So I’m reading this article about A-rod and the amount of money he could potentially sign for with the Yankees and even if he’s not getting the ludicrous amounts of money that he was out for I still see this contract as ludicrous? Why pay someone a contract over 10 years? This just makes absolutely no sense to me in the world of baseball let alone many sports? Who’s to say that he’ll still be worth the $29 million/year in say five years? There is this aura around A-rod that makes me unnerved, I mean he still hasn’t proven himself in the playoffs yet. Honestly, who really plays the game of baseball at that kind of level until the age of 42 years old? Some out there might say Roger Clemens or Barry Bonds but is A-rod going to be able to stay on top of his game without the use of performance enhancing drugs/steroids, haha?

Don’t get me wrong, I think A-rod’s ability and stats are amazing but yet can be rationalized more in context. A-rod’s performance in the regular season is amazing by any conceivable benchmarks but his playoff performance has been dismal at best and hasn’t helped the cause of the Yankees. Let’s compare his four regular season numbers with his postseason numbers.

A-rod’s season stats this past year were:

2007: G: 158, AB: 583, R: 143, H: 183, 2B: 31, 3B: 0, HR: 54, RBI:156, BB: 95, K: 120, SB:24, CS: 4, AVG: .314, OBP: .422, SLG: .645, OPS: 1.067
2006: G: 154, AB: 572, R: 113, H: 166, 2B: 26, 3B: 1, HR: 35, RBI:121, BB: 90, K: 139, SB: 15, CS: 4, AVG: .290, OBP: .392, SLG: .523, OPS: .914
2005: G: 162, AB: 605, R: 124, H: 194, 2B: 29, 3B: 1, HR: 48, RBI: 130, BB: 91, K: 139, SB: 21, CS: 6, AVG: .321, OBP: .421, SLG: .610, OPS: 1.031
2004: G: 155, AB: 601, R: 112, H: 172, 2B: 24, 3B: 2, HR: 36, RBI:106, BB: 80, K: 131, SB: 28, CS: 4, AVG: .286, OBP: .375, SLG: .512, OPS: .888

NOW let’s compare his post season stats:

2007: G: 4, AB: 15, R: 2, H: 4, 2B: 0, 3B: 0, HR: 1, RBI: 1, BB: 2, K: 6, SB: 0, CS: 0, AVG: .267, OBP: .353, SLG: .467
2006: G: 4, AB: 14, R: 0, H: 1, 2B: 0, 3B: 0, HR: 0, RBI: 0, BB: 0, K: 4, SB: 0, CS: 0, AVG: .071, OBP: .071, SLG: .071
2005: G: 5, AB: 15, R: 2, H: 2, 2B: 1, 3B: 0, HR: 0, RBI: 0, BB: 6, K: 5, SB: 0, CS: 0, AVG: .133, OBP: .381, SLG: .200
2004: G: 11, AB: 50, R: 11, H: 16, 2B: 5, 3B: 0, HR: 3, RBI: 8, BB: 6, K: 5, SB: 2, CS: 1, AVG: .320, OBP: .414, SLG: .600

Glancing over the numbers you’ll see that his post season stats are far different than his regular season. His OBP during the regular season is far better than in the playoffs, and in the playoffs all that really matters is just getting on base. The only arguably post season performance that A-rod has lived up to his weight has been in 2004.

References:
Baseball-reference.com
Yahoo-sports

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