For 5 of 6 years I would have been right. This year we wnet out and spent wisely on pitching and ARod has come through when it matters most for the first time in his Yankee career. Great teams need great role players not just stars and when they have stars they need those stars to step up in big moments. Until this year ARod never stepped up and Brosius used to step up all the time. Do you think the first 5 years of ARods contract was money well spent? The yanks are about winning Championships, they never even sniffed one from 2004-2008 and ARod was a major reason why.
The funny thing is this thread was from over 3 years ago and it took that long for someone to bump it pumping up ARod.
It's funny how almost 4 years later you guys drag out this post. It's about time he started coming through. I know folks like you just love watching hit meaningless HRs in July but those of us that want to win prefer he comes through in october and I'm loving every second of it. I'm not just a blind homer like some people, ARod was an embarrassment in postseason until this year for us. Am I suppose to stand up and chere when he is costing us chances at advancing in postseason?
he was a major reason and they didn't get a real top pitcher. They banked on the guys who had one good season before free agency. Pavano and Jared were awful moves. The bullpen was shit minus Mo and then Joba came along and they moved him to the rotation, where he isn't as dynamic as he is in the pen. They were all moves that championship caliber franchises don't make. ARod is coming on because all the mental bullshit is over with. He's free of all burdens. And its not all about him anymore - there are guys taking the spotlight from him. Then they got one of the best pitchers in baseball and a 1st basemen who is a defensive talent as well as a big bat. He's also pretty consistent. They got it right after 5 years of getting it wrong. good for cashman and the yankees. I also wonder if George's mental health decline had a lot to do with it as well. Because the Yanks were in a bad way inside and out during that period.. as far as Yankee standards go. This year seemed a return to normalcy for the franchise. If they play the Philadelphia team, they better slaughter them. I hate that city.
I do think he is more relaxed this year and I felt that would happen once he was outed for PEDs. He opened his luht in Seattle saying jeter had it easy w/ all the talent around him and he had better individual talent around him w/ the Yanks than jeter had in the late 90s and he wasn't coming through. Our pitching was not great but it was good enough to win some rounds if we got some clutch hitting or if we got anything out of ARod. I hate this stuff coming up now b/c he's playing great and I don't want to dwell on the negative but when folks bring it up I have to disucss the past even though I don't want to. He's playing great now but it's been a long time coming. This is all I have ever wanted to see from the guy, if he was playing like he had the past 4-5 series then we may not make it out of the 1st rd again.
I know full well when it was started. I also know that you not giving him credit for dominating the postseason is wrong. Where are the threads telling us how great A-Rod is? You love bashing him when he struggles, but you're nowhere to be found when he succeeds. It took me bumping this thread to get you to say something. You made hundreds of posts bashing A-Rod as a "fantasy player", a "loser", not a "true Yankee", etc. You didn't make a single post about him this postseason until I bumped this thread. In fact, I'm confident in stating that you still would be ignoring it on the boards had I not bumped one of your brilliant threads.
I stopped posting on here in the yankee threads earlier this year b/c I couldn't take the whining anymore w/ those that had basically thrown the towel in on the season but had I been consistently posting I'd be signing ARod's praises this october. he's been incredible. Had I been posting about the Yanks and ignored ARod that would have been wrong but I wasn't posting at all about the Yanks. I don't use phrases like "true Yankee" so you must have me confused w/ someone else.
It doesn't matter whether you post about the Yankees. You were always the #1 A-Rod basher, so it's only fair to post and give him credit for his remarkable success. If he continues the way he's going, this will go down as one of the most dominant postseasons ever for a player. And ok, you can scratch "true Yankee". The rest of it applies, though. I could dig up the exact phrases you used, but I have to leave for softball shortly.
