49 posts tagged “alex rodriguez”
While digging through my closet, I found an interesting article written by Peter J. Schwartz in a 2008 issue of Sports Money. In the article, Schwartz looks at historical player salaries in comparison to the overall value of the team. Here were some of the players listed:
1930: Babe Ruth's salary - $80,000
Yankees Team Value: $2.5 million
Ruth made 3.2% of the team's total value.
1949: Joe DiMaggio's salary - $100,000
Yankees Team Value: $5 million
DiMaggio made 2.0% of the team's total value.
1980: Nolan Ryan's salary - $1.125 million
Astros Team Value: $13 million
Ryan made 8.7% of the team's total value.
1991: Roger Clemens' salary - $5.38 million
Red Sox Team Value: $136 million
Clemens made 4.0% of the team's total value.
1997: Albert Belle's salary - $11 million
White Sox Team Value: $149 million
Belle made 7.4% of the team's total value.
1999: Kevin Brown's salary - $15 million
Dodgers Team Value: $270 million
Brown made 5.6% of the team's total value.
2001: Alex Rodriguez's salary - $25.2 million
Rangers Team Value: $342 million
Rodriguez made 7.4% of the team's total value.
2008: Alex Rodriguez's salary - $30.5 million
Yankees Team Value: $1.3 billion
Rodriguez made 2.3% of the team's total value.
Alex Rodriguez left Joe Girardi a message today, and from the looks of it, the surgery went well.
"He left me a message," said General Joe. "He sounded good. Said: 'I'm doing well.' Good to hear from him."
As River Avenue Blues suggested yesterday, the 2009 season -- at least in terms of injuries -- is very similar to 2003, when Derek Jeter went down on Opening Day (remember Ken Huckaby?) Erick Almonte had to fill in for a month and a half, and the Yankees still managed to go 25-11. Perhaps the same will be true for the 2009 Yankees, with Cody Ransom taking the place of Erick Almonte.
Alex Rodriguez has opted to have arthroscopic hip surgery on Monday, according to ESPN. He is expected to miss six to nine weeks.
The surgery A-Rod will receive is a "hybrid option," and so he will miss less time than previously reported. The "modest" surgery will repair the labrum without being overly invasive. As a result, A-Rod will miss significantly less time, but he will have to have more surgery in the offseason. Yesterday, a person who spoke on the condition of anonymity said that, "It would be like using a nail instead of a steel girder to repair it. Eventually the nail would have to be replaced with the steel girder."
Of the three options, I think this is the best one for Alex Rodriguez. He will most likely miss the entire month of April; however, he will be able to play the final five months pain-free. I would take five months of A-Rod at 95% than six months of him at 70-75%.
Brian Cashman had this to say: "The surgery that will just repair the labrum tear right now would shorten his rehab. Then following the conclusion of the season going in and repair the remaining aspects that need to be repaired."
Of late, the Yankees have struggled in the early months of the season. Check out their records in April:
2008: 14-15
2007: 9-14
2006: 13-10
2005: 10-14
2004: 12-11
Without A-Rod, the Yankees may or may not continue this trend next month. With an improved pitching staff and the addition of Mark Teixeira, I am confident that the Yanks can hold their own sans A-Rod.
In a matter of a few hours, it looks like the developing story on Alex Rodriguez's hip injury has taken a complete 180.
This from Pete Abe:
Yankees GM Brian Cashman just said Alex Rodriguez has a torn hip labrum and cyst. They're trying rest and rehab. The cyst was drained. The hope is he'll keep playing.
The good news: A-Rod will most likely not have surgery, and he'll be ready in April. The bad news: he could risk further injury.
I should have thought twice when I wrote this yesterday:
If anything happens to A-Rod in 2009, be prepared to see a lot of Cody Ransom; in a worst-case scenario, Ransom is the replacement.
It turns out, I jinxed the team. Here's the report from ESPN:
Yankees third baseman Alex Rodriguez will have surgery to remove a cyst from his right hip and will be out 10 weeks, Rodriguez's brother told ESPNdeportes.com on Thursday.
