Alex Rodriguez’s Hot Spring Start Shows He May Be Important 2015 Asset After All
March 11, 2015 · Jacob Shafer · Jump to comments
Article Source: Bleacher Report - New York Yankees
September 20, 2013—that’s the last time Alex Rodriguez hit a home run in a New York Yankees uniform. (Or any uniform, for that matter.) It was a grand slam, which seems somehow fitting. A-Rod doesn’t do anything half way.
The drought ended, sort of, on Wednesday, when Rodriguez launched one over the left-center field wall against the Boston Red Sox, which also seems somehow fitting.
I said “sort of” a second ago because, well, it’s spring.
The home run doesn’t add to Rodriguez’s official career tally (654 and counting) just as his hot spring start doesn’t mean he’ll be raking in the Bronx this summer.
But if you’re a Yankees fan searching for positive signs, here you go. After going 1-for-2 Wednesday against Boston, Rodriguez now owns a .455 Grapefruit League batting average.
Take that and a handful of quarters and buy yourself a Baby Ruth. Spring averages are not always predictive, to put it mildly.
Rodriguez himself said his exhibition output “doesn’t really mean anything,” per Ryan Hatch of NJ.com.
But A-Rod isn’t just any hitter working on his timing and rounding into game shape. He’s the most polarizing, scrutinized player in the game, a larger-than-life figure whose off-field drama has long eclipsed his on-field performance.
Still, once upon a time, he was the type of hitter who could carry a franchise. Say what you want about the PEDs and the lying—and plenty has been said—but A-Rod is arguably the biggest offensive force of his generation.
He’s also 39 years old, so it’s not as if he’s about to turn back the clock to, say, 2007, when he hit 54 home runs and won his third American League MVP Award.
Rodriguez hasn’t played more than 140 games in a season since. He’s had operations on both hips. And, of course, he’s served a year-long suspension for his connection to Biogenesis, the Florida anti-aging clinic that allegedly provided steroids to multiple MLB players.
That’s the sordid back story, and you’ve heard it a hundred times. And yet here we are, in March 2015, under the Florida sun, and suddenly A-Rod looks like he’s got a little left to give between the lines.
If he can put together even a decent year at the plate, it’d help stabilize a New York offense that’s littered with question marks.
In fact, for all the hand-wringing over the Yankees’ pitching (something yours truly engaged in recently), it was the offense that sputtered last season. New York plated 633 runs in 2014, third-fewest in the American League ahead of only the Houston Astros and Tampa Bay Rays.
Still, the Yanks hung around the fringes of the postseason picture and finished second in the AL East, albeit a distant second. Could a moderately productive A-Rod give the club a needed bump?
The projection systems aren’t optimistic. ZiPS pegs Rodriguez for 15 home runs but just a .229 average, while Steamer thinks he’ll hit 10 home runs and bat .233, per FanGraphs.
Even then he’d grab headlines (when doesn’t he?) by passing Willie Mays (660 home runs) on the all-time long-ball list. But he wouldn’t instill much fear in opposing pitchers, or move the Yankees closer to their first October rendezvous since 2012.
After watching Rodriguez in the early going, New York is likely hoping for more than symbolic (and controversial) milestones from its much-maligned slugger, who is signed through the 2017 season.
They’re tenuous hopes, admittedly. They could dissolve as quickly as a desert mirage. But seeing Rodriguez smack his first home run in more than 500 days, you could kind of, sort of imagine things working out.
Whatever that means.
All statistics courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com unless otherwise noted.
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