, they might make the playoffs without him.
Texas Rangers winning pct three years pre A-Rod:
0.543
0.586
0.438
Three years with him:
0.451
0.444
0.438
Yankess four years before him:
0.540
0.594
0.640
0.623
Four years with him:
0.623
0.586
0.599
0.580
And IIRC the Mariners won 116 games the year after he left. So I dare say he doesn’t make any team better as of yet.
Hello. I don’t follow baseball very closely at all and so this may be an embarrassing noob question. But um…why does A-Rod get to demand a quarter of a team’s purse? Is he the baseball Jesus? Even if he is, why would he do that? Wouldn’t a single person earning that much money make the locker room situation and general team bonding extremely awkward? It’s not like this guy is living hand to mouth or anything (“I only have two summer homes! Woe is me!”). Wouldn’t it obviously be better to take a pay cut in the hopes of fielding an all around better team so you can, you know, get to the World Series and potentially win? And stuff?
I guess that applies to a lot of sports stars, though.
He’s the best player in baseball right now, he’s young, and he puts up numbers. Why shouldn’t he try to get the best money for his efforts? Would you take a pay cut because it would help your company? It’s not his job to take paycuts so people far wealthier then him can field a winning team. With no salary caps in Baseball no one takes a pay cut for the good of the team. A-Rod is Rich. The people paying him are Wealthy.
However, with the Yankees out of the bidding, and his lackluster playoff records over the past 4 years, I doubt he’ll get the numbers he and his agent are hoping for. I don’t think players would begrudge another player for making a lot of money, they would all like to make as much as A-Rod. But some well paid players seem to get along better with their teams and don’t seem as aloof as him (and Bonds).
I really hope that Boston doesn’t try to bid on him. I think the Sox fans would be merciless on him, and frankly, would hate to see Lowell go.
It’s already been settled. It’s an abomination.
The smiting is on account of agreeing to take the field with the abomination-perpetuating scum.
This is a good point, and is the reason that only the richest teams can afford to pay for A-Rod’s decline years in order to get the rest of his prime. Two mitigating circumstances, however. First, Rodriguez is a special player who will almost certainly have a gentler career arc than a typical player. Second, inflation is a fact of life in the free agent market; $30M in 2008 salary does not equal $30M in 2011 salary. Hence, Alex will effectively get cheaper every year so long as his absolute salary remains constant.
Calculating Lowell’s $ value on the basis of his 2007 season would be pure folly. He will neve rbe this good again.
More interestingly: yeah, the Red Sox could spread their money around as you describe, but a team with a huge budget and a stacked farm system is better off acquiring a few mega-superstars as opposed to a bunch of pretty good players. There are only so many roster spots available that give you the ability to add value to your team.
Say you pay Rodriguez $30M for 12 Wins Above Replacement Player – that is, having A-Rod as your starting 3B will get you 12 more regular season wins than starting a typical AAA or waiver-wire player. Alternately, you could spend that $30M on 3 players who each are worth 4.5 WARP, and therefore contribute 13.5 – 1.5 more for the same price as Rodriguez. However, the team would actually be better off spending the $30M on the superstar because he’s only using up one position. By paying a premium for one star, you’ve got two extra positions from which you can pretty easily extract much more than 1.5 wins. Make sense?
The good folks at baseballprospectus.com have calculated that A-Rod has contributed about 140 wins above replacement to his teams over the course of his career. Alternately, you could say that he has personally led to roughly 52 wins above what an average major leaguer would have (and, in sports, leagu-average is nothing to sneeze at).
They wouldn’t sign him because of his stats (unless you count “wins” as a stat, and you should). They’d sign him because by transferring one of the top three baseball players on the planet from their arch-rival to themselves, they could effectively wrap up the AL East in January.
Absolutely! There is no way the Yankees make the playoffs in '07 without him. As for the winning percentages you quote, keep in mind you’re looking for the results of one variable (A-Rod’s presence) without accounting for the hundreds of other variables that are in play.
Of course, all of this doesn’t necessarily mean that it would be a smart move for the Red Sox or any other team to sign A-Rod. It would be difficult yet certainly possible for big-market team to pay him too much money and be hurt in the deal. I just don’t think you’ve thought this one through very far.
Yup, He smited them so hard that the only pitcher with a hit in the whole series was an AL guy! 