I was wondering who the tool was that has probably been waiting for 3 years to bump this. everyone was hating on arod until a few weeks ago now you guys are all over his dick. just relax you havnt won anything yet. everybody on this board is constantly overreacting about stuff even with the jets. when they win everyone talks about how we are going to the superbowl but after a loss people rant about how we are the worst team in football
Don't set up straw men, dude. Attack the beliefs people actually hold. Don't make up shit or exaggerate. You have been mistaken about A-Rod's performance in high leverage situations for a long time. Why? Probably because you were already convinced that he was a choker. My position has always been that you don't judge a player by a handful of at bats in the postseason, and that - given enough time - you'd see his postseason performance start to line up with his career averages. We're seeing that this year. And as I previously mentioned (although you ignored it), it's a bit of stretch to say he was "an embarrassment" until this year. The Angels pitched around him all series long in 2005. He didn't do much, but he got on base a lot. Hardly an embarrassment. He was mediocre against the Indians, but not an embarrassment. He rocked the Twins both times he's faced them. And he was great for the first half of the series against the Sox, and shitty for the rest of it (along with everyone else on the team). He was fucking awful in 2006. No doubt about it. Here's the bottom line: I'm not a blind homer. I'm a realist. A pragmatist. I'll happily admit it if/when A-Rod sucked. But I don't hold that against him. I don't pretend like the CAN'T come through. I don't believe he has some internal quality that makes him choke in big situations. I think that's a myth created by a relatively small postseason sample size, and an awkward, rather unlikable personality.
Have I not given him credit? I have said over and over again how great he's been. He's been amazing, he's been everything I expected he'd be 6 years ago when we got him. Unfortunately it took as long as it did but if he keeps it up all will be forgiven. My anger towards him was that he was holding the team back w/ his awful play. he is our most talented player and he was playing like our worst player. This year he's playing like our best player and it's not a coincidence we are winning. Again, if he had a typical ARod postseason I'm not sure we beat the Twins and that was my complaint all along. I haven't been mistaken about anything. yeah I was convinced he was a choker- probably b/c he WAS! It boggles my minbd how anyone can defend what he did from the mid mof that '04 ALCS through the 2007 ALDS. It wasn't just about his offense in 2005, he had poor plays in the field, baserunning blunders in addition to his awful batting. .133 w/ NO RBI, yeah that was all b/c they pitched around him Oh and the 6 BBs he had in 2005, 5 of them came on full counts. If they were pitching around him wouldn't they have been more careful? W/ runners on he had one hit all series- when he was hit by a pitch! His other 7 ABs w/ runners on: 4 Ks, a pop out and 2 GIDP INCLUDING the 9th inning of Game 5. Against Det(You forgot them): 1-14, no BBs, 4 Ks, no RBI Game 5 of the 2004 ALCS through Game 4 of the 2007 ALDS: 16 games spanning 4 series: 8-56, .142, ONE RBI W/ runners on base he was 0-23, 4 BBs, ZERO RBI w/ RISP: 0-10, 1 BB, ZERO RBI Daisuke Matsuzaka had 3 ABs in the 2007 WS, he had 2 RBI. I agree w/ your last paragraph, it's not like I have been rooting against him. I know we have NEEDED him to play big. Isn't it funny the the 2 series he has played big(min '04 and '09) we won? and he was playing big against Bos up 3-0 then tanked and we tanked. he's playing great this series and I expect him to keep it up. We need him to keep it up.
It wasn't reluctantly at all. if I was posting about the yanks like I used to and didn't mention him then you'd have a point but that's not the case.
