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May 03, 2007
A-Rod AL Player of the Month For April
That's a shock, huh?
Other times Alex has won the American League Player of the Month Award:
August 1996
July 2002
August 2002
August 2003
May 2005
August 2005
May 2006
As I've mentioned, A-Rod always has a good May in New York. Since it looks like big months of August are common for him too, it appears that June 2007 is the month to watch for Rodriguez.
If A-Rod does well in June, he could be looking at another MVP award this season - to go along with the ones that he won in 2003 and 2005.
Only 8 players in the history of the game have won 3+ Baseball Writers Association of America's Most Valuable Player Awards: Barry Bonds, Yogi Berra, Roy Campanella, Joe DiMaggio, Jimmie Foxx, Mickey Mantle, Stan Musial, and Mike Schmidt. (Only Bonds, with seven, has more than three.)
If Alex can join this group, he and Mike Schmidt would be the only non-OF/1B/C players with three MVP awards.
That would be impressive.
Posted by Steve Lombardi at May 3, 2007 11:11 AM
Comments
ARod sure seems to be hitting the ball hard this year, at least it appears that way to me. One thing that I came across that I thought was concerning was ARod's contact rate. His current contact rate is at 75% and his BA (at the time) is at .355. That doesn't seem like a high contact rate for such a high average, I hope he's able to remain a +.300 hitter.
I guess the converse would be that Melky's CR is at 89.33% but his BA is at .200.
Source: http://www.rotoauthority.com/2007/05/contact_sport.html
Posted by: Garcia ![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.waswatching.com/nav-commenters.gif)
at May 3, 2007 11:48 AM
Steve, you missed one. ARod was the American League Player of the month in May 2006. Hard to believe, I mean.. he was SO bad in 2006, how could he possibly ever won Player of the Month? Oh, that's right, he wasn't bad.
Posted by: j at May 3, 2007 11:56 AM
Yikes! How could I have missed that one? Thanks j - just fixed that.
Posted by: Steve Lombardi at May 3, 2007 12:02 PM
Steve, you missed one. ARod was the American League Player of the month in May 2006. Hard to believe, I mean.. he was SO bad in 2006, how could he possibly ever won Player of the Month? Oh, that's right, he wasn't bad.
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Check out his home/road splits. So much for not being able to handle NY, eh?
Posted by: Raf at May 3, 2007 12:04 PM
ARod was the American League Player of the month in May 2006. Hard to believe, I mean.. he was SO bad in 2006, how could he possibly ever won Player of the Month? Oh, that's right, he wasn't bad.
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Nothing like a good dollop of hyperbole from an A-Rod fan. Does a month make a year? No. So which was more indicative of his '06 -- May or June?
In May: .330/.416/.615.
In June: .213/.346/.348.
When people talk about how "bad" A-Rod was in '06, they're thinking mostly of June, when he was in a bad funk. He picked it up in July, fell partially back into his funk in August, and then had a monster September (hitting eight home runs and slugging .691).
So A-Rod wasn't bad and it would be wrong to say he was, but he was certainly inconsistent that year. He's so incredibly talented that an inconsistent year from him would be a career year for most other players -- but somehow rewriting history to say A-Rod didn't have issues in '06 is ignoring what actually went on.
Posted by: baileywalk at May 3, 2007 12:23 PM
Not to beat a dead horse, but I still can't figure out what Torre was thinking with his moves in the playoffs regarding A-Rod last season. The guy was red hot. Who knows if it would've made a difference, but I think him dropping A-Rod to 6th and then 8th will be something that people will always remember about Joe Torre.
Posted by: JeremyM at May 3, 2007 12:38 PM
I think him dropping A-Rod to 6th and then 8th will be something that people will always remember about Joe Torre
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Really? Batting 6th was defensible, what with the return of Sheffield (remember how Torre likes to stagger the lineup), but I didn't think batting him 8th was right.
Posted by: Raf at May 3, 2007 01:15 PM