Enough about A-Rod already

Now that people are focusing on the AL Championship Series between Detroit and Oakland more than they are on Detroit’s Division Series win over the Yankees, I’m going to let Joe Sheehan speak for me in the matter of The People Vs. Alex Rodriguez.

What concerns me isn’t that the Yankees lost. What concerns me is that they and their manager set themselves up for a free ride going into the playoffs. After a season of laying all failures at the feet of Alex Rodriguez, and going so far as to inspire and participate in a Sports Illustrated story that furthered that storyline, the Yankees absolved themselves of responsibility. Complicit with the media, they washed their hands and let Rodriguez carry the water for their performance.

At just about any point along the way, one of the two most visible Yankees – Joe Torre or Derek Jeter – could have come forward and said what should be obvious: Alex Rodriguez is a great, great player, and in the worst season of his career he’s a star. Defining his season by his lowest points is doing him a disservice, and the constant focus on his play is an insult to the other members of the team. Whatever Rodriguez’s performance issues, such as they were, his overall contributions were valuable. Beyond that, he’s one of the game’s model citizens, with barely a controversy to his name in a time when so many others have been tainted.

That statement, completely true, would have done more to alleviate the pressure on Rodriguez than anything else. They didn’t do so, instead allowing petty nonsense like his desire to please people (heaven forfend) and his performance in varied subsets (in Boston, in the playoffs, against a small handful of pitchers, in 20 at-bats in July) to substitute for real information. They didn’t defend their teammate, and by allowing, even stoking, the situation, they absolved themselves and every other Yankee of blame for their fortunes. If they lost, it would be Rodriguez’s fault, no matter how the rest of them played.

Torre’s handling of the Rodriguez situation is perhaps the blackest mark on his record. Going so far as to bat him eighth in a playoff game, a move guaranteed to make him a point of discussion, would have been the nadir if he hadn’t already reached that in the pages of SI. Torre made his bones in New York by keeping controversy out of the clubhouse; he committed a boner by turning his clubhouse into a circus this year.

As far as Jeter goes, any claims to a captaincy or leadership skills are and will remain in doubt. His refusal to provide a full-throated defense of the player whose willingness to take his Gold Gloves to third base allowed the illusion of Jeter’s defensive prowess to grow to a point where he could get his own hardware is as much to blame as Torre’s sudden open-mouth policy. He could have stopped this with 50 well-chosen words. He didn’t, and it’s fair to wonder why.

Nobody is a bigger fan of the Yankees and of Joe Torre than my mother, and she just about ordered me on the phone Monday night to write something about how ridiculous the whole A-Rod situation had become. I have no idea what was going through Joe Torre’s head this season, but I cannot fathom how he lost his instinct to defuse clubhouse personnel matters. Torre is nobody’s idea of a tactician, and his roster management sucks, but the one thing you could count on was that the focus would be on the field and not in the sports pages. Not this year. If he doesn’t learn from this, then as much as I hate to say it, he deserves to be let go. It’s really that simple.

As for Derek Jeter, I’m more forgiving, but only because this really should have been his manager’s job. Jeter shouldn’t have needed to come to Alex Rodriguez’s defense any more than A-Rod should have. That said, given that Torre was asleep at the switch, Jeter is the one guy who could have defused the whole situation. Nobody else would have gotten the respect of the media, the fans, and the howler monkeys on sports talk radio that Jeter would have if he had he told them all to get a grip. He may not be the manager, but he can and should have been a standup guy. I hope that he too learns from this.

As to whether or not the Yankees should trade Alex Rodriguez, ask yourself one question: When was the last time a team got equivalent value for a superstar player? Never mind the fact that there’s no halfway decent third base option for the Yankees if they let A-Rod go. I can’t imagine a trade that would actually go through, especially in the current poisoned environment, in which the Yankees don’t come out a big loser. If the Yankees pursue this option, they’ve officially reverted back to the stupid, directionless franchise that plagued its fans from 1982 to 1993. Enough said about that.

Finally, if you really want to understand why the Yankees lost to Detroit, let Jay Jaffe explain it to you. Now let’s all enjoy the rest of the playoffs and move on to better things.

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