Off Year For A-Rod?

[willshad]

He has had 13 consecutive seasons of scoring 100 runs, and 11 of driving in 100 and hitting 30 homers. Will this finally be A-rod's 'off' season, or is there still enough time left for him to have a typical A-Rod season?

[Honus Wagner Rules]

Given that A-Rod does strikeout a lot his batting will be the first to go. I don't think he's in decline quite yet but I do believe that the days of A-Rod hitting .300 every season is probably gone. A-Rod may been in that stage of his career where he might hit .275 for the rest of his career.

[Bennybosox]

I think this will be an "off' season for A-Roid, but mostly because of the fact that he missed the first month+ of the season. It also looks like he rushed back, as I see he's taking off the first two games of the weekend series against the Marlins because of "fatigue", which, IMO, is clearly an excuse to cover up the fact that the hip is hindering his preformance at the plate.

I think next season shuold be used as a guage to see if he is in "decline" as an elite offensive presense. I think we should take a "wait-and-see" approach, and give it some time for him to fully recover from his hip injury/surgery. Believe me, I'd never make excuses for A-Fraud and his slow start--I just think that we should look at his offensive decline as being directly related to the fact that he just had hip surgery.

[sturg1dj]

Frank Thomas was a better hitter with a better eye and look what happened. He lost his ability to hit for average, but still was a good power guy who walked a lot later in his career.


edit: He should start declining soon...right? Not everyone has the late career boom of Hank Aaron or Barry Bonds.