AROD - Read it and weep, haters!
Today I decided to put my money where my mouth is. I have contended all year that people are overestimating how many homeruns and RBIs ARod has in meaningless blowout games. I have gone so far as to say that David Ortiz (whom ARod is in a race with for MVP, despite the fact that Hideki Matsui should win this award, but enough on that for now...) probably has the same amount of meaningless homeruns and RBIs if ever anyone bothered to look.
So... I bothered to look... and I was shocked to find that not only was I right, but ARod comes out of this looking far better than I keep portraying him. And for those of you who know me, I've not only been on the ARod bandwagon, I'm practically driving the damn thing.
Here's how my research went today...
Initial Research
OK, I did some research... You "ARod only hits homers in blowouts" people are not going to like this. I spent the last 15 minutes while I ate my mac and cheese researching this stat to disprove all of you idiots.
This year - the yanks have played in 40 games where they won or lost by 5 or more runs. These were games I considered "blowouts" to some extent (even though as I look back and remember some of them - i.e. the 13 run 8th inning comeback - they were not all blowouts, but for purposes of this stat, I added them in anyway).
In these 40 "blowout" games, ARod has hit 16 Homers. NOW WAIT!!!
3 of them were against Bartolo Colon in one game. Those do NOT count, because each one was clutcher than the next given the situation... So 13 in 39 games let's say. STILL WAIT!!!
Further research shows that 9 of these 13 home runs came at a point in the game where they yanks were either, down, tied, or ahead by less than 5 runs. In other words, they were not "blowout home runs" - I have not checked Papi's stats on that yet, but I plan to soon.
ARod has hit a grand total of 4 meaningless homeruns this year. Out of 45??? That's not a stat-padder. That's an MVP... I'll check on Papi and get back to ya'all.
15 minutes later
Boston has played 44 of these "blowout" games.
Papi has hit the same 16 home runs in those "blowout" games, BUT!!!!!!
Only 7 of Pap's homeruns were meaningful homers as defined earlier. Papi has hit 9 meaningless homers, compared to ARod's 4.
Now, nobody would dare say Papi only hits homers in blowouts, but it appears that he does so more than ARod... That argument is no longer valid. I am still accepting other tries!
Side point - through this research I learned that Manny Ramirez is the king of meaningless homers, I didnt keep track, but almost every blowout game he has a late homer that means nothing... That said, he's still one of the top, if not the top, right-handed hitter of the last 20+ years.
25 minutes later...
I am so over Ortiz right now it's not even funny... I'm glad he's clutch and all, because without the game-winners he's been hitting lately... man, would you guys be on his case... I'm sure you would, because you're obviously reasonable, rational, smart people... and hey if ARod's hits are mostly not clutch and in not-close games and we bash him, surely we should bash Ortiz for the same... ya ready?
In the same "not-close" or "blowout" (or meaningless) games:
Papi - 66 RBIs
ARod - 50 RBIs - and that includes the 10 against Colon...
And just to make it worse for Papi, he has at least 10 blowout games with 4,5, or 6 RBIs. ARod has 3 games of such.
Now, I no longer want to hear the "ARod gets all his RBIs and homers in blowouts and gets them in bunches in those blowouts to pad his stats" arguments.
I'm done with dis guy, NEXT!
This is more and more becoming a one-horse race to me. I am basically now only keeping Ortiz in this conversation BECAUSE of his clutch hits... it no longer provides an edge, it merely keeps him from being ridiculed as a stat-padder...
Conclusion:
This whole post is not meant to argue the fact that ARod is not nearly as clutch as he should be for the talent he possesses. That's a given. I concede that point and my only argument against Ortiz for MVP on that note is ARod's gold glove caliber and game-saving clutchness in the field all year. To me, that plus the fact that Ortiz sits his fat carcass on the bench for half the game, far outweighs the 7 or 8 game tying or winning homers that he has hit this year.
This post is meant to disprove the rest of the crap you anti-ARod people like to throw out there because he makes more money in a day than we all make in 10 years. Bottomline, he is freaking awesome and his stats are far from meaningless.
I've now gone through the 150 or so games that each team has played... twice... ARod is far more valuable to the Yanks, than Ortiz is to the Sox.... In fact, without the game-winners (I think there are 6 or 7 this year by him, could be wrong on that), I'd venture to say there is an argument that Ortiz is not even the MVP on his own team (ala Damon and Manny)...
ARod is clearly not the MVP on his own team (Matsui, Giambi, Sheffield)... but that's an argument for another day. This whole thing simply concerns the relevant race at hand between ARod and Big Papi.
So... I bothered to look... and I was shocked to find that not only was I right, but ARod comes out of this looking far better than I keep portraying him. And for those of you who know me, I've not only been on the ARod bandwagon, I'm practically driving the damn thing.
Here's how my research went today...
