My thoughts on the A-Rod situation

[Admin]

What has happened was something that I didn't think could, would, or should happen. A-Rod opting out, shunning the Yankees by not talking to them, saying it would take $350 million to even get to the table to speak with him. I thought that A-Rod must have fooled me this year when he swore up and down about his love of being a Yankee and never wanting to play anywhere else.

As it turns out he wasn't lying and while not even remotely going into the poor house to do so, made a $20+ million dollar statement proving his love of being a Yankee and at the same time completely embarrassing Scott Boras, which I think is awesome because he is just as bad as A-Rod for the game of baseball when it comes to economics.

I am definitely tossed up about A-Rod signing this new deal though because while he is probably the greatest player to ever play the game stats wise, he has been horrible in the post-season and will keep the Yankees payroll much higher than I want it to be as a fan who wants to see salaries in professional sports be much less. On the other hand the Yankees don't have to give up any of their talented young players who will hopefully be the face of the Yankees for the next decade or so to try and acquire Cabrera, or perhaps offer a huge deal to Mike Lowell who might have just had a fluke contract year. I really like Lowell and would have gladly seen the Yankees sign him but he definitely carries a back risk/reward factor with him.

[Plainview1981]

Quote:

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What has happened was something that I didn't think could, would, or should happen. A-Rod opting out, shunning the Yankees by not talking to them, saying it would take $350 million to even get to the table to speak with him. I thought that A-Rod must have fooled me this year when he swore up and down about his love of being a Yankee and never wanting to play anywhere else.

As it turns out he wasn't lying and while not even remotely going into the poor house to do so, made a $20+ million dollar statement proving his love of being a Yankee and at the same time completely embarrassing Scott Boras, which I think is awesome because he is just as bad as A-Rod for the game of baseball when it comes to economics.

I am definitely tossed up about A-Rod signing this new deal though because while he is probably the greatest player to ever play the game stats wise, he has been horrible in the post-season and will keep the Yankees payroll much higher than I want it to be as a fan who wants to see salaries in professional sports be much less. On the other hand the Yankees don't have to give up any of their talented young players who will hopefully be the face of the Yankees for the next decade or so to try and acquire Cabrera, or perhaps offer a huge deal to Mike Lowell who might have just had a fluke contract year. I really like Lowell and would have gladly seen the Yankees sign him but he definitely carries a back risk/reward factor with him.

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I think he stayed with the Yanks because he couldn't get a bigger deal somewhere else. It's about the money.

[Admin]

He could have gotten $27 million per year somewhere else, probably not for as many years, but he could have gotten that deal or damn close to it. If he had really wanted to not be a Yankee he wouldn't have signed with them again because although I'm sure the paychecks are damn nice to cash, he takes an awful lot of sh*t from the Yankee fans and other teams fans and he could have drastically reduced that by going to play somewhere else. I have no doubt that he could have signed a similar deal to play for the Dodgers and there would have been a lot less pressure on him. He could have played in Boston and I'm sure the fans there would have welcomed him with open arms and they would have given him a huge contract.

There is no doubt in my mind that he wasn't going to get $300 million or more from anyone, but ~$250 million, yeah he could have gotten that from several teams. Someone wrote an article on ESPN a few weeks back about the Orioles and how they are paying $20+ million for 3-4 guys who combined didn't produce anywhere near what A-Rod did last year and I'm sure there are more teams than the Orioles who have that type of situation where they could cut some dead weight and make up for his salary.