While Bobby Abreu may have to drop his asking price for his Manhattan apartment, A-Rod is facing the same problem in Miami. According to the Wall Street Journal, A-Rod is looking to sell the 8,300-square-foot house on Biscayne Bay in Miami in which he and his ex-wife used to live. The house — which you can view here — was first listed at $14.8 million, but A-Rod has lowered his asking price to $12.3 million. RAB fundraiser, anyone?
A-Rod to fulfill mom’s dream during WBC
OK. OK. I know I said that I wouldn’t harp on A-Rod and the WBC, but I’m sort of touched and sort of amused by the Yanks’ third baseman’s announcement about his decision to play for the Dominican team:
“I am 100 percent sure that I will play for the Dominican Republic team,” he said. “This time, there will be no doubts and it is a dream of my mom’s that I intend to fulfill.”
Rodriguez played for the United States in the 2006 inaugural Classic and was largely criticized by fans in the Dominican Republic and across Latin America. He at first had announced he would play for the Dominican Republic, then said he would not play and ultimately joined the U.S. team.
Rodriguez’s parents are from the Dominican Republic, and although he was born in the U.S., he is allowed to choose for which country he will play. “It will be a very special day for me and my family to see me play again with a Dominican uniform,” he said.
Awww. Mommy Rodriguez must be so proud that her son is playing for the Dominican.
Cynically, I’m sure it has nothing to do with the fact that the Dominican team finished third in 2006 and has a much better shot at winning with A-Rod around. Remember how well the U.S. team fared?
Checking in on A-Rod’s undies
We tend to ignore A-Rod’s personal shenanigans around here. What he does with Madonna is his own business and has little-to-no impact on the rest of the team. And while David Ortiz thinks that A-Rod is going to play for the Dominican team during the WBC, that soap opera bores me.
When A-Rod’s undies, however, wind up for sale on eBay, well, now we’re talkin’. As John Shabe reported yesterday, a Massachusetts-based memorabilia company is selling A-Rod’s game-used spandex on eBay. Phil Castinetti, the owner of SportsWorld, won’t say how he got the undies, but he claims they’ve been washed after use.
The bidding is, as of this writing, currently at $177.50. Get on that. How often can you buy a pair of game-used underwear anyway?
Set in stone: Left side of the infield
If you take a look at the Yankees roster and then read through all the rumors that have surfaced this off-season, you might come to realize that nearly no position is set in stone. They’ll seek a new first baseman; Robinson Cano could be traded; the outfield is anything but set; Jorge Posada might not be able to handle the rigors of catching. While the entire roster won’t be made over in the off-season, a number of things could change.
Except third base and shortstop, of course. Sure, the Yanks could move A-Rod to first base, but I think there’s a better chance you see Derek Jeter make that move. Which is to say, slim to none. The left side of the infield is the only sure thing the Yanks have on the offensive/defensive side of things. It would make sense for them to build around Jeter and A-Rod, since they’re the ones not going anywhere.
With Jeter, you have a shortstop with limited range defensively, and a guy who can consistently hit for average and take his share of bases on balls offensively. He’s a perfect fit in the two-hole, and can hit leadoff if you need him to.
With A-Rod, you have a true superstar, a guy who can hit for power, average, and take walks with the best of them. He’s the consummate cleanup hitter, though there’s no harm putting him in the three hold, allowing him to set the table. He plays average defense, as Dave Pinto notes in his Probabilistic Model of Range, which is fine for a guy who puts up gawdy offensive numbers.
On the whole, the left side of the Yankees infield is well above average offensively, but below average defensively. So how do you build a team based on this? It’s clearly not an easy question to answer. Plenty of factors go into team building, even if you don’t have a solid foundation like Jeter and A-Rod.
We can, though, look at what Jeter and A-Rod don’t have and look to add those parts.
Speed. Neither man is slow. Jeter seems to have lost a step as far as stealing second goes, but that’s no huge loss. Alex is one of the better baserunners in the game, and he can swipe second when need be. However, the Yanks could use a burner out there — so long, of course, as he’s able to do his job and get on base. Willy Taveras might be fast, but he can’t utilize that speed to the fullest because he’s not on base often enough (though if you combined his OBP from 2007 with his steals from 2008, you have a real threat). Brett Gardner is the hopeful answer here.
