If the Yanks were able to play well against the lousy teams in the league, they may have made it to the playoffs

Folks are very selective about this though. This is never the case in the post-season.

Losing Wang didn’t hurt as much as losing Joba, the Yanks were able to slide Joba into Wang’s spot and Joba was a great contributor, but then losing Joba made things much worse.

Any player that slides into ARod’s spot is never going to inject the Yanks offense with the same power ARod will, but he can definitely mitigate the risk by doing the right things within the confines of the team. If that player bunts a guy over, plays good defense, gets key singles, doubles, etc, then the Yanks can get by with a player like that. If that player hits .220, plays awful defense then he’s going to obviously hurt the Yanks, but if he can be good enough then that eases the loss of ARod. You just have to player a different brand of baseball.

All I’m saying is that one player shouldn’t make or break this team, I get the impression that others feel it does make or break the team. I say, let’s see how bad it is.

If ARod misses the first 62 games and the Yanks play .484 ball (30 – 32), but when ARod comes back they play 52 – 48 with ARod. The wild card team has 92 wins, so that would mean the Yanks miss the playoffs by 10 games, ARod already gave you a 4 game swing on the win column, are we to assume that ARod’s presence would have been a 10 game difference maker through the first 62 games of his absence? Or are we to assume the other players just didn’t play that well -henceforth the Yankees were not that good? I look it as the latter, the Yanks can still win and achieve success despite ARod’s absence. Now, if the Yanks lose more players then that becomes a much harder thing to overcome.

Best I can tell, the attitude here from most is that the Yankees are a better team with Alex Rodriguez playing than they are with him not. Are you quarreling with that? I suspect not. If you are essentially saying ‘the season isn’t over, even if he misses half of it’ I’ll agree, of course. The stats we were shown yesterday in win shares suggest an MVP type player is worth about 6-8 games over a whole year. Let’s call it four games for half a year, and remember that other teams will get injuries, too and I am with you in saying this remains a competitive club (I do suspect a new 3rd baseman if he’s out till July). But let’s not act as if this isn’t significant, just because some people here don’t like the man. (I’m still irritated by the lame O’Conner comment Diane cited.)

Last note: on the medical best-action … we just don’t know enough yet. Read the doctor’s quote Diane offers. Balance 75-80% chance he can play all year against alternatives. If 4-6 weeks recovery after minor surgery then I am certain they’ll do it. If 4 months + because bone is involved, there’s a tougher call to make, especially as the 4 months is no guaranteed minimum time frame.

You are basically validating the 24 + 1 label that’s been associated with him, ARod is part of a 25 man team, if he’s that special and such a difference maker then why has he been hiding that greatness from us? I’m not here to bring up the clutch vs. not clutch argument, I’m just saying that this team needs to figure it out. From the FO to the players, if they are a good team then they’ll be fine w/o ARod for 10 – 15 weeks.

If they can’t pick up some of the slack that’s not present because of ARod’s absence then they were never that good. If they lose 3 key pitchers and another bat, then that’s clearly devastating because there comes a point where it is too hard to recover from so many injuries to so many different players.

But losing one, no matter how good, is not a sign that the team will fail to score runs or will be any less competitive. Will Jeter step up? Will Cano play better? Will Posada recover fine? Will CC and AJ pitch-up to their contracts?

ARod is not the Yankees, I feel that the doom-and-gloom attitude because of ARod’s injury is quite flawed. ARod is part of a 25 man team, I want to see how the team performs, not how the team folds because ARod isn’t there. It happens in all walks of life, a key member of your team at work gets sick, a family tragedy, quits, etc, and people have to step-up. This is no different, IMHO.

And, to be quite honest, ARod needs a mental break…..there’s been a lot going on the last 4 – 6 weeks with him, he needs sometime alone with his cousin and daughters.

I am watching the WBC on ESPN2. Sir Sidney pitching like an ace against the A-Rod-less Dominican Republic. What an upset it would be if they won.

That O’Connor article is just the worst, and is completely indicative of the back-asswards thinking that has plagued many fans and the media (do they even think though?) since 2001. No, there is no need or way to “return” to the “good old days” of just finding a way to win. It doesn’t work that way. Period. This whole “we didn’t have a superstar” crap is also baloney.

The Yankees without A-Rod in the lineup, will be, literally, about as worse as a team can be if it subtracts one player. He’s that good.

Every day they put this off, is one more day ARod misses. Cut the bastard now and hope he’s back by June. Jeter will just have to take up the slack.

Many great athletes are legendary for the brutal discipline of their practice routines. In basketball, Michael Jordan practiced intensely beyond the already punishing team practices. (Had Jordan possessed some mammoth natural gift specifically for basketball, it seems unlikely he’d have been cut from his high school team.)

In football, all-time-great receiver Jerry Rice – passed up by 15 teams because they considered him too slow – practiced so hard that other players would get sick trying to keep up.

Perhaps the most intriguing thing is the “10-year rule.” Researchers found that it takes 10 years of a special kind of practice called “deliberate practice” to become world-class. That might explain the “peak” around age 28 baseball players are supposed to experience. For many, that would be about 10 years after they started getting really serious about baseball.

Diane’s reply to O’Conner’s stupid comment is right on, but doesn’t even go far enough: it is so tiring to see people still going on about ‘he’s not a nice enough guy’ or ‘he has a big ego’ and ignoring the man’s job (for the Yankees, for their fans) which is to show up, play ball, produce. He’s done all three his whole career.

Dr Philippon’s comments are probably what put the team and Alex in a tricky spot: if it is 75-80% he can play through this, rather than be down 4 months+, that sounds worth the shot, followed by surgery in November. But if the surgery is only for the labrum and not bone, a 4-6 week recovery pretty much compels immediate surgery, and he’s back in May. I wonder why there is no way to use mri/ct scan to determine if there is that ‘underlying’ bone issue that would make it 4 months.

One variable: Rodriguez is known as one of those work hard, then work harder, then do your workout types. Torre used to try to get him to back off, but clearly his routine involved major workouts, extra BP, etc. If he has to ease off, will that hurt his mental sense of being ready, or might it even help, as he’s compelled to dial it down?

I like adversity, I like seeing how my team performs when faced with adversity. The season is not lost, the Yanks might not score as many runs as they’d like (initially), but didn’t we get all this new pitching? Let’s see what they can do, can they keep teams from scoring 4 or less runs/game? I look at the loss of ARod for as way to see what our players are made of.

I look forward to it all, embrace the chaos.

There will be pain eventually, if he doesn’t get it fixed.

How much pain are you in? Times had picture of hip and explained its usefullness to a ball player. This article omitted the pain felt sleeping, walking, dressing, sitting, etc.

How often do you think about it? People with hip pain protect themselves, selecting legs to lead with, adjusting positions when entering and exiting cars, using arms to sit and rise from chairs, getting help putting on shoes,socks, etc. I cannot even imagine sliding, yet alone running. Do you think about it as the pitcher goes into his windup?

What do you take to relieve the pain? You can only take so many Advils! The meds have a long term affect on stomachs, yet alone who knows what else. And if you take something stronger, how does it affect the ability to hit or react to a hit ball?

Why did you wait so long to do something about it? He must have a health plan, yes? Or did your cousin have to approve the visit?