Kings third baseman Alex Rodriguez
No player has hit more home runs in his DTBL career than Kings third baseman Alex Rodriguez. On Saturday afternoon, Rodriguez hit his 586th home run while on a DTBL roster, moving him one ahead of Barry Bonds. He needs just 14 more home runs to become the first player to reach 600.
Although it has been an injury-plagued and mostly disappointing season for ARod, it has been full of impressive DTBL accomplishments. If he can pick up another five RBIs in the final week, he will also become the league’s all-time leader in that category, passing Manny Ramirez. He already has the lead in runs scored too, but only 13 ahead of his Yankees teammate Derek Jeter. In addition to that, Rodriguez was the Most Valuable Player in the DTBL All-Star Game back in July.
Not surprisingly, Rodriguez is the Kings franchise leader in home runs, runs batted in, runs scored, and even stolen bases. He was drafted by the Kings with the first pick of the 1997 draft, a pick the Kings acquired by trading away Roger Clemens. Sadly, both players have since had their legacies tainted, but that is another story for another time. Rodriguez has spent all 15 years of his career with the Kings. He was a critical piece of their four consecutive titles from 2001-2004. In those four seasons, he hit 52, 57, 47 and 36 home runs. Probably his best season came in 2007 though when he hit 54 home runs, drove in an incredible 156 and scored 143 runs.
2011 figures to be the worst statistical season of his career, likely setting single season lows in home runs (16), RBIs (60), runs (65) and stolen bases (4). Once considered the clear cut #1 player to have on your fantasy baseball team, that is certainly no longer the case. In particular, a variety of injuries have slowed him down the last couple seasons.
Meanwhile, most of the Yankees record breaking attention this week has been on Mariano Rivera for setting the MLB career save record (602), passing Trevor Hoffman. Rivera set the DTBL career mark in that category earlier this year, passing Hoffman on that list as well.
With a week to go in the season, can the Naturals catch the Jackalope? It’s not looking likely, as the Jackalope lead has remained fairly constant in recent days.