The idea that Alex Rodriguez had some character flaw that prevented him from succeeding in the postseason was always ridiculous. I don't know yet how the last few weeks will eventually be spun, but what we're seeing isn't some change in a person, some growth in his character, something that makes it easy to differentiate his performance in October 2009 from his performances in October 2005 and 2006. We're just seeing a great player across five games of his career, doing the things great players do, the things Rodriguez has been doing since he first reached down, picked a baseball off the ground and felt the power that baseballs have over young boys. Rodriguez had nine bad games, 38 bad plate appearances, a week and a half in which he didn't hit, split by a year, and millions of people reached a dumbass conclusions over those nine games.
He'll never get an apology. That's not how it works, of course. Whether you base your evaluations on careful analysis of performance or on pop psychology, you never have to apologize. But if anyone deserves an apology for how he was treated by fans, the media, and even his manager, it's Alex Rodriguez. One of the dozen best players in baseball history was demoted to the eighth spot because his own manager couldn't see past a week's worth of failure. That will always be the low point of Joe Torre's tenure in New York.
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While I agree with the sentiment of the article
ARod is the last person anyone should be apologizing to. How about he consoles himself by using $100 bills to wipe his butt?
b/c he makes good money he deserves to be treated like shit?
thats about the most absurd thing ive ever heard
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by billybeingbilly on Oct 19, 2009 7:06 PM EDT up reply actions
How was he treated like shit?
I’m sure he was so hurt by the criticism, warranted and unwarranted. A man with a contract that big has a target painted on his back, especially in NY. If anyone should be apologizing for anything it is the idiots that said he couldn’t produce in the postseason when it was a small sample size issue.
I guess I can’t say that I pay attention to the way the fans in NY treated him, so maybe they do owe him an apology.
Well that its
An apology for how he was treated/labeled for his postseason “failures”. The media, as you know, went to town on him for being weak or a choker or whatever. Torre batted him 8th 8th! in the batting order one time because he couldn’t “handle the pressure” and Yankees fans being Yankees fans, ripped on him because they could, and he wasn’t a “real Yankee” because he choked in the playoffs.
by kcbottom9th on Oct 19, 2009 10:16 PM EDT up reply actions 1 recs
beat me to it...point by point
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by billybeingbilly on Oct 20, 2009 12:17 AM EDT up reply actions
If you can't handle the heat you shouldn't have signed the $20M+ per year contract that paid you to be a baseball god
Of course people are going to say he choked if he doesn’t produce. It’s ridiculous yes, and it’s a small sample size, but he wasn’t doing what he was paid to do, and that’s all the media and most fans care about. Obviously he’s producing now, and they are lining up to kiss his ass. Fans are fickle. Why are there still fans in this town that can’t stand Mike Sweeney? He produced when healthy, but injuries beyond his control and a nice guy image made a lot of people hate him. Do they owe Sweeney an apology?
As for Torre? Batting him 8th was the ultimate dumbass move and only cemented in my mind that Torre is not a great manager, he just got lucky with the talent available to him. Way to tell your slugger that you have total confidence in him, I would think that move could only make things worse.
you just compared sweeney to arod...
1. Arod has NEVER not produced. He was a huge reason why they’ve made the playoffs…which is much more important than 30 ABs in the playoffs.
2. Sweeney vs Arod….really? Arod has more than earned the money that the Yanks (and before that, the Rangers have paid him) whereas Sweeney didnt have a single season where he even came close to earning his money…not once in 5 years. Sweeney dragged this franchise down for 5 years by his complete lack of performance.
3. Agree with your assessment of Torre
Sweeney $55 million in salary $16.3 million in performance
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by billybeingbilly on Oct 20, 2009 2:28 AM EDT up reply actions
I compared Sweeney to ARod in the way that he might be owed an apology as well, nothing more.
