I want to preface this piece by defending Peter Abraham a bit. He has been roundly criticized by many for becoming arrogant due to the success of his blog, an assertion that may have some truth to it. However, his blog remains the number one spot for news from the Yankees clubhouse, and he is truly a pioneer of sports blogging. That being said, I have to take him to task for a statement he made earlier this week, in response to a comment that stated that the Yankees could not win a championship without A-Rod:
In the post of the year, Giuseppe Franco says that the Yankees cannot win the World Series without Alex Rodriguez.
The Yankees have won 26 World Series without him. Somehow.
Alex has never never played in one World Series game.
I would suggest that if the Yankees did not have Alex, they would be far more likely to win. His 24 + 1 mentality is not conducive to championship play. I realize it’s spring training, but the Yankees have looked terrific.
They’re a much better team when they aren’t sitting around waiting for him to hit a home run.
There is plenty here to digest. Before I get into it, I want to point out that my purpose is not to rip Pete. Rather, he is espousing a point that a lot of old school Yankees fans agree with, one that I feel needs to be addressed.
In regard to his first comment about the team having won 26 championships without A-Rod, that seems to be besides the point in regard to 2009. Yes, the team has won titles in the past, because they had the requisite talent. In 2009, the Yankees without A-Rod are likely to be lacking in the talent necessary to win a championship. It may be possible, but losing him for the entire season would make it extremely unlikely.
Then Pete goes into the classic Steve Phillips 24+1 spiel. Honestly, the idea that a team cannot win with a distracting superstar player is not supported by the facts. Teams have won championships with players like Manny Ramirez and Reggie Jackson, to name a few guys who were considered malcontents who brought home the hardware. If Alex were to have one big playoff series this season, this argument would evaporate, as success creates its own chemistry.
Pete claims that he knows that it is spring training, and then totally ignores that fact. Looking good now is really meaningless, especially when big spots are still being filled by players on the fringe of MLB rosters. The idea that the Yankees success with out Alex in spring training is significant is laughable. And doesn’t the idea that they are no longer waiting for home runs implicate that there was a lack of effort from the other players? Isn’t that statement an indictment of the entire club, who apparently did not give it their all, knowing that Alex would bail them out?
This line of reasoning has really begun to bother me, and a hot start from the Yankees without A-Rod will only serve to exacerbate the issue. The Yankees are not better off without A-Rod. The clubhouse may be more relaxed without him, but the team is worse. As long as the goal is to win baseball games, the Yankees need Alex Rodriguez.
(h/t commenter steve at RAB)
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7 Responses to Abraham: Yankees Better Off Without A-Rod's 24+1 Mentality
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TIQ IQ
You forgot the #1 24+1 guy of all time: Babe Ruth.
I was wondering just yesterday how long it’ll take ESPN et al to start with exactly what you mentioned (look how well they play without him!) if NY gets off to a good start.
One other thing he fails to mention: the Yankees haven’t won a WS for eight years with Jeter. Did he forget the formula? Did he become complacent? What gives?
Great post, Moshe. I genuinely like Pete Abe’s blog and he’s a talented writer but there are definitely times that he seems to be slipping into Mike Francesaville in terms of arrogance and one-sided thinking. I think that much of it is forgivable as the nature of the beast. Blogging as much as he does requires a lot of quickly written opinion pieces where he’s just winging it off the cuff. Sometimes get locked into my opinion and just start building the case for my side and just get into it without really being able to properly see the gaping holes in my reasoning, so I can’t cream him for being shortsighted in this case, even though, as you and oldpep pointed out, his stance doesn’t make any evidential sense.
I’ve seen some comments by him lately, though, where he gets unnecessarily nasty and seems completely unable to even contemplate an opinion in opposition to his own. That’s a slippery slope and I hope he doesn’t become a Mike Francesa type who thinks he’s the expert on everything. Personally, the more I learn, the more I realize how little I actually know. I wrote an article for him earlier this year, and he just didn’t get the irony in it, no matter how I explained it, and he took offense very easily even though I was very respectful and complimentary.
