Boras wants 10yr/350 mil for A-Rod: will he get it?

Cafe Society
41

Again, I’m a Yankees fan who doesn’t like A. Rod. I happen to agree that, on a personal level, he’s an asshole.

So? There are LOTS of assholes in baseball- but there AREN’T many guys who’ve ever been able to play like him.

Joe Dimaggio was a vindictive, surly, miserable prick without a true friend in the world. Same goes for Ted Williams. Anybody here who’d refuse to have either of those guys on his roster?

Mind you, I’m NOT saying that A-Rod is worth $30 million a year for 10 years. Most likely, NOBODY’s ever been worth that much. But if the Yankees are going to let their best player walk, I’d like to think they had a plan in mind for replacing the runs he produced and/or getting some equal/value for the money he cost them. And unfortunately, I don’t see such a plan. I see the Yankees management throwing a hissy fit over his performance in the playoffs and making a dumb decision in a snit.

While Mike Lowell is a nice player, he is NOWHERE near the player A-Rod is. If Mike Lowell had been the Yankees’ third baseman in 2007, they would’ve finished 3rd, waaaay out of wild card contention. A-Rod carried the Yankees through the dark months when their pitching was hopeless. Without him, they’d have been eliminated early.

Do the Yankees have a lot of overpaid underachievers? Damn straight they do- but A-Rod is not one of them. Jason Giambi is. Mike Mussina is. Carl Pavano is. And in 2007, Roger Clemens was. I can’t understand why fans’ anger has been focused on one of the few Yankees who put up the kind of numbers that could almost justify his salary (or why Derek Jeter, supposedly the ultimate “clutch” player, got so little grief for grounding into a rally-killing double play).

42

I agree with this sentiment. Baseball is just that kind of sport; even great hitters hit slumps and the only real way to consider someone is over a long period of time. Is it fun to watch someone perform on fire in a series, putting up astounding numbers in seven games? Yes. Is that a good indication of that player’s quality? Well, no. Ted Williams, who was perhaps the game’s best pure hitter, is often described as having a somewhat tainted career because of his playoff stats. Batted .200, no homers. In all of seven games, in the only series he played.

Mike Schmidt won the '80 WS MVP. He also batted .050 in the '83 WS. Which player was he? I believe, and can’t prove, that players, given enough playoff appearances, will have playoff stats in the vicinity of their “normal” stats. All this clutch stuff is nonsense, over enough time. Same with A-Rod. I want a player with those stats on my team, regular season and playoffs.

43

I’m another guy who’s never understood the “A-Rod is a clubhouse cancer” or “A-Rod is a selfish asshole” memes. I do somewhat understand the “A-Rod is a choker” opinion, but I disagree with that just as strongly.

He’s one of the greatest baseball players in history, yet people get upset at him for seeking to being paid as such. Almost all baseball players go where the most money is – I guess it’s just that, in A-Rod’s case, the numbers are so huge that people view it as rude to want $250M from the higest bidder instead of $190M from the hometown favorite. I hate that people think he’s a jerk; it’s totally baffling to me. Yes, he occasioonally says things in interviews other than the standard sports clichés, but that’s a good thing. (Also, he plays poker and tips his dealers very well, so he can’t be all bad [I have that last bit of information on excellent authority: my father dealt to him a couple of times in the underground Manhattan poker room where A-Rod’s presence caused a bit of a controversy.])

There’s one thing I that I think should always be mentioned (but almsot never is) in a discussion about Rodriguez’s alleged selfishness. In coming to the Yankees, he agreed to move to 3B in defference to Derek Jeter, who was a much worse fielding SS than he. Before that time, A-Rod had a legitimate chance to go down as the greatest Shortstop in baseball history, but he gave that up for the sake of team “chemistry,” or whatever you want to call it. For his troubles, and in spite of his being by far the most valuable Yankee during his tenure with the team, he was routinely booed by the home fans and castigated by the morons in the papers and on the radio.
As for the question in the OP, I doubt he’ll get quite that large a contract, but I think it will be close. A 10-year deal would take him through his age 42 season, and I don’t think any team will want to pay him $35M/year into his 40s. I wouldn’t too be surprised to see $35M/year over seven or eight years, though. Any deal that nominally runs 10 years will probably have one or more “out” clauses for the team – something like the ability to buy out the last 3-5 years of the contract for x millions of dollars. Few teams will be willing to run the risk of having A-Rod completely tear up his knees in 2011, yet still be owed $210M.

44

Yeah, when Rodriguez went from Seattle to Texas that was pretty clearly about the money and nothing else. And that would be relevant right now if and only if it were impossible for people’s motivations and interests to change over a period of six years. I think they can, and his did. It is obvious to anyone - Rodriguez and Boras included - that no one is going to pay as much as the Yankees will. The fact that they deliberately snubbed the Yankees means there is something going into this not simply explained by dollar signs.