Of course you haven't. :lol: No one's defending it. No one is saying he was great. It's about using some fucking perspective, man! You were "convinced he was a choker" based on a handful of games. THAT is the problem. Go watch the games again. If you watch them, you'll notice that A-Rod didn't get a single pitch to hit the entire series. They were pretty careful about not making a mistake to him. That's not to say they didn't throw him strikes, or that he didn't swing at some bad pitches. Are you blind?! Or just lying again? I didn't forget them. In fact, twice now, I have explicitly mentioned the 2006 series and that he was AWFUL. Yes, thank you for reposting that. No one was aware of those stats. Jesus Christ, man. You're like a broken record. No one is disputing the numbers. They are disputing the weight you've given to those numbers. Do you understand this? Please. Answer that question. Do you understand the point that is being refuted? Yeah, A-Rod's lack of clutchiness is what caused Mo to cough up two games in 2004. And 2006 was all about A-Rod, and not the team's 5.56 ERA. Same with 2007, where A-Rod choked, by not having the pitchers put up better than a 5.89 ERA. And of course, this year he has figured it all out, and has willed the pitching staff to a 1.92 ERA. No one is saying A-Rod was good in those series. But you've always seemed to think that it was ALL about A-Rod. And he was far from the biggest factor in any of those series losses. It's not all about him. Do you get that?
Those handful of games were the biggest games we played from 2004-2007. So let's say they weren't giving him pitches to hit, does that excuse him for the poor baserunning and poor fielding? and now all of a sudden teams are giving him pitches to hit? It lies w/ ARod and always has. He is a completely different player now than he was then, you see the confidence in him now whereas yo could see he was defeated before he went to the plate in past postseasons. I'm like a broken record b/c you are making it out like he had a bad game or 2, this spanned 4 different postseasons. So we should place more emphasis on the meaningless HRs in June than on the big games in October? I place more emphasis on big moments, fantasy #s are great but showing up in the biggest spots means more to me. I'd ratherARod hit .270 in the reg season w/ 25 HRs and come through in postseason than hit .320 w/ 45 HRs and not show up. Mo blew one game, the 2nd game he came on w/ 1st and 3rd and no out. he did an amazing job to get out of that w/ giving up just 1 run and had we gotten some clutch hitting we still win that series. You can mention ERA all you want but it's very possible to win agmes giivng up 4-6 runs but w/o scoring runs you can't win. We got shut out in game 3, we scored 3 in game 4 but not until the 7th when we were already down 8-0. Maybe if we score some runs early we put pressure on det like we did in game 1? 2007- again the ERA was the product of 1 blowout. We lost game 2 2-1, if we win the series is completely different but we couldn't get a clutch hit. We are ptiching great but he's getting big hits. Even w/ the ptiching if he wasn't getting these big hits we might be eliminated already. It is mostly about him. he plays well '04 Minny we win, he playes well games 1-3 against Boston we are up 3-0, he plays awful '05, '06, '07 we lose. he plays well Minny '09 we win, he plays well fitst 4 against LAA and we are winning. Is this is a big coincidence?
It doesn't matter! They're still only a handful of games! Not all of a sudden. But in that one series, he wasn't getting much to hit, and he was taking his base. In Detroit, he wasn't getting much to hit, and he was swinging at crap. This year, he's taking his base, but is staying inside the zone. The difference this year is that if they make a mistake, he crushes it. Okay, so if it's some internal confident vs. defeatist attitude thing... what happened between Game 4 and Game 5 in 2004, then? Look, I'm sure confidence has something to do with it, but it's much much much more likely that you're seeing some normalization to the variation that you'll see in a handful of games. Do me a favor. Stop putting words in my mouth. Stop lying. Please. I'm making it out to be no such thing. I'm telling you exactly what it was. A handful of games. Just because they're a handful of "big" games doesn't mean they're statistically more reliable. You continue to miss the point. And you miss it again. The point was that it's not all about A-Rod! Without scoring runs you can't win?! Thanks for the amazing insight, chief! Any other mind-blowing revelations you care to share with us? And it's all up to A-Rod to score runs, right? How are you not getting this? A-Rod is one person on a team of 25 players. At most, at his very, very best, A-Rod accounts for 20% of the teams offense. And none of its pitching (except for whatever comes his way on defense). To put any series (never mind all of them) on him is naive. And to say that the outcome of a series has something to do with some internal quality of any one player is asinine.
