A-Rod to Return

The Yankees and Alex Rodriguez have agreed to a 10 year, $275 million contract. A dramatic whirlwind of events will keep the game’s most talented player in the Bronx for another decade. This is obviously good news for the team. It is also bad news for fans as the handling of this situation displays troubling signs of inept leadership.

The Yankees had a hole to fill at third base. They found the best guy on the market to do so. A-Rod gives the lineup desperately needed balance as a righty power hitter. He also plays Gold Glove caliber defense at the hot corner. The team now does not have to worry about him going to Boston and playing with the Green Monster. The Yanks also now will not have to give up any promising youngsters to find a third baseman or figure out how to replace his immense production.  A-Rod will now have a chance to enter the pantheon of great Yankees. He likely will end up in Monument Park, and number 13 will be retired. Alex will also have a chance to return the career homerun record to the Bronx. The Yankees can boast the greatest left side of an infield ever with A-Rod and The Great Jeter. He does bring a ton of distractions with him, but there is no question that this is a better team. Alex has started to embrace New York and thrive under the pressure. One of these years he will have a big postseason. He is too talented to not. Everything his critics say about his performance in the clutch was once said about Peyton Manning. Alex only needs one big October to silence those critics and become a legendary Yankee.

While A-Rod’s return is good, the leadership of this team looks like a bunch of buffoons. It starts at the top. Hank Steinbrenner’s blustering about how the team would never take Alex back after he opted out makes him look like a bag of hot air. This team claimed it would not negotiate if A-Rod opted out. Alex and Scott Boras opted out, reasoning the Yankees would eventually reenter the bidding. Player and agent ended up being right. They got a record contract as a result. The Yankees can claim that they won by excluding Boras from negotiations, but making the superagent fall on his sword is meaningless. Anybody who thinks A-Rod was not in constant communication with his representative would probably buy the Brooklyn Bridge if offered by somebody on the street. A-Rod came crawling back to the Yanks after there were no big offers on the market. The Yankees had all the leverage. They ended up bidding against themselves to give him a better contract than A-Rod got from Texas back in 2001 when he was 25 years old. It was more prohibitive than the extension they were going to offer him early The Yankees might spin that the early years of this deal are below market value to make up for the subsidy lost from Texas, but all the money on the backside of the contract more than makes up for that. This is incompetency at its worst.

The lesson here is that it is good to have money. The Yankees got absolutely played and still came out all right because they locked up the most talented player in baseball. The scary thing is that the same people are still running the team. If can they mess up like this in a perceived victory, it will be frightening to see them fail.

Sterling: Chance of A-Rod’s Return a 101 of 100

John Sterling told Mike and the Maddog earlier today that the possibility of Alex Rodriguez returning to the Yankees in 2008 is a 101 on a scale of 100. He said the sides have been in long negotiations and a deal is all but finished.

If anybody knows the sources to find for reliable Yankees information, it is Sterling. It would be a shocker at this point if it did not turn out to be true. This has been a bizarre story. If trusted sources were not reporting this, it would be easy to doubt the validity. I will save my opinion on this strange tale for an official report.

A-Rod Talking with the Yankees?

ESPN.com reports the Yankees and Alex Rodriguez are in negotiations without Scott Boras.

The New York Yankees have been discussing a deal with their former All-Star third baseman Alex Rodriguez — but the team says a deal can only move forward if his agent, Scott Boras, is not part of the talks, the New York Daily News reported Wednesday.

According to the report, a high-ranking Yankees source said the team is willing to bring back A-Rod on a below-market contract that would make up for the $21 million subsidy from the Texas Rangers that the Yankees lost when A-Rod opted out of the final three years of his contract — despite team comments indicating he had burned his bridges by opting out.But any such deal can’t take place with Boras at the table, a Yankee source said, according to the report.

“We will not negotiate with Scott Boras,” the source told the Daily News. “He cannot be in the room.”

Boston is making Mike Lowell contract offers that they know fall just short of what he wants. If they really wanted Lowell, he would be signed by now. This is a clear indication they think they can upgrade, which would likely mean signing A-Rod. If this is true, the Yankees might be the only hope of keeping the most talented player in the game out of Beantown, which would be a nightmare scenario.

Even though the Yanks might end up with A-Rod, there is something fishy about this whole thing. A-Rod would not even talk with the team before opting out. He only comes back now when no team has made the monumental offer he expected because the Yankees have the deepest pockets in baseball. This guy has shown that he is all about money, not winning. Anybody who thinks Scott Boras is to blame for the way the opting out was handled is gullible. Boras works for Alex, not the other way around. After all this franchise has done for A-Rod, the least he could have done was to inform the Yankees of his decision in person.

If A-Rod is sincere about feeling bad and wanting to return to New York, the Yankees should make him put his money where his mouth is. In any contract he signs, the Yanks should make his salary $15.884 million in 2008, $16.8985 million in 2009, and $17.913 million in 2010. That is what the team would have paid him under his old deal without the subsidies from Texas. It is Alex fault he would not receive the extra $21 million over those three years. The Yankees tried to give him that in addition to the best offer he will receive this offseason. A-Rod got greedy and thought he could do better. If Alex tries any funny business about raising his salary, the Yankees should walk away from the negotiating table. They would be liars if they did not after all of Hank Steinbrenner’s blustering. Even so, it might be best to let this weasel walk away and get him away from the team at any cost. He has proven he thinks himself to be more important to any team.

Yanks to Offer A-Rod Arbitration

The Yankees will offer Alex Rodriguez arbitration according to the New York Daily News.

Why would Rodriguez even consider accepting the arbitration offer, which would give him a one-year deal without a no-trade clause? There’s an easy answer: he wouldn’t.

