Johnny Carson once said that a New York Minute was the time between a traffic light turning greeen and the cabbie behind you honking his horn. Tonight, however, a New York Minute is the time it takes for Alex Rodriguez to negotiate a ten year, $275 million contract with the Yankees. This is a deal that's shocking on many levels.
Let's start with the fact that A-Rod and the Yankees were actually talking. A-Rod, after all, had rebuffed calls from Brian Cashman, the Steinbrenners three, and a number of his former teammates both before and after deciding to opt out of his contract. Meanwhile, the Yankees had repeatedly and emphatically stated that there would be absolutely no negotiations with Alex Rodriguez as a free agent.
Then there's the fact that the negotiations were made between the Yankees and A-Rod. For whatever reason, Rodriguez decided to bypass Scott Boras and sit down with the Yankees on his own (or, more accurately, with only his wife by his side).
Plus, let's not forget about the size of the contract. Reports have the total ranging from $275 to $290 million, but whatever it ends up being it won't be very different from what he makes now, and it's a lot less than the $350 million that Boras was looking for.
I'm honestly not sure whether or not I like this deal. This is partly because my head has been spinning too much for me to form a coherent opinion, but it's mostly because, since the deal isn't official yet, we don't know what the fine print says. A-Rod's last contract, after all, showed us that the devil's in the details.
Thursday, November 15, 2007
Everything Can Change
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2 comments:
So how much does everything change?
The way this whole "drama" is unfolding leaves the distinct impression with me that perhaps it has been A-rod's agent, Scott Boras, who has been taking the lead in telling A-rod what to do --and he's looking at it from a financial standpoint only.
Let's suppose for a moment that A-rod never had any intention of leaving the Yankees. Boras simply filled his head with all these delusional thoughts of how much MORE money he might find as a free agent, as if he actually needed more money anyway?
Think of the timing of his announcement -- designed to grab headlines.
Think of the issue of A-rod not having a World Series ring, the Yankees give him as good a possibility of getting one as any team out there, with the possible exception of Boston -- who has never expressed any interest in him.
And there are other issues as well. But the bottom line is that only an agent would be thinking in terms of basing a decision solely on finances. It's an agents mentality that puts the pressure on the Yankees to pay A-rod more just so they won't lose the $21 million in payments from his former team. -- which now A-rod himself stands to lose if he does in fact re-sign with the Yankees.
And never mind the apparently two-faced statements from the Yankees that they wouldn't talk with him as a free agent. As we have seen, they WILL talk with him, it's his agent they didn't want to deal with.
A-rod could obviously be an attractive free agent to other clubs out there, but then they are all dealing with baseball as a business too and the dollars are the only things that make sense to them. Winning is of course a part of the dollars and sense equation because winning teams always increase revenues -- but does bringing in one player guarantee winning in baseball???
So what's the bottom line? Just as this article says "EVERYTHING CAN CHANGE". Tomorrow we may read that this whole matter of A-rod talking to Yankee ownership and management was just another piece of the puzzle in Boras' strategy in dealing with another team -- such as the Torres, ooops, I meant the Dodgers -- who hired A-rod's previous manager, Joe Torre.
Don't believe for one moment this A-rod saga is over! And always keep in mind the Yankess -- like them are not -- are very smart financial dealers when it comes to the business of baseball and this could be a situation where they feel they can sign A-rod for now, and then get something in exchange for him when he no longer fits into their plans. Something that wasn't happening with A-rod being a free agent!
Yes, everything can, and does, change. And it's a long winter before spring training -- stay tuned.
How much MORE money can a person make?? I'm sick of these athletes. No one is worth what they're making.
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