After serving his yearlong suspension in 2014, Alex Rodriguez has put up an impressive campaign for the Yankees this season. In a year full of milestones, A-Rod has steadily pushed along, so far compiling 20 HR’s, 54 RBI, and a .275/.375/.518 AVG/OBP/SLG line through Wednesday, barely missing out on becoming an AL All-Star. So can A-Rod keep up his numbers and play like an All-Star in the second half?
Before we delve into A-Rod’s stats, it’s worth noting that the biggest impediment to any continuation of A-Rod’s strong performance is durability. How many more games can a soon-to-be 40 year-old, post-PED body endure without slowing down? It’s not a fun question to ask, but it’s one worth considering. A-Rod hasn’t played more than 122 games since 2010, and hasn’t played more than 140 games since 2007. The Yankees played their 93rd game of the year Wednesday night, and A-Rod has appeared in 87 of them. There is definitely less wear and tear placed on A-Rod, however, thanks to the fact that he has only appeared in the field in only 6 games in 2015.
Rodriguez has been slugging this season, hitting 20 HR’s, slugging .518, and posting a .243 ISO (isolated power) average through Tuesday. But one thing to worry about is that according to ESPN’s Home Run Tracker (chart below), 9 of A-Rod’s 20 “A-Bombs” were classified as “Just Enough,” as they either cleared the fence by less than 10 vertical feet or landed less than one fence height beyond the fence. As nearly half of A-Rod’s homers could be classified as “lucky,” there may be concern about power regression. Thankfully, A-Rod still gets the benefit of calling Yankee Stadium home, as all 20 of his homers would clear the Stadium’s fences. In addition, A-Rod’s average true distance of 403.8 feet and average speed off the bat of 105.2 mph are both above league average.
It is difficult to predict A-Rod’s second half stats using his precedents because it has been three seasons since the last time he played a full season. Looking at 2013, when Rodriguez played from August onward, he batted .280 and hit 4 HR’s in 82 August at-bats, then fell off in September and October, batting .203 in 74 at-bats. In A-Rod’s last near-full season, 2012, he missed all of August, and returned in September, hitting .261 with 3 HR’s and 13 RBI. Not bad, and considering that now Rodriguez no longer has the burden of playing in the field every day, that may offset some of the further decline that we would normally expect from a 40 year-old.
As for the type of contact A-Rod is making, his line drive, ground ball, and fly ball rates are all in line with his rates from recent past years. He has pulled most of his ground balls, but is doing a good job spraying the ball across all fields (see the chart from Fangraphs below) when he puts it in the air, having put 6 of his 19 HR’s into the right field or right-center field seats. His .302 BABIP is also reasonable and should hold is batting average around where it is now. The only stat that shows a likelihood of regression is his HR/fly ball ratio, which sits 23.0%, much higher than the league average of about 10%. In his career, his HR/FB ratio has been 22.0%, but he has not exceeded 17.1% for a season since 2009.
Even if A-Rod blasts fewer “A-bombs” as the season goes on, his role as a DH and his batted ball profile show that he will still be able to hit for contact and slightly less power for the last two months. A-Rod’s 2015 has been anything but what most Yankees fans predicted, so simply for that reason, it would not be surprising to see him continue raking in spite of what the advanced metrics have to say. But even if these metrics hold and A-Rod’s power falls off a bit, he should still keep up his strong performance and be an integral part of this Yankees team provided he can stay healthy.
