Scott Boras has announced his client, Alex Rodriguez, has opted out of his contract with the Yankees to become a free agent.
Rodriguez loses the final $72 million in guaranteed salary in the contract, of which $21.3 million was to be covered by payments from the Texas Rangers to the Yankees, and becomes eligible for free agency. New York had said it would not attempt to re-sign A-Rod if he opted out.
Boras said during a telephone interview that Rodriguez made his choice because he was uncertain whether Mariano Rivera, Jorge Posada and Andy Pettitte would return to the Yankees.
“Alex’s decision was one based on not knowing what his closer, his catcher and one of his statured pitchers was going to do,” Boras said. “He really didn’t want to make any decisions until he knew what they were doing.”
Anybody surprised by this simply does not know Alex Rodriguez. The man is a phony whose loyalty is to money. It just so happens that he is a phony who plays baseball incredibly well. If his primary consideration was the status of his teammates, he might have waited the ten days he had after the World Series to see whether those situations could resolve themselves in that time. Had he wanted to remain a Yankee, he would have at least considered the astronomical extension the team offered him. This probably ends Alex’s Yankee career. The team was set to offer him an astronomical contract. He did not even consider it. That says all one needs to know about A-Rod’s desire to stay with the club.
There is no doubt about it. This hurts the Yankees. How could losing the most talented player in the game for a pair of Draft picks not? It is hardly a death blow to this team’s hope of contending. How much did A-Rod’s early explosion help the team win in 2007? Was it not when Bobby Abreu, Hideki Matsui, and Robinson Cano got hot when the Yankees turned their season around? A-Rod was not doing anything special during the torrid stretch back into contention this team went on immediately following the All-Star break. The Yankees never went to the World Series with him. They went to the Fall Classic six times in the eight years before Alex came to the Bronx. Those teams had Wade Boggs, Charlie Hayes, Scott Brosius and Aaron Boone at third base. They also had shutdown pitching, which the Yanks lacked in the A-Rod Era. Phil Hughes, Joba Chamberlain, Ian Kennedy, and Chien-Ming Wang will likely change that within the next few years.
The Yankees are far from done. They can spend the money they would have spent on A-Rod to improve other areas of the club. Alex can go to Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, or somewhere else and set a new contract record. He can be the biggest star in town again. This is unfortunate for the Yanks, but they can and will survive this. They would have been fools to feel completely blindsided. There is likely a contingency plan in place.
GOOD RIDDANCE!!! HE IS AS PHONY AS THEY COME!! JUST LIKE YOU SAID..THATS WHY THE CAPTAIN A TRUE CHAMPION NEVER WARMED UP TO HIM OR SUPPORTED HIM…HE KNEW HE WAS A PHONEY THE WHOLE TIME..I REMEMBER THE PRESS CONFERENCE WQHEN A-ROD WAS INTRODUCED JETER LOOKED SO UNHAPPY I WILL NEVER FORGET THAT. NO ONE PLAYER IS BIGGER THAN THE YANKEES AND THEY NEVER WILL BE!! ADIOS A-ROD!!!
Comment by will — October 29, 2007 @ 12:45 am
AMEN to that. I am very happy that A-Rod is gone. I’d like a 3rd baseman than knows how to play baseball in OCTOBER. This is a business to A-Rod, and that’s all fine and dandy, but it is more than obvious, after the past few postseasons, that A-Rod would rather go home to his family in October rather than spend it on the ballfield. Let him go to a team that NEEDS a star. We don’t. We have the great Jeter.
Comment by Jason — October 29, 2007 @ 1:12 am
It’s obvious that A-Rod wanted out. He had ten more days to assess the status of the team’s other free agents — and even if all of these players signed elsewhere, A-Rod surely knows that the Yankees are committed to putting a championship caliber team on the field every year. So the given excuse is silly.
But I don’t think the main factor here was money. If it was, A-Rod and Boras would’ve spent the next ten days getting the best possible deal from the Yankees and only then decide whether to gamble on a better deal being available elsewhere.
It’s possible he hated leaving Texas and-or never really wanted to be in New York in the first place. Maybe he’s just not a big-city kind of guy. But I suspect he never really forgave the fans for wanting to run him out of town during the 2006 season.
If revenge really is the major motive here, he’ll do everything possible (such as moving to 1B) to make a deal with the Mets. This would make it clear that playing in the city of New York wasn’t the issue.
Comment by Hal Smith — October 29, 2007 @ 4:03 pm
I’m not sure. I think there is a certain amount of hubris playing a role here for A-Rod and Boras. My feeling is that they think the Yankees are bluffing and want to drive up his price. They want a bidding war with the Yankees up against the Mets and the Red Sox because they think the Yanks would pay the moon to prevent him from going to either of those teams. This is just my take on it.
Obviously going to the Mets would needle the fans, but nothing would do so more than heading to Boston. Lowell is a free agent, and Lugo is certainly expendable if he wants to move back to SS.
Comment by johnbutchko — October 29, 2007 @ 5:52 pm