September 08, 2007
Return to the Fifty Club
Alex Rodriguez just hit his fiftieth home run of the season, a shot just over the fence in dead center field. He's the first Yankees right-hander to hit fifty in a season, and the first since Maris and Mantle in 1961. That's six for Alex in the first eight days of the month. If he can keep up that pace for sixteen more days he'll set a new AL single season record. It's the third time Alex broke the 50 barrier. He did it previously in his first two years with Texas.
Update: Alex goes deep again, a solo shot leading off the sixth inning. This time, he pulls it into the Yankees bullpen. He should turn his ankle more often. It's his eighth multi-homer game of the season. In addition, the broadcast said he set the record for a third baseman with 49. Schmidt hit 48 as a third baseman in 1980.
The two runs scored gives Alex 130 on the season. It's the third time he's both scored and driven in 130 runs. He could easily end up 140-140.
Update: It's the 63rd time a player reached 130-130 in a season. Babe Ruth is the only member of the 170-170 club. The last to reach 140-140 was Sammy Sosa in 2001, the twenty third player to accomplish the feat. However, you have to go back to 1949 and Ted Williams to find the penultimate accomplishment of the feat.
Update: Rodriguez is now the only player to set a single season major league record for home runs at two positions, shortstop and third base.
Posted by David Pinto at
08:05 PM
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Sluggers
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51, and counting.
The guy is absolutely unreal. I've never seen anything like it.
In evaluating ARod as an all-time great, the default choice is to rank him as a shortstop, as the bulk of his career has been spent there and he would almost certainly still be at short if Jeter wasn't welded to the position as far as the Yankees were concerned. Ranked there, he'd probably be a consensus #2 pick behind Wagner, with a substantial and growing minority ranking him #1. With his huge and now record-setting seasons at third, how would he rank if you lined him up against the greatest third basemen of all time instead?
A glance at baseballreference.com gives ARod a razor thin edge over Schmidt in adjusted OPS+ and a wider one over Mathews and Brett:
ARod 148
Schmidt 147
Mathews 143
Brett 135
He's got a clear edge on Brett, and Mathews never won a Gold Glove at third--so I'm not giving him a defensive edge over a two-time Gold Glove winning shortstop. So, that leaves Schmidt with his ten Gold Gloves (which by all statistical and anecdotal evidence were well earned) at third vs. ARod's two Gold Gloves at short (in a league and time where Omar Vizquel tended to make it diabolically hard for any other shortstop to win AL SS Gold Gloves). For now, I'm going to give the nod to Michael Jack--but it won't take many more seasons of the general caliber of this one for me to change my mind.
Of course, A-Rod's still in his prime, so his OPS+ is likely at a high. His averages could dip later in his career.