Damn, missed the 5 minute edit window. Wanted to add this as the second-to-last paragraph to post #227:
Also, look: MLB’s postseason is a crapshoot. There just isn’t enough difference in the quality of playoff teams to make the results indicative of team quality in the same way as the NFL or NBA. The best team in the postseason will seldom have even a 20% of winning the World Series. Thinking the Yankees haven’t won a World Series with A-Rod because of some failing of his is insane.
That jerk Rodriguez, look at the he selfishly switched positions to accomadate Derek Jeter, despite the fact the Jeter isn’t even half the defensive SS that Arod was. Look at how he was such a jerk and sat there and took it while the fans of his own team heaped mountains of crap on him, calling him a choker and saying he’d never be a “true yankee”. What an asshole.
While enjoying the Red Sox win and not especially concerned yet about who the team signs over the off-season, I think it’s a gas how the Yankee management is reacting to A-Rod’s opting out of his remaining contract.
*"“It’s a shame,” Hank Steinbrenner said. “But we are all in agreement: myself, my dad, my brother, all the baseball people. If you don’t want to be a Yankee and paid what you’re being paid, we don’t want you, that’s the bottom line. You’d be hard-pressed to argue that point. If you don’t understand the magnitude of being a Yankee and understand what that means, and being the highest-paid player in baseball, I think it’s pretty obvious”
“If we’re going to make you rich and we’re going to give you the privilege of being a Yankee,” he added, “you’ve got to show us you want to be here.”*
How dare that Rodriguez person not appreciate the privilege, nay, the magnitude of being a Yankee!!!
It should be sobering for Red Sox fans (and non-fans) to recognize that here’s one huge gap the team hasn’t closed with the Yankees. The overwhelming, preening obnoxiousness of Yankee management (both reflecting and trickling down to the attitudes of Yankee fans, reporters and broadcasters) will probably never be attained by any other franchise. At least in this one realm*, the Yankees remain Number One.
*In terms of the World Serious - still seven years and counting, boys. 
My only two quibbles with your two posts:
-
I don’t think the baseballprospectus stats quoted can be accurately quantified.
-
Agree that the postseason is a crapshoot (see Larry Cox), which is why you shouldn’t spend that much money on a player when all you need is somebody “to get you there”, especially with A Rods lack of postseason suceess.
You know, maybe it’s just me, but “magnitude of being a Yankee” aside, I have no argument with their point.
In fact, change that last sentence to:
“If we’re going to make you rich and we’re going to give you the privilege of being a INSERT TEAM NAME HERE,” he added, “you’ve got to show us you want to be here.”
and you’ll get a “fuck yeah” out of me.
But who better to get you there than A-Rod? Nobody.
Yes, the Red Sox won the World Series. And just last year, with much the same arsenal of players, they finished third. Some years you’re lucky and some you aren’t, and teams that win champonships and say “well, we don’t need anyone else, everything’s fine” often collapse the next year. Almost all championship teams are, to some degree, lucky. Boston is not guaranteed a playoff spot next year, and would be wise to bolster their team to make it likelier. By acquiring A-Rod, they’d make it near-certain of making the playoffs, as opposed to “Reasonably likely,” and would torpedo the Yankees, who without A-Rod might be in pretty dire straits - if there’s a replacement for him in the Yankee system, I don’t see it. That two game gap becomes about fifteen games if you move A-Rod from Bronx to Boston.
Now, that said, A-Rod’s demand will likely be ludicrous. Boras will probably not settle for a penny less than $30-$35 million over 8 to 10 years, and at that point, at least according to the studies I have read, no ballplayer is worth it, and you’d likely be getting screwed towards the end of the deal as he declines.
Stephen Colbert just claimed that the Rockies were trying to copyright the word “Rocktober.” That can’t possibly be true, can it?
Rockies trying to trademark ‘Rocktober’
I have no idea what the legal ramifications might be for a term that has been employed by Rock and Roll radio stations for multiple decades.
You’ve gotta be kidding me.
I don’t care at all about the Rockies’ religious beliefs, but that level of obnoxiousness deserves a smackdown.
Well, they are asking for a trademark, not a copyright. Depending on the wording of the request, it might only apply to baseball memorabilia associated with the team and have no affect on the local Top 40 radio station in some city outside Colorado.
Rather a moot point now anyway, don’t you think? Since I suspect sales of such memorabilia are in the process of plummeting.
“Plummet” – I love that word.
Go right ahead bungwipe-pretend that your little 22 game streak makes you an automatic contender next year, and thus do nothing to improve your team. Meanwhile, while you live in your little dreamworld, the Red Sox are currently celebrating their championship, attained in the real world, by having a kickass parade in Boston.