Buster Olney of ESPN.com reports Alex Rodriguez wanted the Yankees to offer him a contract extension totaling at least $350 million.
The Yankees had hoped to meet with Rodriguez this week, and would have presented him with an extension offer close to five years and $150 million, to begin at the conclusion of his 2008-2010 contract, through which he would have earned $81 million. Through the Yankees’ proposal, then, Rodriguez would have made about $230 million over eight years, and during the last five years of the contract, sources say, he would have earned the highest annual salary in Major League Baseball history.
But team executives were told, sources say, that in order to arrange a meeting with Rodriguez, they would have to be prepared to make an extension offer that would take the third baseman’s deal up to a total value of $350 million. That means that the offer the Yankees intended to propose would have been more than $100 million short.
This sounds like a negotiating ploy. No team would ever give even a player of A-Rod’s caliber that kind of money. Boras also wanted to get Johnny Damon 7 years and $84 million two years ago. It is brilliant work by Boras. If he aims that high, even if it looks like Boras and A-Rod are making concessions, any contract will still end up in astronomical territory. The Yankees made a more than fair offer. If that is what the dynamic duo demanded, it shows that they did not want anything to do with this franchise any longer. Even for the Yankees, that contract would have been fiscally irresponsible, and both player and agent knew that.
