It’s Hall of Fame consideration season. Until the announcement of the new class, Connections will be looking at some of the names on the 2025 ballot.
Act I: 1996
Seattle’s Álex Rodríguez fuses his enormous gifts in a burst that brings the MLB universe a new, ecstatic light. The flash and afterglow resonate long after the season has concluded and his brilliance has burned into the historical record. Among all position players in an age-20 or younger season, his 9.4 bWAR is the highest ever (it will be surpassed by Mike Trout’s 10.5 in 2012). Among that same collection, his 54 doubles are the most (still are), his 36 homers are the third most (still are) and his 379 total bases, 141 runs scored and 91 extra-base hits are the most (they still are). Among all AL-NL qualified batters in age-20 or younger seasons, his .358 average is the highest (still is), his .631 slugging percentage is surpassed only by Mel Ott’s .635 in 1929 (this remains the same) and his 1.045 OPS is tied with Ted Williams’ mark in 1939 for the second best, behind Ott’s 1.084 in ’29 (nothing has changed here).
For all AL-NL shortstops ever – regardless of age – those 91 extra-base are (and still are) the most ever. In the same lens, his 1.045 OPS is the second highest ever, behind Arky Vaughan’s 1.098 in 1935 (unchanged). His 379 total bases tie him with Ernie Banks in 1958 for the most ever (here, he and Banks slip a bit, now tied for fifth, mostly due to Rodríguez subsequently producing three higher totals). His 141 runs scored represent the most since 1895, when Hughie Jennings set the high mark with 159 (this hasn’t changed).
He wins the AL batting crown, becoming the first player in an age-20 or younger season to lead his league in that category since Al Kaline in 1955 and just the third to do so in the modern era, with Ty Cobb in 1907 the other. He also paces the league in runs, total bases and doubles.
It’s in the conversation (and still is) for the greatest young-player season ever; it’s among the dozen or so greatest shortstop seasons ever (and remains there). Álex Rodríguez is a supernova.
Act II: 2001
Texas’ Álex Rodríguez is making the baseball world think of Mounts – Olympus, Rushmore, take your pick. He sets a new standard for homers by a shortstop (52), which will only be surpassed when he clubs 57 in 2002. He also tallies more total bases (393) than any other shortstop – that mark still stands. His .622 slugging percentage comes in as the second highest in AL-NL history for the positional qualifiers (behind his 1996 figure) and will – through 2024 – be topped only by his own .623 in 2002 and Corey Seager’s .623 in 2023. His 1.021 OPS is the sixth highest among qualifying shortstops, giving him three of the six best marks in AL-NL history. He produces the fourth-ever 200-hit, 50-homer season, following campaigns from Jimmie Foxx in 1932, Hack Wilson in 1930 and Babe Ruth in 1921.
For his career, Rodríguez can claim a 46.4 bWAR, 760 runs, 1,167 hits, 241 home runs, 730 RBI, 483 extra-base hits and 2,146 total bases. All-time, through the 2001 season for all players through their age-25 seasons, those marks stack up like this:
| Category | Rodríguez Rank | Notes |
| bWAR | 4 | Behind Cobb, Mickey Mantle, Rogers Hornsby |
| Runs | 3 | Behind Ott, Mantle |
| Hits | 6 | Behind Cobb, Ott, Kaline, Freddie Lindstrom, Vada Pinson |
| HR | 1 | Ahead of Foxx and Eddie Mathews |
| RBI | 3 | Behind Ott, Foxx |
| XBH | 2 | Behind Foxx |
| TB | 2 | Behind Ott |
Among the 109 players with at least 3,000 plate appearances through their age-25 seasons, Rodríguez’s 142 OPS+ is 18th best, between Sherry Magee’s 146 and Sam Crawford’s 141. His .571 slugging percentage is fourth highest, behind marks from Foxx, Joe DiMaggio and Mantle. That 142 trails only Vaughan’s 147 among shortstops; that .571 is first among shortstops, as are all the numbers that introduce the chart above.
When it comes to abundance through a ballplayer’s mid-20s, he does, indeed, have a place at the gods’ table. When it comes to single year apexes, he, indisputably, can submit his visage for placement next to the greatest shortstops. When it comes to bending the imagination, there’s a reasonable expectation that a few all-time records might be in peril.
Act III: 2007
New York’s Álex Rodríguez leaps over the first of many of the mega-milestones, becoming the 22nd player in history to amass 500 home runs. He reaches the extraordinary bar at an extraordinary age, 32 years and eight days. No one has ever gotten to the special number while being so young, with the (now) third baseman ahead of Foxx (464 homers at that age), Ken Griffey, Jr. (460), Mathews (422), Mantle (419), Frank Robinson (399) and Henry Aaron (398). It’s a spectacular achievement in a season filled with them. He produces the first 50-homer, 150-RBI season ever for a third sacker, and just the eighth overall. It’s his third campaign with 50 homers, a feat that connects him to outfielders Ruth and Sammy Sosa and first baseman Mark McGwire. He sets a career high with 143 runs scored, the most for a third baseman since 1937.
