The Curse of A-Rod continues.

With the Yankees loss to the Indians in the ALDS last night, the Yankees results have gotten worse every year since they acquired Alex Rodriguez from the Texas Rangers in 2004. Despite A-Rod's overwhelming regular season statistics, he hasn't helped the Yankees to another World Series championship or even an AL Pennant. Here's the proof:

2003 (pre-A-Rod): Yankees win AL East, lose to Florida in World Series
2004: Yankees win AL East, lose to Red Sox in ALCS (anyone remember that one?)
2005: Yankees win AL East, lose to Angels in 5 games in ALDS
2006: Yankees win AL East, lose to Tigers in 4 games in ALDS
2007: Yankees win wild card, lose to Indians in 4 games in ALDS

Need more proof? Here are the records of the teams A-Rod has left, both in his last year with the team and the year immediately following:

Seattle Mariners:
2000 91-71, 2nd place (wild card)
2001 116-46, 1st place

Texas Rangers:
2003 71-91, 4th place
2004 89-73, 3rd place

The Rangers finished last and lost more than 90 games in all three of Rodriguez's years with the team.

How can this be explained? By adding A-Rod, a team should get better. Obviously, it's not all on his shoulders. There are many other factors outside of a single player that affect a team's performance, but the coincidence is startling.

It was commonly said that Celtics legend Larry Bird made the players around him better. Is Rodriguez the anti-Bird, somehow depressing the performance of his team? It doesn't make much sense, but there has to be something going on.