- Agree
- This franchise would have been in the gutter with or without Sweeney. Sweeney’s OPS+ for 2003-2007: 120, 117, 127, 102, 86. So the only year he hurt the team with his bat while playing was 2007. The first 3 years of the contract he was pretty good when he was able to play. The 4th is league average and the final one gets kind of ugly. But what I’m saying is that when he was healthy, he did produce, yet people like you blame the Royals problems on him, when even if he played 162 games every year it wouldn’t have solved the Royals issues. To me, it would be like blaming Zack for the Royals not making the playoffs this year, or ARod not producing in the playoffs over a small sample size. Sure, it was a bad contract after the fact because of the injuries, but how many people thought it was bad at the time? Blame the owner if you want to blame someone. A single $11M contract should not hamstring an organization for 5 years, but it will when your payroll doesn’t exceed $40M in 2004, except it was around $50M in 2003. BTW, we paid Juan Gone $4M in 2004, and in 2005 we paid Terrence Long almost $5M with a total payroll just over $30M. Those were the 2nd largest contracts on the team those years. I’m failing to see how the Sweeney contract screwed us. How about the owner screwed us by dropping $20M in payroll while telling us he couldn’t afford to keep Beltran in mid 2003, and Sweeney was hung out to dry as the savior of the organization with no support put in place around him to help the team win? The issues go far deeper than Sweeney, it was never solely his fault.
I’ve forgotten some of the parade of awesomeness that Baird brought through here. I’m actually inclined to think that the Royals are in a better position today with Dayton at the helm even though he’s a laughingstock. We’ve suffered from Overpaid OFer Syndrome (Jose Guillen’s Disease) for a while now.
Rondell White – 2003
Juan Gonzalez – 2004
Terrence Long -2005
Reggie Sanders -2006
Emil Brown/Reggie Sanders – 2007 – BONUS! – Jason Larue made $5.5M! Now the Royals are just throwing money away!
2008 – Jose Guillen
2009 – Jose Guillen
sweeney was paid $11 million per year. His two most valuable years he was worth 5.9 million and 7.1 million…not even CLOSE to 11 million and the other 3 years were near zero numbers. The dude doesnt deserve an apology from anyone
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by billybeingbilly on Oct 20, 2009 5:07 PM EDT up reply actions
and no...its nothing like blaming zack...
zack did his job and more. Sweeney did nearly nothing for 5 years.
Paying Juan Gone $4 million was a better investment than every one of sweeney’s years….Same with Terrence Long.
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by billybeingbilly on Oct 20, 2009 5:09 PM EDT up reply actions
108, 106, 122, 60, 74 Games played
WAR 2.1, 1.0, 2.1, .3, -.3
You’re defending Sweeney on those 5 years based on 3 years of decent OPS+ based on small sample sizes while DHing/playing shitty 1b and I’m the blind or stubborn one?
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by billybeingbilly on Oct 20, 2009 8:01 PM EDT up reply actions
No, we're saying he actually produced when he was healthy
Was it Sweeney’s fault his back gave out on him?
You are saying he’s the reason the Royals sucked those years, when it is plainly not true. Yes, I think fans like you owe him an apology. It got downright nasty at the end of his stay here.
he's the biggest non management reason that they sucked....
and his numbers werent even up to $11 million/yr DH standards either….even if he’d played 162 games.
And, he’s supposed to get a pass for being perpetually injured?
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by billybeingbilly on Oct 21, 2009 5:14 PM EDT up reply actions
Here's 2 fun lists
Royals players that had higher WAR values than Mike Sweeney 2003-2007
2003 – Carlos Beltran 6.1, Joe Randa 2.9, Angel Berroa 2.8
2004 – Joe Randa 3.1, Beltran 2.6, DDJ 1.1
2005 – DDJ 4.2
2006 – DDJ 3.8, Teahen, Emil, Grudz, Esteban, Buck, Shealy, Graffanino, Reggie Sanders, Gathright tied Sweeney at .3, 2006 obviously wasn’t very good for Sweeney
2007 – Only 4 players had worse WARs: Huber, Shealy, Larue, Costa – stick a fork in Sweeney, he’s done
What Sweeney’s WAR would have had to have been for him to be the sole difference in postseason play:
2003 – finished 7 GB of the Twins – Sweeney needed to get to 9.1 from 2.1. As a reference, Pujols’s best season ever is a 9.0, and Sweeney was never that good. Even a healthy Sweeney couldn’t hit that.
2004 – finished 34 GB, a WAR of 35 is needed (1.0 WAR)
2005 – finished 43 GB, a WAR of 45.1 is needed (2.1 WAR)
2006 – 34 GB, 34.3 WAR needed (.3 WAR)
2007 – 27 GB, 26.7 WAR needed (-.3 WAR)
So like I said previously, Sweeney could not have made up the difference himself. And he really wasn’t terrible until 2006-2007. And even then, he played DH exclusively except for 6 appearances in 2007.
ha ha....wow....
in 2 of sweeneys 3 ‘good’ years, joe randa had a higher WAR than Sweeney.
