The peaks and valleys of Alex Rodriguez's career

Alex Rodriguez's twenty-year career will be coming to an abrupt halt this week, as the man himself announced on Sunday morning that this upcoming Friday night would be the last time that he'd put on a baseball uniform at the major league level. It's a somewhat strange end to what's been an undeniably polarizing career. To one part of the baseball world, Alex Rodriguez is one of the greatest players of all-time and should be recognized as such with an induction into baseball's Hall of Fame in Cooperstown. On the other side of that same world, he's considered to be a self-centered drug cheat who tainted the game with his actions. That's to say that bringing up A-Rod's name will always result in strong emotions and opinions being stirred up. It's really a fitting reaction to a player who's experienced some of the highest peaks and lowest valleys that the game of baseball had to offer him.

In fact, you could say that Alex Rodriguez started at a peak -- he was drafted first overall in the 1993 MLB Draft by the Seattle Mariners, and just three short years later, he was the everyday shortstop for the Mariners at the tender age of 20-years-old. He burst onto the scene in 1996 like a supernova and finished the season with the first of 14 career All-Star Game appearances, a slash line of .358/.414/.631, 36 home runs, and a second-place finish in MVP voting. For some players, that's a career year, but for A-Rod, it was only the beginning.  
Rodriguez continued to put up great numbers and performances for the Mariners and clearly established himself as one of the game's best players. However, one thing that eluded A-Rod during his time in Seattle was postseason success. He was part of three Mariners teams that made the playoffs (1995, 1997, and 2000), but Seattle was unable to grab the American League pennant while he was there, and in a twist of fate, the Mariners actually ended up winning an AL-record 116 games in the season after his departure via free agency. 

However, signing a 10-year, $252 million contract could've served as a possible tonic to the lack of winning's woes, and that's what  Alex Rodriguez did when he joined the Texas Rangers for the 2001 season. A-Rod continued to live up to the lofty expectations that he set upon himself with his excellent play, and he even won his first career AL MVP award during his second season in Arlington.  

Despite the fact that he had plenty of individual success on the field, the Rangers spent all three of A-Rod's seasons there in the basement of the AL West. The lucrative contract that brought him to Texas was seen as an anchor on the team when it came to actually building a team, and the Rangers were ready to cut bait with the superstar after just three years.  

Eventually, the Rangers ended up trading Alex Rodriguez to the New York Yankees, and A-Rod immediately endeared himself to Yankees fans and became persona non grata to Boston Red Sox fans through no fault of his own. The Rangers and Red Sox actually agreed to a trade that would've seen A-Rod becoming a fixture at Fenway Park, but the player's union rejected it due to contract issues, and the Yankees later swooped in and actually got a deal done. Just like that, one of the most talented players in the game was now at the center of baseball's fiercest rivalry and that was before he even donned the pinstripes for the first time.  

That wouldn't be the last time that Rodriguez incurred the wrath of the Red Sox and their fans. A-Rod was at the center of a brawl with Red Sox legend Jason Varitek during July of the 2004 season, and then things got even crazier once the postseason rolled around. During Game 6 of the legendary 2004 American League Championship Series, Rodriguez infamously tried to slap the ball out of Bronson Arroyo's glove on his way to first base. A-Rod was eventually ruled out on the play, the Yankees went on to lose the series after leading by three games to none, and Rodriguez was furiously ridiculed for his actions on that play. 

The story of Alex Rodriguez's initial years with the Yankees were similar to what happened with his previous two teams, except everything the man did was magnified under the massive scope of the New York media. After winning his second MVP award in 2005, it seemed as if the period from 2006 until the 2009 season had more tabloid rumors and bizarre moments (both on and off the field) fo Rodriguez than actual on-field accolades. Plus, it didn't help that A-Rod was catching most of the heat for the Yankees' perceived struggles in the playoffs. 

That changed in 2009, which is when the Yankees put it all together and delivered the franchise's 27th World Series championship to their expectant fan base, and Alex Rodriguez put most of the demons of postseasons past to bed with the performances that he delivered during this particular October. You could put any label you wanted on him, but you had to refer to him as World Series champion after that season. 
2009 was also the year in which the specter of performance-enhancing drugs began to haunt Rodriguez. This was when word came out that he had tested positive for anabolic steroid usage in 2003. A-Rod confessed to using the drugs, but no punishment was taken since there was no action that could've been taken. That all changed four years later, which is when an injury-plagued and extremely controversial season for A-Rod was capped by baseball hitting him with a year-long suspension through the 2014 season due to his involvement in the infamous Biogenesis scandal being ruled as being detrimental to the game of baseball.  

The combination of injuries, suspensions, and Father Time eventually brought A-Rod to the point he reached on Sunday morning -- a bench player with a laundry list of accomplishments, achievements, and controversial moments being relegated to retirement right in the middle of a lost season for a franchise that's in the midst of a rebuild. It's definitely an unexpected ending to his career, but with all of the highs and lows that the former superstar experienced during his time in the game, it's not really a shock that his career would end with a bit of a twist. It just wouldn't be right for his career to end quietly, and it's also a reason why there's still a distinct possibility that we could see one more peak and or valley before Rodriguez hangs up the cleats for good at the end of this week.