Slick glovework. If the left side of the infield is below average, the team would do well to field a quality right side. Robinson Cano has an excellent glove, though we’ve seen mental lapses take away some of his luster. Mark Teixeira is one of the better glovemen at first base in the league. He and Cano could comprise an above average right side. It won’t make up for the left side, but it will make it more bearable.
Pitch selectivity. Jeter and A-Rod aren’t guys who swing at everything, but they’re not the most selective hitters in the league. A-Rod saw 3.88 pitches per plate appearance in 08, and Jeter saw 3.72. Those are fine numbers, but the Yanks were led by Bobby Abreu (4.29), Jason Giambi (ditto), and Johnny Damon (4.10). Two of those guys likely won’t be back next year. The Yanks need one or two players who can take a ton of pitches and work their way on base via the walk. Abreu actually isn’t the worst in this regard, as he has decent speed on the basepaths.
This isn’t a complete list by any means, just a few things I thought of off the top of my head. What else do Jeter and A-Rod lack which the team should be looking for this off-season?
A-Rod + Scott BFF 4ever
According to Scott Boras, his relationship with A-Rod is all better. The über-agent and A-Rod fell out of each other’s good graces last winter when Boras did or did not botch the whole opt-out thing. Of course, if you believe in conspiracy theories, Boras was never out of favor with A-Rod; he did after all secure a much better deal for A-Rod than the one out of which the slugger opted. Someone had to take the fall for A-Rod’s PR hit. Either way, they’re tight again. Phew.
An uneasy marriage
In a typical fact-less anti-A-Rod column, Fox Sports’ Ian O’Connor writes about the uneasy marriage between the Yankees and their expensive third baseman. O’Connor doesn’t think that A-Rod will make it through his contract as a Yankee and anticipates the team’s trading him within five years. My only questions are thus: Why would the Yankees ever trade A-Rod to a team that would be in a position to compete against them? How would the Yanks replace A-Rod’s bat? A-Rod might not be the most beloved Yankee ever, but the two of them can’t really exist without each other anymore.
By the numbers, A-Rod not un-clutch
For the next nine years, we’ll continue having the same debate over and over again: Is A-Rod clutch? Clearly, he’s not doing himself any favors this year. His lack of timely hitting is pretty indisputable this year, though he has brought his average with RISP up to .268, from .248 at the end of August.
Many people think that clutch is unquantifiable and/or a luck-prone stat and disregard it. That’s been a popular sentiment since Baseball Prospectus became relatively mainstream. While I’m not sure where I fall on the issue, I do know that there seems like a perfect stat to qualify clutch situations: Leverage Index.
We saw this stat last year, when we ran some WPA graphs after early-season games. I’ve linked to the definition of Leverage Index above, but the premise is that the higher the leverage index, the more critical the situation. This takes into consideration score differential, outs, runners on, and inning. Basically, it answers the question: How important is this at-bat to fate of my team?
Last week, Carl Bialik, The Wall Street Journal’s Numbers Guy, examined A-Rod’s clutchiness. He uses A-Rod’s OPS in high, medium, and low-leverage situations. He funs:
His career OPS in high-leverage situations is .975. In medium-leverage, it’s .960. And in low-leverage, it’s .972. That’s consistent with the American League as a whole during his career, when each year batters in high-leverage situations hit somewhere between 1% worse and 6% better than they did in low-leverage situations.
Since we’re talking about A-Rod’s failures this year, Bailik shows us that yes, A-Rod hasn’t been that clutch in 2008″
In 2004, he hit 19% better in high-leverage situations than in low-leverage ones. In 2005 and 2006, he hit 17% worse. Last year, he hit 15% better. And this year, he’d hit 32% worse, through Monday.
Bialik went to Jim Albert, Bowling Green State University statistician, for further findings.
The problem is small sample size: In a typical season with the Yankees, Mr. Rodriguez only gets about 130 plate appearances in clutch situations. That’s also why we can’t learn much from his 44 at bats in the last three postseasons, when his performance was abysmal.
Prof. Albert was apologetic about his findings: “Sorry for not giving you better news — no significance is generally not front-page stuff — but this illustrates the dangers of trying to make too much from this type of situational data.”
Take what you will from this. For me, it’s just more uncertainty in the perennial clutch debate.
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