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by billybeingbilly on Oct 22, 2009 12:14 PM EDT up reply actions
our 11 million dollar man shouldnt be the 4th best player on a team where he's like 25% of the payroll
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by billybeingbilly on Oct 22, 2009 12:16 PM EDT up reply actions
Finally
You said something without hyperbole. I agree. I loved Sweeney the man and Sweeney the healthy baseball player, but it just didn’t work out. the Royals couldn’t afford the contract, but made it anyway. Then they didn’t trade him to the Angels for prospects. Of course, they didn’t trade Dye for prospects, either. The biggest problem is that the Royals never got enough back for the stars they did (or should have) traded.
I agree
but I think it also shows how undervalued Joe Randa was. He was a fan favorite for a reason. Though I wouldn’t have guessed he was that productive. Sweeney’s high points for WAR were in the mid 4’s, his 1B defense probably held that down a bit, and Joe Randa at 3B probably bumped his up a little. Playing time is also going to factor in as WAR is somewhat of a counting stat.
Sweeney was only outplayed by 4 players in those 3 seasons. Rookie of the Year Angel Berroa, Joe Randa, young DDJ, and Carlos Beltran. Randa had a huge bump in 2004 for his fielding, Beltran is awesome at fielding, Berroa gets a positional adjustment for SS, and DDJ got a huge bump in fielding as well. Only Beltran outplayed Sweeney with the bat.
too bad for sweeney there's more to the game than hitting....
i was always a fan of joe randa, but wouldve never guessed he was that good..
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by billybeingbilly on Oct 22, 2009 7:19 PM EDT up reply actions
Just because I'm annoyed:
A list of Royals who, since 2003, have amassed at least 450 PA and a 117 or better OPS+:
2003: Carlos Beltran, 132
2003: Mike Sweeney, 120
2004, Mike Sweeney, 117
2005: Mike Sweeney, 127
2005: Matt Stairs, 118*
2008: David DeJesus, 119
2009: Billy Butler, 125
- - (Stairs also had 48 fewer PA than Sweeney in addition to just not being as good anyway)
That’s it. In six seasons, exactly four players have exceeded Sweeney’s basic average OPS+ over three seasons while also exceeding Sweeney’s average playing time. Let me stress this: you’re claiming they’re “decent” OPS+ over “small” sample size, when they are in fact “pretty much the best OPS+ on the team or close enough to it” over “450 or more PA a year, which is not a small sample size”. (And that sets aside the fact that in only one of those three seasons did Sweeney fail to reach 500 PA.)
Bottom line: over the first three seasons of that contract, Sweeney put up performances which are essentially three of the top seven offensive performances by any Royal playing anything close to a full season since that time.
In attempting to continue slandering Sweeney by claiming he did “nothing” over the course of his contract, you had no performance argument in the first place, and now you have no playing time argument. Maybe you’d like to play a different card, such as “he was a clubhouse cancer” or “he didn’t play the game the right way” or “a real ballplayer would drink beer, not milk”.
Yes, the last two years of Sweeney’s contract were a bad deal. But he did his job the first three years, and you really need to just accept it and quit being a dork.
This space for rent.
how many players since 2003 have made $55 million?
Sweeney’s contract was almost as much of a drain as Joguis.
Im not saying it was an awful signing on the level of guillen, but it worked out just about as well.
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by billybeingbilly on Oct 21, 2009 5:16 PM EDT up reply actions
thats the equivalent of 2 seasons of prettygoodness for one of the top salaries in baseball
for 5 years.
I really dont get how you guys dont see how much of a drain he was. He was overpaid by like $36 million dollars. Even in his ’pretty much the best ’ years he wasnt nearly worth his salary.
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by billybeingbilly on Oct 21, 2009 5:28 PM EDT up reply actions
That's not what you're getting slapped around for.
Sweeney did nearly nothing for 5 years.
Paying Juan Gone $4 million was a better investment than every one of sweeney’s years….Same with Terrence Long.
Sweeney didnt produce…at all.
That’s what you’re getting slapped around for.
Sweeney was not as good as he “should” have been based on his contract. But the bottom line is that in the first season of the contract, he wasn’t the best player on the team, but only because of Beltran; the following two seasons he was the best player on the team, and in the fourth season he was still actually close to being the best player on the team. And that’s the guy you wanna take potshots at?