I think part of the problem is that, as a large blog, he sees a lot of dumb comments that frustrate him to the point where it seems like everyone else is a complete idiot and he’s brilliant. I’ve seen it in my own field of teaching where we have a certain level of knowledge and inevitably you’re going to hear a fairly large number of ignorant, uninformed or just plain dumb comments every day. You start to feel a lot smarter than you actually are. I’m sure it’s the same way with guys like Francesa. That arrogance is something that can really creep up on you if you’re not extremely vigilant against it.
Good job Moshe, because I wouldn’t know where to begin with picking Pete’s post apart. As you said his blog is excellent at times, but for anyone that reads it regularly it’s obvious that he’s letting his dislike for Arod cloud his judgement here.
It’s also kind of funny that he brings up the 24+1 idea, because yankee history is built on this concept! Arod has nothing on Reggie Jackson, who was openly disliked by a majority of his teammates. Yet now because the Yankee organization trots him around like the messiah, people tend to forget that. And for anyone that wants to say “well Reggie got it done in the clutch”, take a look at his ALCS numbers. If that great team didn’t carry him to the world series, he’d be ridiculed just like Alex abd Dave Winfield. And if Mo doesn’t blow that save against Boston in ’04, perhaps Alex is the toast of NY. He was having an amazing postseason up until that point.
It’s all a bunch of nonsense, sad how quickly people forget 2007 when he carried the team. Or how tough things were last May when he was injured. But one rocky spring has everyone beliving he does more harm than good, whatever.
“I wrote an article for him earlier this year, and he just didn’t get the irony in it, no matter how I explained it, and he took offense very easily even though I was very respectful and complimentary.”
Hey Tom which one was yours? I assume you are talking about one of the guest blog post on his site?
Yeah, I did one comparing the Yanks to the Red Sox. I began by pretending to be an arrogant Yankee fan exulting in the splendor of all the off-season signings, convinced the Yanks would blow the Sox out of the water in ’09 but, by the end realizing that the two teams are still pretty much neck-and-neck.
He didn’t see the irony, which is fine, but he wound up editing out some crucial parts because he didn’t understand. Even when I explained it to him, he didn’t seem to understand and didn’t re-edit. It was very weird, especially because he uses irony in his own writing. It’s not like he’s blind to it. I thought that maybe I missed the mark with it because of his reaction, but I got lots of positive comments, even without the re-edit. I got more comments than any of the other guest pieces in the two weeks surrounding, but Pete remained very cold to me, saying that he didn’t appreciate me insulting Red Sox fans and he was trying to run a respectful blog.
I totally get that and agree with his sentiments, but it was like, even though I explained the irony and the fact that I wasn’t really insulting Sox fans (even most of the Sox fans got the joke), he had sort of already had this opinion entrenched in his mind.
I thought the whole incident was a little odd, but I don’t have any hard feelings. These misunderstandings are commonplace in the blogosphere and, quite honestly, it wasn’t my best piece (the word limit was tough to adhere to). I just worry that the guy is headed down the wrong path. I used to like Francesa, but his arrogance has gotten so overwhelming that I find that I can’t even listen to him anymore. I hope that doesn’t happen with Pete Abe b/c he’s a very good writer and has a lot of passion for covering the team.
I also don’t like when Pete gets on Girardi for non-baseball related stuff. He takes it so personally when Joe tries to keep information private or not release certain info to the press. Sometimes he doesn’t get that we don’t care about that stuff, that’s his deal and the Yankee beat writers deal
I don’t want to turn this into a Pete Abe bash session. Like I said, I really enjoy his blog, but the topic came up and I can’t help but give my opinions and experiences and they naturally run to the negative b/c of the topic. I don’t think he’s a bad guy, I think all this stuff is sort of a natural outgrowth of his blogging success
A little late but…
Pete has a good blog but, he and Francesa have the “Bill O’Rielly” sickness (as pointed out by Tom G).
Once one has success, one starts to believe they are more important and smarter then others…even the experts!
Been there, done that…almost cost more then I was willing to give up. Pete is a smart guy, hopefully he will read these—respectful—comments and come back from the dark side.