Major League Baseball

A-Rod can't replace Jeter as Yanks' leader, but can fill team void

Updated Mar. 4, 2020 10:57 p.m. ET

share

facebookxredditlink

foxsports

Derek Jeter debuted with the New York Yankees almost 20 years ago. He became the team’s conscience not long after that. It’s difficult to remember a time when he wasn’t the standard-bearer of the franchise with the most championships in major North American professional sports.

And more than his statistics, Jeter was revered within the Yankees’ clubhouse for how he wore the overwhelming pressure of his office as comfortably as an old sweatshirt.

“Jeter, to me, is the best,” former Red Sox pitcher Derek Lowe said in 2012, the one season he spent with the Yankees. “He really is. His presence is unbelievable. It really is. It’s so impressive to see him act the way he acts, talk the way he talks, walk the way he walks. You follow that.”

Now the question: Who will the Yankees follow in 2015?

The Yankees report to camp in Tampa, Fla., this week in the midst of an identity crisis. It’s possible that outfielder Brett Gardner will be the only homegrown Yankee among the nine starting position players and five-man starting rotation on Opening Day.

For a sport in which seniority is sacred, tradition holds that the new clubhouse monarch ought to be the remaining player who has the longest tenure with the team.

Thus, the coronation of King Alexander Emmanuel Rodriguez I.

Before you dismiss the notion as absurd, allow me to ask: Do you have any better ideas?

CC Sabathia, Carlos Beltran, Mark Teixeira and Brian McCann have sufficient standing in the sport to be spokesmen for the team from time to time. But they can’t truly lead in the sense that a superstar leads in New York, which is to say, "The media cares so much about me that quite often they will leave you alone. I’ll wear it, and you get to do your job in relative peace."

Quantifiable? No. But does it matter? Absolutely, and any honest man in pinstripes would tell you so.

Jeter was a walking, talking (after every game), hitting, jump-throwing strip of eye black: He absorbed the glare. A-Rod is capable of the same, albeit in his own (awkward) way.

Rodriguez can’t be a marketing star. He isn’t the athlete we wish for the youth of America to emulate. His link to performance-enhancing drugs is too strong, his public psychoanalysis too raw, for any of that to be the case.

But the cameras are going to find him, and, like Jeter, he’s famous enough that even his postgame platitudes will be deemed newsworthy. Of equal importance, Rodriguez can exhibit his bona fides as a leader by nurturing young infielders Didi Gregorius, Jose Pirela and Rob Refsnyder.

Obvious flaws aside, no one can question Rodriguez’s love of baseball or understanding of its on-field nuances. He will talk with you about hitting. He will talk with you about groundballs. And those kids will listen. Increasingly, young players look at fallen heroes and see statistical achievements, not moral dilemmas. It’s been that way for hitting gurus Barry Bonds and Mark McGwire. It can be that way for Rodriguez, too.

A decade ago, Jason Giambi was viewed as one of the most notorious steroid users in baseball. Monday, he retired with universal respect among teammates and opponents. By handling his mistakes with dignity, Giambi is positioned to someday become the first PED-linked manager in Major League Baseball history. There’s a lesson in that for Giambi’s old Yankees teammate.

Let’s be clear: A-Rod can be a leader of the Yankees. He can’t be the leader of the Yankees. He isn’t going to “replace” Jeter. And yet, if A-Rod measures his words carefully while apologizing for the steroids and the lawsuits, if he uncharacteristically avoids controversy, and if he (most importantly) stays on the field, he can be important to the Yankees in a way that wasn’t possible with Jeter around.

share

Get more from Major League Baseball Follow your favorites to get information about games, news and more

in this topic

Major League Baseball