“Essentially, he’d be coming back in a non-guaranteed situation on a one-year deal,” Cashman said. “I don’t think they’re accepting it.”

Cashman said he sees no risk in offering arbitration to Rodriguez, who is seeking a deal worth at least $300 million over 10years. Should A-Rod sign with another team, the Yankees would receive a first-round draft pick and a sandwich pick, which falls between the first two rounds of the draft. Two years ago, the Yankees used picks in those two rounds to land pitchers Ian Kennedy and Joba Chamberlain.

A-Rod would be nuts to accept arbitration. Even if he does not get the kind of offers he is seeking, they will still beat what he will get next year, when he will be a year older and presumably coming off a less productive season. It would also be difficult for him to make peace with a fanbase he recently spurned, thinking he could cash in on a monster year at the plate. If he somehow accepts, that fills the team’s gaping hole at third base. Money certainly will not be an issue. Otherwise, the Yankees chose to get a pair of picks in return for his departure instead of nothing. Two Draft picks is better than nothing so this is obviously a sound move.

A-Rod Wanted Over $100 Million More

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.

Cashman Wishes He Could Have Talked to A-Rod

The New York Daily News ran a story in today’s edition outlining Brian Cashman’s frustration that Alex Rodriguez would not at least sit down to talk with him before opting out of his contract.

“In any negotiation, step one is to sit down and talk, and we were not in a position for whatever reason to ever do that. I’ll always regret that we didn’t get that opportunity to do so.”

While the rest of the world was learning of Rodriguez’s decision to opt-out of his contract during Sunday night’s Game4 of the World Series, Cashman was sleeping.

There are plenty of galling aspects of A-Rod’s antics, but his refusal to even hear Cashman out might have been the worst. Brian Cashman has been nothing but good to Alex Rodriguez. Even during Alex’s bleakest points as a Yankee, Cashman backed the third baseman and did not consider trading him when many wanted him out. He showed nothing but faith in A-Rod. There is no excuse for Alex Rodriguez not meeting with Cashman. Even if he was desperate to get out of New York, he could have said that to Brian’s face. Announcing a departure through voice mail to a good employer is absolutely tasteless.

Hank Blasts A-Rod

Hank Steinbrenner pulls no punches when discussing Alex Rodriguez’s decision to opt out of his contract before even considering the team’s astronomical contract extension offer.

“It’s clear he didn’t want to be a Yankee,” Hank Steinbrenner told the Daily News last night. “He doesn’t understand the privilege of being a Yankee on a team where the owners are willing to pay $200 million to put a winning product on the field.

“I don’t want anybody on my team that doesn’t want to be a Yankee.”

It is one thing for a fan to say these things on a blog. It is quite another for the face of the organization to make these comments. It would be nice for the Yankees to show some class and take the high road here. There is no need to get into public wars of words whenever somebody departs. People are not dumb. They can see what A-Rod did. Kicking him on the way out is just petty. Lord knows the Yankees did not care about loyalty when dealing with Bernie Williams last year. They have used economics to their gain often in the past. Do not go crying when the roles are reversed.

A-Rod Wins Hank Aaron Award

Alex Rodriguez has won his fourth American League Hank Aaron Award, presented to the best hitter in both leagues. It is awarded by a panel of voters and meant to be the equivalent of a hitters’ Cy Young Award. This is the second consecutive year in which a Yankee took the award home. The Great Jeter won in 2006.

Rodriguez received 24 percent of the American League vote and secured his fourth Hank Aaron Award on Sunday, with the presentation taking place at Colorado’s Coors Field before Game 4 of the World Series.

Rodriguez — who also was honored with the award in 2001, 2002 and 2003 — was unable to attend because of prior commitments, said Commissioner Bud Selig.

The 32-year-old Rodriguez set career highs with 143 runs scored and 156 RBIs while batting .314 and slugging 54 home runs for the Yankees, helping his club overcome early stumbles out of the gate to finish with 94 victories on its way to the AL Wild Card.

This was probably the greatest season in one of the greatest careers of all-time. Anybody who thinks there was a better hitter in the American League than A-Rod is out of their mind. His departure does not mean that the 2008 Yankees can not be better than the 2007 version, but there will be a much more difficult road in building a superior club. It will be challenging to replace that kind of production to say the least.

A-Rod Opts Out

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.

King: A-Rod’s Decision Impacted by Hire

George King reports that Alex Rodriguez could be swayed to either leave or stay in New York depending on who the Yankees hire as their new manager.

With the Yankees making plans to meet with Rodriguez and agent Scott Boras, Steinbrenner was asked if the session would take place before a manager was hired.

“It has nothing to do with the manager being named. I don’t think that’s important,” Steinbrenner said.

It might be more important than Steinbrenner believes. Rodriguez developed a strong relationship with Don Mattingly when he was the hitting coach and is very close to first-base coach Tony Pena. It’s not known how Rodriguez feels about Joe Girardi, who was the Yankees’ bench coach in 2005, Rodriguez’s second Yankee season.

It seems like King had a deadline to meet so he just came up with something on the spot. His hypothesis is based on a bunch of guesses he has made, not any information from reliable sources. Does George seriously believe that A-Rod’s status will have do do with anything other than money? This is the guy who went to a horrible Texas team because they were the only team willing to fulfill his demand of doubling Kevin Garnett’s record contract for American professional sports. This is the guy about to forsake $27 million over the next 3 years after making over $130 million in his career because he thinks he can make more. If the Yankees offer more than anybody else, Alex will stay. If they do not, he will leave. It is that simple. Like many athletes, A-Rod has proven that he is more loyal to dollar signs than anything else.