Jeter v. ARod
This is a topic that PBryon and I were just talking about. So I figured that it could be hashed out here.
As anyone who follows baseball or who lives in the New York area knows, Alex Rodriguez is having a rough time with NY fans and the media this year. There an obvious reason for this. ARod is not quite playing up to his superstar standards this year. Some negative reaction is not unexpected, but what is unexpected is the high level of vilification that he has received in the press and the intense booing he has received from Yankee fans. ARod was the MVP last year and, by consensus, is still clearly one of the 10 best players in the game. Why isn't ARod being cut some slack?
To get a grasp on this question, I think that ARod can be compared with another great Yankee: Derek Jeter. Derek Jeter never gets booed and never gets attacked in the press despite the fact that Jeter has had some slumps and some disappointing seasons in his career. Jeter seems to have an aura that surrounds him -- an aura that ARod, clearly a superior player, lacks. Why?
I think that it has something to do with their personalities. Jeter and ARod have essentially the same personalities in front of the media -- both give bland, inoffensive, and uninteresting answers to the press's questions. The difference is on the field. Jeter seems to express a natural exuberance on the field whereas ARod seems to carry the weight of the world on his shoulders. Jeter seems authentic whereas ARod seems pre-programmed. In a way, ARod's approach is the more thoughtful approach. ARod has had much exposure to a therapeutic culture in which his wife (a holder of a Master's degree in psychology)is involved; he speaks to a motivational counselor daily. In a way, this makes ARod's success all the more impressive. A linkage between "thinking too much" and "choking" in athletics is well-established.
posted by JonM @ 10:41 PM
7 comments
7 Comments:
One obvious explanation for this double-standard is that Jetter is a home-grown product and ARod is another in a long line of bought-off-the-rack superstars who made her way to New York in large part because her contract couldn't be absorbed by any other team (any other team than Boston, that is).
For all their posturing and overbearing obnoxiousness, I think that a lot of Stankee fans are sensitive to the charge that Steinbrenner wins (back in the old days when the Stankees used to win) because he can simply outspend everyone else. Players like ARod may be seen by Stankee fans as an unwelcome reminder of this uncomfortable truth, hence the vilification. It seems to me that this was the case to some degree with Clemens as well. It is clearly not the case that any imported player is subject to this hostility, as Stank fans have always been ready to embrace your Paul O'Neills and Scott Brosii.
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I think that jmons is right that the contract has something to do with it,
but I think that this does show how idiotic the Yankee fans who boo ARod are. Do
they realize that the Yankees are only paying about $16 million yearly on ARod's
contract? I doubt it.
I disagree with jmons' assertion that the Yankees and the Red Sox are the only
teams who could afford ARod. $16 million for a player of ARod's quality is
certainly within the payroll confines of these teams: both Chicago teams, both
LA teams, Baltimore, Toronto (think of the Burnett and Ryan contracts), Seattle,
the Mets, the Phillies, Atlanta, and Houston (look at what they are paying
Clemens and Pettite). That's a conservative estimate and, including the Yankees
and Red Sox, that's 13 teams.
I think that the ARod team was a very shrewd move and I don't think that Cashman
has received nearly enough credit for it. On the other side, I don't think that
Lucchino receives nearly enough condemnation for his squashing of the ARod deal.
The ARod chapter in Mind Games (the okay book about the Red Sox' 2004
season put together by the Prospectus crew) makes this argument about Lucchino
quite convincingly I think.
Did anyone see the ESPN Make-A-Wish piece last night? All this one fan with Crohn's Disease wanted was to hang out with Jetter. And so he did.
Now his whole visit was edited down to a 4 minute piece, so I don't now what really happened, but plenty of players were highlighted as interacting with the kid, and I can't remember ARod being on the screen--which reflects negatively on him.
I thought the same thing at the ASG. Every player was wearing those yellow wristbands--what were they for, by the way? A charity or Clemente recognition, I presume--and most were really conspicuous. Jetter had them right down on his wrists. It didn't look like ARod was wearing them at all, but then I saw a hint of yellow coming out from under his sleeves. ARod had his up on his biceps. Cynic that I am, I assumed that he couldn't let some sponsor or advertiser logo that is already on his wrist get covered by them.
I guess all that proves is that I've fallen for the Jetter/ARod perception issue as well--even though in real off-field life ARod could be the greatest guy in the world, and Jetter the nasty one.
Media conspiracy, or genius on Jetter's part? I'm not sure, but he and his handlers were brilliant in turning his late-night partying into a memorable VISA commercial.
Not to split hairs (or, to put it another way, to split hairs), I didn't say that Boston was the only other team that could afford the ARod contract, I said it was the only team that could have absorbed the ARod contract.
Simply being able to pay out the cost of the contract is not the issue here. It's being able to pay ARod while still maintaining the ability to field a competitive team. It is a subtle distinction, perhaps, but one illustrated quite well by the Ranger teams ARod anchored.
But all of this is secondary to the point at hand, which is why ARod is singled out by Yankee fans. I am intrigued by JonM's point about how on-field personality plays into it.
I stand by my point even in terms of "absorbing the contract," which is what I meant, but sloppily didn't say. First, there is the difference between $16 million and $25 million to consider. Jmons is probably right that few teams other than the Yankees and Red Sox could absorb a $25 million contract. All of the teams that I listed could absorb $16 million, however.
Texas may have been able even to absorb ARod's $25 million contract. The problem with Texas in that era was pitching, but their staff wasn't cheap. They gave Chan Ho Park a huge contract and paid Kenny Rogers a high salary.
I always thought that the problem with that team was front office incompetence rather than ARod's contract, per se. In 2002, they paid Juan Gonzalez $11 million, Rafael Palmeiro 8.7 million, and IRod $9.2 million. They finished 9 games under .500.
Yankee fans expect to win the World Series every year, so ARod has become something of a scapegoat now that their title "drought" has reached six years.
Nobody expected Scott Brosius to do much for the Yankees, so when he went out and won a World Series MVP, he became a fan favorite. Fans love guys like him who deliver the goods despite limited talents.
ARod, on the other hand, came to the Yankees billed as the best player in the game, so there were a lot of expectations. Yes, he won the MVP award last year, but look at his '04-'05 postseason performances. That's what matters the most. And this year, he's become a liability at third base.
Say what you will about Jeter (and I know he has a lot of detractors, especially among Red Sox fans) the guy always seems to come through with the clutch hit or play when it really matters. He always seems to be giving a full effort. ARod, on the other hand, despite his gaudy stats, hasn't come up big when the Yankees really needed him. As a Yankee fan, I dread when David Ortiz steps to the plate, because you just know he's going to kill you, especially when the game is on the line. Do Sox fans have a similar reaction to ARod?
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