Initial Research
OK, I did some research... You "ARod only hits homers in blowouts" people are not going to like this. I spent the last 15 minutes while I ate my mac and cheese researching this stat to disprove all of you idiots.
This year - the yanks have played in 40 games where they won or lost by 5 or more runs. These were games I considered "blowouts" to some extent (even though as I look back and remember some of them - i.e. the 13 run 8th inning comeback - they were not all blowouts, but for purposes of this stat, I added them in anyway).
In these 40 "blowout" games, ARod has hit 16 Homers. NOW WAIT!!!
3 of them were against Bartolo Colon in one game. Those do NOT count, because each one was clutcher than the next given the situation... So 13 in 39 games let's say. STILL WAIT!!!
Further research shows that 9 of these 13 home runs came at a point in the game where they yanks were either, down, tied, or ahead by less than 5 runs. In other words, they were not "blowout home runs" - I have not checked Papi's stats on that yet, but I plan to soon.
ARod has hit a grand total of 4 meaningless homeruns this year. Out of 45??? That's not a stat-padder. That's an MVP... I'll check on Papi and get back to ya'all.
15 minutes later
Boston has played 44 of these "blowout" games.
Papi has hit the same 16 home runs in those "blowout" games, BUT!!!!!!
Only 7 of Pap's homeruns were meaningful homers as defined earlier. Papi has hit 9 meaningless homers, compared to ARod's 4.
Now, nobody would dare say Papi only hits homers in blowouts, but it appears that he does so more than ARod... That argument is no longer valid. I am still accepting other tries!
Side point - through this research I learned that Manny Ramirez is the king of meaningless homers, I didnt keep track, but almost every blowout game he has a late homer that means nothing... That said, he's still one of the top, if not the top, right-handed hitter of the last 20+ years.
25 minutes later...
I am so over Ortiz right now it's not even funny... I'm glad he's clutch and all, because without the game-winners he's been hitting lately... man, would you guys be on his case... I'm sure you would, because you're obviously reasonable, rational, smart people... and hey if ARod's hits are mostly not clutch and in not-close games and we bash him, surely we should bash Ortiz for the same... ya ready?
In the same "not-close" or "blowout" (or meaningless) games:
Papi - 66 RBIs
ARod - 50 RBIs - and that includes the 10 against Colon...
And just to make it worse for Papi, he has at least 10 blowout games with 4,5, or 6 RBIs. ARod has 3 games of such.
Now, I no longer want to hear the "ARod gets all his RBIs and homers in blowouts and gets them in bunches in those blowouts to pad his stats" arguments.
I'm done with dis guy, NEXT!
This is more and more becoming a one-horse race to me. I am basically now only keeping Ortiz in this conversation BECAUSE of his clutch hits... it no longer provides an edge, it merely keeps him from being ridiculed as a stat-padder...
Conclusion:
This whole post is not meant to argue the fact that ARod is not nearly as clutch as he should be for the talent he possesses. That's a given. I concede that point and my only argument against Ortiz for MVP on that note is ARod's gold glove caliber and game-saving clutchness in the field all year. To me, that plus the fact that Ortiz sits his fat carcass on the bench for half the game, far outweighs the 7 or 8 game tying or winning homers that he has hit this year.
This post is meant to disprove the rest of the crap you anti-ARod people like to throw out there because he makes more money in a day than we all make in 10 years. Bottomline, he is freaking awesome and his stats are far from meaningless.
I've now gone through the 150 or so games that each team has played... twice... ARod is far more valuable to the Yanks, than Ortiz is to the Sox.... In fact, without the game-winners (I think there are 6 or 7 this year by him, could be wrong on that), I'd venture to say there is an argument that Ortiz is not even the MVP on his own team (ala Damon and Manny)...
ARod is clearly not the MVP on his own team (Matsui, Giambi, Sheffield)... but that's an argument for another day. This whole thing simply concerns the relevant race at hand between ARod and Big Papi.
posted by EDS | 1:17 PM
1 Comments:
I totally agree with you. A-Rod is the MVP of the league, especially over Ortiz. I disagree that he's not the MVP of the team. It's not Giambi. Sheffield may be a more feared hitter, but A-Rod does more. Matsui may come up with more clutch hits, but like you argued, clutch isn't everything, and Matsui doesn't have the numbers A-Rod does.
Just one point: how many of those "blowout" games became blowouts because Ortiz had 2 Hr's and 7 RBI in the first/last three innings. There's something to be said for having one guy (or two, with Manny) who can singlehandedly carry your offense.
In fact, I think that's the best argument for Ortiz for MVP. That it's a value judgment. Take Ortiz out of that line-up, and Manny doesn't have nearly as many opportunities to hit, Damon doesn't score near as many runs, and the Sawks don't win nearly as many games. That's "Value," imo.
However, I still think A-Rod gets the nod because he plays a much more valueable position, and does it better than anyone else in the AL.
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