Alex Rodriguez strives to be greatest Baseball player
In the near future if not to today or tomorrow, the New York Yankees third baseman Alex Rodriguez is going to provide the spectators with a splendid home run hit. He has almost hit 600 of them. Alex Rodriguez more popularly known as A-Rod has hit 599 home runs already and has an eye on the 600th home run which he will without any doubt achieve. Then eye his next goal of 762 home runs, the record for the most home runs, set by Barry Bonds in 2007.
When A-Rod reaches the milestone of 600 home runs he would be only the seventh player in the history of Major League Baseball to have reached this spot and join the elite group of people who had previously done it namely, Barry Bonds, Hank Aaron, Babe Ruth, Willie Mays, Ken Griffey Junior and Sammy Sosa. Spectators are eager for Rodriguez to overcome Bonds’s record because they feel Barry Bonds’s steroid use tarnished the record.
More importantly, does A-Rod have what it takes to score a further 164 home runs and set a new all-time home run record? A- Rod is the youngest of the elite group of players who managed to hit 600 home runs and bearing in mind the fact that he is only 35-years old, there is something that clicks and tells you that there is a chance that he surely can reach the ultimate home run record that has been set.
But the thing that goes against one of the greatest third baseman is that he has already been part of the MLB for a very long time. If we talk about his career appearances, he has already bagged ten thousand plate appearances, which are more than the other players who have scored 600 home runs.
Another factor that goes against the New York Yankees third baseman is the fact that he seems to have slowed down. The batting average that he is maintaining is his lowest since 1997, less than 30 home runs. With that average he would have to play more than 140 games to score a 100 home runs and that seems difficult.
The third thing which not only relates to the New York Yankee baseman but most short stops or third basemen, is that they usually do not have particularly long careers. The statistics show that out of the 74 players to have crossed the 10,000 plate appearances only 16 were shortstops or third basemen. Players such as Graig Nettles and Eddie Mathews did not achieve anything that could be a part of history in the final few seasons of their career. With more than ten thousand appearances, Cal Ripken Jr. and George Brett belong to the same class who failed to capitalize on the basis of statistics.
With the current happenings in the MLB it is clear that it won’t be as simple to play those splendid shots and score home runs as it used to. Home runs now would be a lot more difficult to score and will be scarce. A-Rod would have to play for more than eight years if he is to reach the ultimate record of 762 home runs and rise to the top of the ladder and be known as the greatest baseball player of all times. With the number of appearances he has managed thus far he is soon approaching the place he would stand alone but he needs to capitalize and not just sit and do what others did. If he is to beat the record, he also needs to improve his average batting score. Alex Rodriguez has bagged around ten thousand plate appearances, 1700 runs, 1800 RBIs and a total of 5000 bases.
These are the stats of a player who should be announcing retirement or rather about to play his final few seasons of his career. Not of one who still has around 5-6 years of MLB baseball left. The fact is that everybody would love Alex Rodriguez to play till the very end but what they don’t realise is that the end is fast approaching.
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