Baseball, seemingly more than any other major North American sport, is known for its unpredictability. Pitchers learn a new grip and appear out of nowhere, batters change their stance to find untapped power and when the playoffs come anything can happen. Baseball fans, unlike basketball fans, don’t have to wait a couple of rounds before a matchup between true contenders.
It’s a great irony that in a sport that is projected and analyzed quantitatively from here to the restaurant at the end of the universe, that things seem to catch us off guard so often. It’s also one of the things that keeps the game so engrossing.
Bewilderingly improbable events in baseball have an inherent charm to them and make for excellent stories every season. Last year the New York Yankees fans bore witness to perhaps the best unbelievable story of all: the resurrection of Alex Rodriguez.
At the age of 39, after a year away from baseball and having not played a full season since 2010, Rodriguez was one of the most fearsome offensive threats in the game. It would have been foolish to doubt his talent, but given his advancing years it was more reasonable to assume prior to the season that he’d be a platoon DH/bench bat than someone hitting as many home runs as Paul Goldschmidt.
He announced his presence as vintage-ish A-Rod on April 17 with one swing of the bat.
That ball would travel 470.5 feet, the 23rd-longest home run of the season, but at the time it was the longest. A man capable of punishing a ball in this manner was not ‘washed up.’
Although he had some struggles in the second half, Rodriguez was one of the top power threats in the majors last year at an age where most baseball players are relying on things like appearance fees, themed restaurants or car dealerships for their income.
In theory, the next step would be to determine if a rejuvenated Rodriguez has the legs for a home run record chase. After all he’s at 687 now, within striking distance of Babe Ruth, and perhaps even Bonds if he decided to stay on past his welcome. The steroid issue complicates matters. By and large, people don’t care if A-Rod sets any of the big records and they’d likely prefer if he didn’t.
That doesn’t mean there isn’t a small record that might make for a fun chase. If we presume that Rodriguez is currently clean then anything he does on a single-season basis is worthy of celebration because it doesn’t deal with his sordid PED history. If we can’t celebrate an A-Rod career home run chase, how about a quadragenarian home run chase?
Next year will be Rodriguez’s age-40 season and that can be a tricky one for power hitters. Since 1900 there have been 29 players in their age-39 years to hit 20 or more home runs, but only eight 40-year-olds have done it.
The record for home runs as a player 40 or older currently sits at 34, set by Darrell Evans of the Detroit Tigers in 1987. It is not a mark that is often discussed because it’s merely a curiosity, but it’s an interesting one for Rodriguez to pursue.
In theory the question is as easy as “Can Rodriguez hit one more home run than he did last year?” and that doesn’t sound totally out of the question. But framing it like that implies that getting the first 33 shouldn’t be too hard and that couldn’t be more wrong.
Not only is Rodriguez definitely not getting better due to his age, he’s also not well-rested this time around. When older athletes take a year off their health often improves, and as a result so can performance. The NHL saw this in the wake of the 2004-05 lockout when stars in their 30’s like Teemu Selanne were far stronger after the year off.
They also created in environment with more penalties that benefited older players because top-end passing and hands could be more important than speed when power plays became a more central component of offenses. It’s not going out on too much of a limb to say that’s neither here nor there.
How this pertains to Rodriguez is that he no longer is coming off a year where he rested and recovered. Instead he’ll enter 2016 having played in 151 games the previous season. There’s a significant difference there.
Additionally, he had some luck with long balls that he may not replicate this year. His HR/FB rate of 22.1% was actually .1 better than his career average and his best since he was 34. It’s hard to see that being repeatable at age 40.
Part of the reason the number came to be was that he enjoyed the benefit of some wall scrapers. According to the ESPN Home Run Tracker Rodriguez hit 12 “just enough” home runs and two that would have only left the park at Yankee Stadium. It’s not hard to imagine a couple more balls dropping on the warning track this year.
It’s always smart to bet against someone setting a record, but Rodriguez has the chance to make some (possibly) guilt-free history in 2016 if he can hit 35 home runs. There are quite literally millions of things that could go wrong to prevent this from taking place, but it’s not outside the realm of possibility. In fact, it’s far more reasonable than the idea of him hitting 33 in 2015 seemed heading into that season.
Alex Rodriguez is about to embark on an improbable home run chase, it’s just not the one you were expecting. Given the unavoidable dark cloud that surrounds his career, that’s probably for the best.
Lead photo: Kim Klement/USA Today Sports
If A-Rod threatens the HR record for 40 year-olds he’s likely to find himself in a race with Big Papi.