ARod the Scourge of Gotham

Sounds like the title to a Batman movie. Anyway, it seems that every Yankee fan I talk to just hates Alex Rodriguez despite the rather obvious fact that he is the best player on their team. The reasons range from every stupid answer you can think of:

1. "He's not clutch"
2. "He doesn't play the game the right way"
3. "He's not a true Yankee"
4. "He's only in it for the records"
5. "He doesn't play with heart"
6. "He chokes in the playoffs"
7. "He's only in it for the money."

Of all of these, the only one I'll buy is the last one. Alex Rodriguez is murderously overpaid, and this a mistake that has been made not once, but twice! The Texas Rangers outbid everyone by $100 mil to sign him the first time, and when he was stupid enough to opt out of that "the owner must have been really drunk to offer such a deal contract," the Yankees were right there to outbid everyone by more than $100 mil and give him an even worse contract with incentives for breaking records, but none for winning.

As for the others:
1. Clutch: There is really no such thing as clutch, but there are definitely chokers. ARod however really isn't one. His career "clutch" OPSes:

RISP: .959, men on: .982, 2 out RISP: .890, late and close: .906, tied game: .972, 1 run: .981

These are right in line with his career OPS of .968 with the lone exception being 2 out RISP and every single one is better than "Mr. Clutch" Derek Jeter's best clutch OPS of .865.

2. What the hell does that mean? I have never seen ARod fail to run out a ball or take a play off in the field or give up an out by doing something stupid, he has given away the same amount of outs by bunting in his career as Jeter did in the 2004 season, and he has wasted less outs being caught stealing despite stealing more career bases.

3. This still makes no sense. He's on the Yankees. He's a Yankee, and he appear to live the NY lifestyle. Get over it.

4. He definitely likes chasing records, but to say he doesn't care about winning is just stupid. No one likes to lose and I guarantee he isn't accustomed to it. His teams have gone 1068-967 in his career for a .525 winning percentage despite being on some godawful Texas teams.

5. Another thing that can't be measured and doesn't really have a definition, but if not playing with heart means not running into outs or making the highlight reel with flashy plays, then I have no problem with guys who lack heart. They seem to be pretty good at baseball.

6. Ah the favorite for Yankee's fans. This is mostly due to his 1 for 14 with no walks and no extra base hits against the Tigers in 2006, but he was pretty good in 2004 against Boston, and in 2007 against Cleveland, both series where Jeter wasn't. In fact, career playoff OPS: Rodriguez: .844, Jeter: .846. Almost dead even. Jeter had almost as bad a series against the Indians last year as ARod had against the Tigers the year before, but did you hear one person blame Jeter for the loss? No, but you did hear people blame Alex who was considerably better.

The truth is that other than taking the huge contract and generally coming off as a douchebag in his interviews and his private life, the only crime Rodriguez committed was coming to the Yankees when he did. Jeter, Rivera, and Posada, the three players most often associated with the Yankee dynasty were not the players most responsible. That would be David Cone, Andy Pettitte, Orlando Hernandez, David Wells, and maybe Roger Clemens. The first 3 were all great big game postseason pitchers and their stats speak for themselves as their teams have gone a combined 42-13. Wells and Clemens were very effective during their playoff runs with the Yankees. This is something that the endless supply of starters since: Kevin Brown, Jeff Weaver, Javier Vazquez, Randy Johnson, Mike Mussina, Jose Contreras etc. were unable to do with with the Empire. None of this is Alex's fault, nor were the successes the result of Jeter.

I guarantee you that if Rodriguez had been the shortstops on those 4 teams, they would have won at least 4 titles as they were exorbitantly better than the competition in every one except 1996 a year a young Alex out OPSed a young Derek by 245 points. And they may have won in 2001 in one of the closest series I can recall where Jeter, despite the fact that he was dubbed Mr. November, absolutely disappeared going 4 for 27 with no walks.

Alex Rodriguez, despite the fact that he is a much, MUCH better player than Jeter has gotten a raw deal in New York due to the face that he showed up right around the same time that the dynasty ended and has been unfairly blamed for the lack of postseason success since he arrived. The blame has continued this year when despite the fact that he has been BY FAR their best player all year, Rodriguez is still in some circles blamed for the Yankees missing the playoffs for the first time since 1993. They conveniently overlook the fact that Jeter has had his worst season as a pro.

I'm sorry, but given the choice between the two of them in any situation, I'll take Rodriguez any day of the week and twice on Sunday.