Rage against Glass not locking Beltran up, and if you want to say that Glass should have let Sweeney go and kept Carlos, that’s actually a completely fair rap (although at the time if Glass had let Sweeney go, the team would have lost a significant amount of local support). Scream bloody murder at the lineup the team assembled which didn’t even have anyone break a 105 OPS+ with only two guys over 100. Throw an absolute fit over the lame-ass AA and a half pitching staffs that Buddy was saddled with. But for god’s sake, quit acting like it’s Sweeney’s fault.
This space for rent.
So, Sweeney was the smartets retard basically?
He was the best player on the worst stretch of baseball of all time….that in no way makes him worth $11 million per year…nor does his performance….not in any one of the 5 years
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by billybeingbilly on Oct 21, 2009 9:00 PM EDT up reply actions
oops..smartest retad...
and yes, i realize some might find this offensive but it’s a good analogy
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by billybeingbilly on Oct 21, 2009 9:02 PM EDT up reply actions
Oh, jesus christ.
You’re illiterate or something. That’s the only possible way you could respond to:
you’re right, he wasn’t worth the contract, but we’re not yelling at you for saying he wasn’t worth the contract; we’re yelling at you for saying he sucked and didn’t do anything
with:
he wasn’t worth the contract
Maybe you’re not illiterate. Maybe you’re a “smartets retad”.
This space for rent.
by jonfmorse on Oct 21, 2009 10:30 PM EDT up reply actions 1 recs
ouch...fucks up the correction too...
i dont recall saying he didnt do anything. I started by responding to someone saying he deserves an apology from some fans b/c he was treated too harshly. He had 3 seasons where he hit pretty good in the 2/3 of the games that he played which was about the equivalent of 2 entire seasons. Even if you combine those 3 season into two, he wasnt worth even that money. The next 3 seasons were godawful. So, tell me, how does Sweeney not deserve EVERY bit of criticism that he has gotten and more? He had performances worth $16 million dollars and took home $55 million. I’d say that worthy of people talking some shit about you. I mean, you have absolutely no problem doing to to Jose, why not Mike?
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by billybeingbilly on Oct 21, 2009 10:51 PM EDT up reply actions
and my title is referring to myself
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by billybeingbilly on Oct 21, 2009 10:51 PM EDT up reply actions
oh...and where did i say he 'sucked' and didnt 'do anything'?
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by billybeingbilly on Oct 21, 2009 10:53 PM EDT up reply actions
OMG. Are you serious?
Here. I reposted them for you two posts back, but you were obviously, I dunno, not reading.
Sweeney did nearly nothing for 5 years.
Paying Juan Gone $4 million was a better investment than every one of sweeney’s years….Same with Terrence Long.
Sweeney didnt produce…at all.
Those are exact quotes from YOU, BBB.
And I have no problem doing it to Jose and not Mike because (a) the Jose we’ve got now is the same guy we thought we were getting to begin with, (b) Jose’s kind of an ass, © no, actually, Jose’s totally an ass, and (d) Jose wasn’t already a Royal when he signed his contract.
None of those things is true for Sweeney; before he got to the point where he couldn’t play through his back he was worth that contract, he was a good guy — no, really, a great guy — and he was the face of the freakin’ franchise.
This space for rent.
ok...its now pretty clear where we differ...
I think Juan Gone and TLong were less harmful to the organization b/c they were signed for relatively small amounts of money over a short period of time. In no way did they hamper the franchise over any real period of time.
I dont blame Jose for sucking simply for the reasons you pointed out, we knew he sucked when we signed him. It’s not his fault that our GM is retarded. Who’s going to turn down $36 million?
Sweeney gets a ton of leeway b/c he was a Royal and his production decreased dramatically when he got his big money deal? I dont get that.
And as I’ve said before, Sweeney gave us a year and a half’s worth of production at $11 million/year in 5 years. I consider that doing nearly nothing.
Sweeney set us back as a franchise b/c while he was spending time on the DL not producing, we were not able to sign any big name players. His contract is the main reason why Juan Gone was our major signing when we decided to make a run in 2004. We ‘couldnt afford’ anyone better.
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by billybeingbilly on Oct 22, 2009 3:04 AM EDT up reply actions
Really?
Terrence Long with the Royals: .1 WAR
Juan Gonzalez with the Royals: -.3 WAR
So $9M for 2 players that combined to produce -.2 WAR is better than Sweeney?
And you wonder why we think your position is irrational?
sweeney had 2 seasons where he was more overpaid than that....
and 1 other one that is right on that same level…thats how bad he was.