He leads the AL in bWAR, runs, homers, RBI, slugging, OPS, OPS+ and total bases. It’s the sixth time he’s paced his league’s position players in bWAR, tied for the sixth most times ever. He’s now led his league in runs scored five times, tied for the third most ever. He’s produced a home run title for the fifth time (tied for seventh most crowns) and collected a league-best number of total bases for the fourth time (tied for eighth most).
His .645 slugging percentage gives him seven seasons with a .600-or-better mark, tying him with Hornsby and Hank Greenberg for the sixth most ever. Only Ruth, Barry Bonds, Williams, Foxx and Lou Gehrig have more.
If those stat-linked names are not astonishing enough, Rodríguez also joins the three-time MVP club, populated by Bonds, Yogi Berra, Roy Campanella, DiMaggio, Foxx, Mantle, Stan Musial and Mike Schmidt.
Before his 33rd birthday, Álex Rodríguez is firmly established among the inner circle immortals when it comes to league leadership, accolades and realization of one of the inner sanctum clubs. It feels as if the last question is how high he can climb among the ranks and how many records he can topple.
Act IV: 2025
Well, no records, among the biggies. His inability to maintain gargantuan strides and well-chronicled missteps aside, the final placements are enough to argue for Álex Rodríguez as one of the most accomplished ballplayers ever. Through the 2024 campaign, he is 12th among all position players in bWAR (he’s between Williams and Gehrig), and that’s a relatively poor standing when compared to some of the other counting stats. He’s eighth in runs scored, seventh in total bases, fifth in home runs, fourth in RBI and seventh in extra-base hits. Here’s the entire list of players to be in the top-10 in all of those categories: Babe Ruth, Barry Bonds, Henry Aaron, Álex Rodríguez.
He’s also 23rd in hits and matched with Willie Mays and Bonds as the only players ever to combine 600-plus longballs with 300-or-more stolen bases. He’s tied with Honus Wagner and Mantle for the third most times ever (9) leading his league in offensive WAR, that trio behind Hornsby and Ruth. In terms of time leading his league in overall bWAR (position players and pitchers thrown into the same bucket), he stands, again, amid inner circle names.
Most Times a League Leader in bWAR
10 Babe Ruth
9 Willie Mays
7 Cy Young, Walter Johnson, Rogers Hornsby
6 Ted Williams, Barry Bonds
5 Christy Mathewson, Pete Alexander, Mickey Mantle, Albert Pujols, Álex Rodríguez
^^^^^^^
All of these snapshots of stratospheric accomplishment and the company Rodríguez kept at those heights dim in significance when mounted next to the most relevant picture and numbers that currently hold: Álex Rodríguez, on the Hall of Fame ballot for the fourth time, seeing if his three previous vote results (34.3%, 35.7%, 34.8%) will significantly stray in either direction.
There are elements of Greek tragedy in this story, aspects of Shakespearean tragedy as well. It’s easy to perceive – the hubris, the character flaws, the irrevocable choices. For such an extraordinary statistical career, Rodríguez’s complete portrait poses an uncommon number of what ifs: what if he had stayed in Seattle, what if he had remained at shortstop, what if he had (or hadn’t) done this or said that, what if, what if, what if. His Hall of Fame candidacy rests on how these questions (or their answers) are balanced against the numerical record. It all starts there, for baseball’s bedrock, its perpetual fountain, stems from the numbers. From there, conclusions form – sometimes in an exultant coronation, sometimes in a rueful reckoning.
By the numbers alone, Álex Rodríguez stands among the gods. But that’s the tragedy, isn’t it?
Note: on Monday, January 20, Connections will reveal its own (make believe) ballot for the 2025 Hall of Fame class. Hope you’ve enjoyed these profiles.
Thanks to Baseball Reference and its extraordinary research database, Stathead, for help in assembling this piece.
Roger Schlueter
As Sr. Editorial Director for Major League Baseball Productions from 2004-2015, Roger served as a hub for hundreds of hours of films, series, documentaries and features: as researcher, fact-checker, script doctor, and developer of ideas. The years at MLB Production gave him the ideal platform to pursue what galvanized him the most – the idea that so much of what takes place on the field during the MLB regular and postseason (and is forever beautifully condensed into a box score) has connections to what has come before. Unearthing and celebrating these webs allows baseball to thrive, for the present can come alive and also reignite the past.