The sports pages all week have been about A-Rod’s hitting woes and throwing errors. Today’s NYTimes reports that trade rumors are circularing. Dallas Morning News’ Tim Cowlishaw accuses A-Rod of “not measuring up to MVP standards”. Ben Cook falls just short of blaming A-Rod for the Yankees’ lack of World Series wins in recent years. I could go on. Sports writers and baseball fans around the country are all lamenting A-Rod’s slump.
But there’s an irony to all this. The fact that A-Rod is considered to be slumping is just another testament to how great a player he is. Let’s put things in perspective. A-Rod is hitting .279 with 21 homers and 71 RBI. He’s on pace to hit 35 homers and 120 RBI. If last season is any indication, those numbers would put him in the top-10 of both categories. For how many other players would that be called a “slump”?
As for the fielding errors, it’s frustrating to watch and I’m sure even more frustrating for his teammates on the field. But great fielders - and he is a great fielder - have a way of putting the breaks on bad skids like this. I’m not worried.
I think the biggest complaint is his lack of coming through in the clutch. He’s batting around .230 with runners in scoring position and his RBI total is inflated by having Jeter, Damon, and Giambi on base all the time.
Plus his numbers are way down from last year. Fact is the Yankees need him to put up big numbers because of all the injuries and he isn’t coming through. He is without question one of the top 10 — maybe top 5 — players in baseball, but with his salary we expect him to do a little better than .280 and 35 homers.
ARod’s numbers are also down across the board. He’s currently 17th in OPS at .881. That’s way down from last year. His power numbers are down as well. Frankly he’s having a bad year, which is fine, but we expect him to do better.
Comment by Nephtuli — July 26, 2006 @ 4:05 pm
It’s probably more acurate to say he had a bad month. He June number were really pretty awful. He’s hitting .291 in July, which, again, isn’t great, but it’s not nearly as bad as the sports pages are making it sound.
Where are you getting your stats from about BA with runners in scoring position? According to Yahoo Sports, he’s hitting .296 with runners in scoring position, .300 with runners in scoring position and two outs, and .455 with based loaded. Plus, over two-thirds of his homers are with men on.
Comment by sagoboulevard — July 26, 2006 @ 11:17 pm
You’re right about RBI w/RISP. The stat I was thinking of was RBI w/RISP late and in close games (basically clutch situations). And I heard that he was batting around .230 in those situations.
He did have a big HR last night, but his numbers are significantly down from last year.
Comment by Nephtuli — July 27, 2006 @ 3:09 pm