Joe Dunand, Alex Rodriguez's older brother, told Enrique Rojas of ESPNdeportes.com during a phone interview that immediate surgery was recommended, and that rehabilitation would take about 10 weeks.
Ten weeks is bad, but it could be worse. Keep in mind that (only) six of them will be in the regular season, so he'll be back by mid-May. But then again, they said Chien-Ming Wang would only miss ten weeks; it ended up being three and a half months (granted, the injuries are different, but there's still a possibility it could evolve into more than ten weeks).
This is a tough blow to take, and it's amazing how many different things have happened to Alex Rodriguez in this young 2009 season. Remember when we thought that the biggest story surrounding him this spring would be the A-Fraud comments?
At this point, all we can do is hope that Cody Ransom is ready.
Great.
Here is a snippet of the statement released by the Yankees:
New York Yankees third baseman Alex Rodriguez will fly to Vail, Colo., on Wednesday, and will be examined and evaluated by Dr. Marc Phillipon, a hip specialist at Steadman-Hawkins Clinic.
After experiencing right hip tightness and stiffness this spring, Rodriguez was examined by Dr. Chris Ahmad, the New York Yankees team physician on Saturday in Tampa, Fla. An MRI examination -- also administered on Saturday -- revealed the formation of a cyst in the right hi. Dr. Ahmad determined that a follow-up examination with a hip specialist should be scheduled.
I mentioned this a few weeks ago -- Dr. Ahmad is actually performing knee surgery on one of my buddies in a few weeks. So, I guess Dr. Ahmad will take a break from his duties in Tampa and will fly back to New York.
As far as A-Rod goes, hopefully he'll be ready to go on April 6th. At this point, the WBC has to take a back seat to his health.
The Yankees won their first Spring Training game today by a score of 6-1.
The Yanks sported this lineup:
Brett Gardner CF
Derek Jeter SS
Robinson Cano 2B
Alex Rodriguez 3B
Nick Swisher RF
Shelley Duncan DH
Juan Miranda 1B
Todd Linden LF
Kevin Cash C
Brett Gardner hit a leadoff home run, and Alex Rodriguez was booed (and then promptly hit a home run). After the game, A-Rod said that, "This is what I do. I know how to play baseball. I just hope that this is the start of something really special for this year. I feel really good about our team." Amen to that.
On the pitching side, Brett Tomko started and pitched two shutout innings. Jose Veras, Dan Giese, Kei Igawa, Christian Garcia, Michael Dunn, Steven Jackson, and David Robertson followed (Veras gave up the only run).
All in all, it was a good day for the Yanks, and it's nice to see that they have already established a winning atmosphere for the 2009 season.
It's funny how A-Rod is practicing his bunting when he never gets called on to do so.
Granted, it's important to have all the facets of the game covered, but how many times do you think he will need to bunt in 2009? Once at the most? In fact, A-Rod hasn't had a sacrifice hit in ten years.
Well, at least A-Rod is where he is supposed to be - the baseball diamond.
Here is a video from Tampa. Brian Cashman speaks about the A-Rod situation (hat tip to Bronx Banter):
Kevin Hench of foxsports.com discusses this in his most recent article. Says Hench:
"By crunching the numbers of the top 10 home run leaders in each league for the 43 seasons preceding the Steroid ERA (1993-2003) and the numbers for the top sluggers during the Chicks Dig the Long Ball Boom, I've determined that a Steroid Era homer, assuming it was hit by a juicer, is worth .75 of a legit dinger."
Hench has determined this by doing some "number-crunching." Here are the results (by decade) when averaging the top 10 home run hitters for each season in both leagues:
1950's: 30.9
1960's: 32.6
1970's: 30.7
1980's: 31.1
1990-1992: 31.5
1993-2003: 41.7
By this logic, Alex Rodriguez is left with a career total of 458 home runs (when multiplying his home runs from the Steroid Era by 0.75). Bonds would be left with 641 home runs, Sosa would be under 500, the list goes on. But I think the quote of the day is when Hench states, "With all the cheats on the all-time home run leaderboard, it might be easier to just put an asterisk next to Hank Aaron's 755* with this notation: *Aaron was not on steroids."
You think we'll still be talking about this in twenty years? I really, really hope not.