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by billybeingbilly on Oct 21, 2009 5:22 PM EDT up reply actions
Interesting to see someone finding one of Joe's old columns from 2005
I'm not a sabermetrician, but I do play one at Driveline Mechanics.
Can't get enough of me? Check out my Twitter feed.
by Matt Klaassen on Oct 19, 2009 2:41 PM EDT reply actions 1 recs
Something has to be out there.
Who will be the one to find it?
I used to work with an old man that told me. Son, every workplace has a dumbass, if you don't have one where you work, then I'm afraid you're it.
He defended him then, too.
No links, but Joe’s always ranted against the idea of character winning ball games.
This space for rent.
that's what I mean
same song, different season
(yawn)
At least he didn’t use VORP
I'm not a sabermetrician, but I do play one at Driveline Mechanics.
Can't get enough of me? Check out my Twitter feed.
by Matt Klaassen on Oct 20, 2009 10:53 AM EDT up reply actions
At least I like the melody
of that particular song. I don’t mind Joe ranting about it, ‘cause he’s right.
This space for rent.
compare our world now to the world of 2006
peyton manning and Arod: losers who only care about stats, can’t win, bad leaders, etc
brady and ortiz: winners who win because they win and are winners
that was basically every simmons column for three years and it damn near made him unreadable
since then peyton won a SB, brady lost a SB, ortiz has aged 25 years and arod has had a good five game stretch that was supposed to be impossible
not to brag, but i jumped on the simmons gravy train and proved without question that blah-rod sucked
you may remember this: http://www.royalsreview.com/2007/11/13/17725/400#storyjump
good read
and it makes me want to rent Gigli.
Baseball's that swingy stick game, right?
by royalsroyalsroyals on Oct 20, 2009 12:21 PM EDT up reply actions
Way off
Sheehan is underestimating the effect the mature influence of Madonna has had on A-Rod.
Relive Royals History at royalsretro.blogspot.com
I thought it was Kate Hudson during the season?
I used to work with an old man that told me. Son, every workplace has a dumbass, if you don't have one where you work, then I'm afraid you're it.
used to actually root for arod when he got there
when he was “not jeter”.
My stories a lot like yours only more interesting because it involves robots!
Why is everyone getting so worked up about this?
1.)Fans have a right to be upset when their teams don’t produce. 2.)No one has doubted that Rodriguez would enter the HOF someday as one of the greatest baseball players ever. 3.)Sweeney didn’t drag the franchise down—the Glasses did. But they’ve since put it in the very capable hands of the process GMDM.
sweeney didnt drag the franchise down?
Glass did his part with regards to Sweeney….Sweeney didnt produce…at all.
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by billybeingbilly on Oct 20, 2009 12:17 PM EDT up reply actions
Glass only did his part with Sweeney
2003 Payroll – around $50M – traded Beltran away
2004 Payroll – around $40M
2005 Payroll – slightly above $30M
2006 Payroll – slightly above $40M
Where’s the “Glass doing his part” at? Payroll was at its highest in Sweeney’s 1st year of his new contract, Sweeney’s “1 season above .500” clause vested in 2003 making sure he stayed for the length of the contract, and Glass immediately dumped salary. It didn’t even approach the 2003 level until at least 2007, Sweeney’s last year of his contract.
If you can't afford to pay a player $11 million, don't offer the contract
You can’t blame any player for their contract. If someone offers you millions of dollars to play a game, what is your reaction?
Sweeney didnt produce…at all.
Funny, you list several positive WARs above. I understand that his production never reached $11M, but positive WAR is still production. I guess I just don’t like hyperbole. On a side note, I would like to see Sweeney’s WAR in the seasons before the contract. Anyone wanna get those?
fangraphs doesnt have them.....
but he was waaaaaaay better before 2003 and he played many more games
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by billybeingbilly on Oct 22, 2009 3:19 AM EDT up reply actions
And, thus, WAYYYYYY outperforming his salary?
And, let’s face it, if the Royals hadn’t signed Sweeney to a big contract, they wouldn’t have signed any other players to one either. Glass opened the purse for a guy he knew and trusted and to placate fans. He probably would not have done so otherwise, and no big FA would have signed with a team that refused to keep its own talent at home.
No comment, but you can always go to baseball projection.com
A bit different, but the same idea
I'm not a sabermetrician, but I do play one at Driveline Mechanics.
Can't get enough of me? Check out my Twitter feed.
by Matt Klaassen on Oct 22, 2009 10:02 AM EDT up reply actions
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