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.

Adam Dunn: Why Does Everyone Hate You?

It seems like everyone hates Adam Dunn: The Reds, the Reds' fans, JP Riccardi, and just about everyone on ESPN. I never understood any of this and with Dunn once again being shopped at the deadline, I'm hearing more and more of it. You hear everywhere that Dunn is a one dimensional player who chokes under the pressure and doesn't have a passion for the game. I for one would like to know where all this garbage came from. I would love to have Dunn on my team. He's obviously not the first guy I would pick, but he would be a good piece of a lineup.

The biggest Dunn hater I've heard is John Seibel, host of ESPN Radio's Sportsnation show. Since I have a 35 minute drive home everyday and I'm sick of XM 175's dynamic duo of stupidity, I thought I'd give Sportsnation a try. On today's show, Seibel, and his parter in idiocy, Orestes Destrade were discussing players who could possibly be on the move as the deadline approaches. Seibel took every chance he got to take a shot at Dunn whom he considers, to put it lightly, a liability for the Reds both in the field and at the plate. He continued to talk about how Dunn fails to come through with RISP and one time he went as far as to say "In the time we were talking, Dunn just struck out with runners at second and third, even though he's not playing."

Taking the two seconds needed to check Dunn's 2008 splits on Baseball Reference Dunn's "clutch" OPSes are: RISP: .872, 2 outs RISP 1.080, men on: .881, "Late and close": .928.

Corresponding stats for Mr. Clutch Derek Jeter: .815, .936, .754, .861.

As a hitter, Jeter quite frankly does not belong in the same sentence as Dunn. This guy is even more out of place and does not belong in the same thought process as Dunn though Seibel and Destrade think he'd be a better fit for a team looking to add a quality bat.

During the same show, idiot and idiota as I will now refer to them started discussing what a great fit Matt Holliday would be for the Angels, even going as far as discussing a Holliday for Gary Matthews Jr. and prospects trade. Lets ignore the fact the bringing in Matthews and his "the owner must have been really drunk to offer such a deal" contract would be the act of a crazy person, and take a break for some intelligent thinking...

...thinking...

Ok, I'm done. In the time it took to type 'thinking' twice, I thought of some potential problems with such a trade. The Angels have 6 outfielders on their 25 man roster, all of whom only play the outfield, all of whom have been productive in the past and all of whom except for Vlad Guerrero and maybe Torii Hunter have been awful in 2008. Only 3 Angels are currently slugging over .450 and all are right handed giving them a grand total of ZERO left handed power threats. Kotchman is their best left handed hitter, and he's OPSing a stellar .768. Despite the obvious fact that Matthews and Garret Anderson are bums, they still have gotten the vast majority of the PAs over Reggie Willits and Juan Rivera. Willits, one of the few Angels who can take a walk was rewarded for his solid rookie season by yet another absurd signing that dropped him on the depth chart. He's struggled this year, but has played less than 1/5 of the time Anderson has, and is just 5 walks behind him. Rivera it seems, has had his career all but destroyed by breaking his leg in winter ball two years ago.

So summing up all things for the Angels to consider before acquiring a hitter: they have 6 outfielders, they have a lineup with power coming only from the right side, and they don't walk enough. Wow, sounds like Holliday would be the perfect fit! He's a right handed outfielder who only walks slightly more than the average player (of course he would immediately become the Angels' leader in the category). Add to it the fact that he plays in Colorado which is still a good place for hitters, in the vastly inferior National League, and he's about to become a free agent and you have the recipe for one of the all time worst deadline trades. Unless of course the Angels could get rid of GMJ in the process.

Actually, come to think of it, you know who might be a good fit for the Angels? Adam Dunn.