First off, I have a confession to make. This post was supposed to be about Ken Griffey Jr. It was supposed to be an exploration of the biggest what-if of his career – what if he never got hurt? So every year at the beginning of the season I went in to edit Griffey’s injury proneness ratings, setting them all to zero. He had some dominant seasons (including hitting 60+ home runs for 4 out of 5 years), but he still had a pretty dramatic drop-off in talent, eventually finding himself a backup outfielder for the Dodgers behind Barry Bonds, J.D. Drew, and for some reason, Aaron Rowand. I was hoping he might challenge for the all-time home run record, but he ended up a few short of 700. I might try this again sometime with some different settings, but for now, you can click here to view his career stats.

But as I was going through the sim, someone more interesting than Griffey emerged. And that was Alex Rodriguez. He ended up being the first overall pick of the Colorado Rockies in the 1993 amateur draft. I had always wanted to do a sim that involved placing a well-known star in pre-humidor Coors Field, but had never gotten around to it. And here it happened entirely by accident. As soon as I noticed it, I decided I had to keep A-Rod a Rockie for life.

1993 was the Rockies’ first season in the league, and that team was definitely not good in real life, but in this game, they went an unbelievable 29-133. They had a team ERA of 6.71. Their team ERA leader was Lance Painter at 6.10. Painter lost 22 games and his teammate Kirk Reuter lost 21. Clearly they realized that pitching was not going to be their strong point and that they needed a hitter for the future. So they turned to A-Rod.

In 1994, Rodriguez had a completely respectable first season, winning rookie of the year in the National League. He batted .288 with 23 home runs and 73 RBI. While he showed promise for sure, no one could have predicted that he would not have another season with a sub .300 average, less than 30 home runs, or less than 100 RBI until 2010. (Well, essentially. One year he hit .298 and another he had 99 RBI. I’m rounding up!)

In 1999, at age 23, Alex had the best season of all-time. I could sim this particular universe for a few more centuries and I bet no one would top this. He hit .425 with 72 home runs and 168 RBI. He had a .498 on base percentage. Sure, it’s Coors Field, and sure he was probably taking virtual steroids, but that’s still incredible. All of this added up to a WAR value of 16.2. Think about that – 16 wins above replacement on a team that lost 91 games.

At this point, the Rockies are still losing, and losing horribly. They are a terrible team despite Alex Rodriguez winning six MVP awards in a row, and nine years out of eleven. The Rockies can’t even manage an above .500 season until 2006. Thirteen years of futility with the best baseball player of all-time. They didn’t even lose fewer than 90 games until 2004. Pretty rough. Of course, there wasn’t a lot they could do with A-Rod’s enormous contracts taking up anywhere from 30-50% of team payroll at various points.

One year I decided to check out what goals the Colorado owner had issued to the general manager, and in lieu of the usual four or five goals about acquiring power hitters or re-signing the one aging vet on the team that you absolutely should not re-sign, there was only one goal. It read “Do your best.” What a nice supportive owner. And also probably a confused owner who just couldn’t figure out why the hell A-Rod kept reappearing on his roster. After all, at various points in the game, Alex tried to sign with the Nationals, Braves, Cubs, Pirates, and Giants. Each time, the commish AKA me AKA God, sent him back to the Rockies. Their owner clearly realized there was nothing he could do to stop this cruel yet fascinating form of divine intervention so he might as well just sit back and enjoy the ride.

But hey, the Rockies did manage to win the World Series in 2008. After 14 years of not making the playoffs, A-Rod wasn’t going to take anything less than a championship. He would never return the postseason again in his career. His is perhaps the most wasted career in the history of professional sports.

A-Rod had almost no drop-off in his production until the very end of his career. Playing every day in Coors Field for 20+ years led to some pretty inflated numbers. At the time of his retirement, he held MLB career records in home runs (1007), hits (4513), RBI (2731), games (3581), runs (2799), strikeouts (2990), and wins above replacement (183.9).

In 2018, after hitting .214 with 17 home runs, A-Rod called it quits. As the definitive best player of all-time, he had nothing left to accomplish. Not really even any records left to break. Might as well quit now and finally let the Rockies have a chance at financial stability.

(Check out Alex’s full career stats by clicking here)