Yankees and A-Rod

[junglewarfare]

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Does anyone else get the impression that the baseball media is almost "proud" of the fact that they are mentally affecting (as they say), one of the greatest hitters of this generation?

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That's a good point and I agree with it. People who hate the yankees are also having fun getting their rocks off by saying "New York fans are [censored] idiots for booing and suggesting trading him, they are the dumbest/worst, etc".

Last year the people criticizing him were beyond insane, but this year he is actually playing terribly. His OPS is down .153 points to .878, and he has become a laugher in the field. He is pretty much down to the bottom decile of PECOTA's projected forecast, he is either hurt or mentally shattered. If I had to guess, I'd say he was hurt and was letting the fact that he is aware of being hurt affect his mindset. When you are playing hurt you don't just lose that physical range of motion or strength, you play worse because you are concious of that weakness.

Obviously trading him is nuts and he'd veto it anyway, but I have no idea what to think of this. I would never boo him, but I'm really pissed of with how badly he is playing. The overall poor condition of the team and the joke status of the 5th starter aggravates arod's problem, when things have not been going well like this week fans are pissed off and he comes up as the first target. He does get held to a different standard than Jeter/Posada/etc when he is slumping, but this time he is playing relatively badly by any standard of measure, not having an OPS over 1.0 but being "unclutch". who knows, I have faith that in the long run he'll go back to being who he is. This whole thing is such a mess, it started from the minute he got here and went to play 3b. That is such a mindboggling move that I basically don't acknowledge that it happened, it will always piss me off.