This is such crap. No one else in the entire world is held to this standard. What other player - let alone person from any other profession - is expected to not only perform in his job function, but also to accept less than market value for his/her services? Alex Rodriguez is not a general manager, and it is not his job to figure out how his contact affects a team. The GMs job is to figure out how to organize his roster and his payroll to make it effective.

Unless you are secretly making $25 million per year, you will forgive me if I consider your opinion on this matter less than informed.

  1. No player can “make his teammates better.” This is a silly myth. Derek Jeter, the Captain of Clutchness, did not “make his teammates” better this year or last, did he?

  2. No player can “win the big one (alone).”

  3. Kobe Bryant has three championship rings and is the best player in professional basketball. If he, like A-Rod, is “too childish and selfish to truly make his teammates better and win the big one,” then I don’t understand the meaning of the phrase. He has three championships. If Rodriguez is truly baseball’s Kobe Bryant, and if his career might be expected to be similar, teams should be lining up to sign him.

Lack of true team success? Like making the playoffs every year? Do you genuinely think there are any teams, other than the Yankees, who would think of four consecutive playoff appearances and one trip to the ALCS as a “lack of true team success?” Alex Rodriguez’s personal accomplishments directly cause "true team success.

Well, let’s see. One way to “help your team win a championship,” in a hypothetical world, might be to play out of your mind for an understaffed team for six months, keeping your team afloat as they swoon nearer and nearer to playoff irrelevance. You might hit a metric assload of game winning home runs. You might put your team into the playoffs in a season when if any other third baseman in the sport had been on your team in his place, you’d have missed the playoffs altogether. You might help them win a championship by carrying them into the playoffs on your own.

But that’s not really the standard to which A-Rod is held. He is expected not to “help” his team win a championship, which implies that he contributes and others contribute. No, when he has a mediocre - not a bad, but a mediocre - stretch of FOUR GAMES, and very nearly everyone else on the team is considerably worse - it’s his problem. He is expected to win the championship single-handed, and that’s just stupid.

What is your opinion of Derek Jeter’s playoff series this year? Of Chien-Ming Wang’s? Chokers? Or guys who had a few bad games at an inopportune time?

You know, 12 months ago, Peyton Manning was a choker incapable of winning the big one. I remember a time when John Elway was the same. I also remember a time when Michael Jordan had exactly the same reputation that Alex Rodriguez has now. It was ridiculous for all of those players, and it’s ridiculous now.

No one’s bitching about fairness. What we’re saying is that the facts that the Yankees have ridiculous expectations and are up front about describing their ridiculous expectations do not make those expectations any less ridiculous.

And I am saying that maybe the fact that the Yankees and their fans have ridiculous expectations that no one could ever fulfill might be a contributing factor to Alex Rodriguez’s decision to find a town where the expectations are reasonable.

45

Back to the OP’s question…it’s a ridiculous contract and a team would have to helmed by a bunch of idiots with bottomless wallets for it to happen. Statistically, it’s been shown on sites such as Baseball Prospectus that a player’s measurable performance peaks at the age of 27 and in general declines from that. There are outliers such as Randy Johnson and Mr. Bonds, but the safe money is on ARod never repeating this year’s performance. Paying ungodly money to a player in his declining years is unwise, at best.

46

Poor wording on my part. The struggles I was referring to were in the PR department. He just never seemed to click with yankee fans, and never seemed all that happy playing there, which is why I don’t think the mets will sign him.

Although after I made my post I heard an intriguing possibility that made me rethink that: What if the mets sign A-Rod and trade Jose Reyes to the twins for Johan Santana? Unlikely, but if I am Minaya I have to at least think about that for a long time…

47

Take it for what it is worth but Mike and/or The Maddog said they have it on good authority that Cabera is not going to be available.

48

Well, we know how often those two are right about anything. They both insisted Mattingly would get the job too. :wink:

49

Congratulations. You win the prize for the greatest number of misinformed baseball cliches in a single post.

How the fuck can he “make his teammates better”? Can he go up there and take their at-bats for them? Can he teach Carl Pavano how to pitch? Can he magically give Johnny Damon a decent throwing arm?

“Can’t help you win a championship”? Without him, the Yankees don’t even get to try for one this year.

Yes, he’s been called “disloyal and a choke artist.” Mostly by people who don’t actually know anything about baseball. How is that relevant?

As for the Yankees season beginning in October, you do realize, don’t you, that in two of A-Rod’s four years in New York, their season would have ended in September if he had not been on the team?

50

Just to show how things have changed I thought of a story that Ralph Kiner told. After one season he went to the Pirate’s GM, Branch Rickey and asked for a pay raise. Rickey asked, “Why do you deserve more money?” “Well I did lead the league in home runs.” Rickey asked, “What place did the team finish?” The Pirates were last. Kiner took a pay cut. Things were a little different before free agency.

51

No one is going to meet that insane price. Boras is going to end up getting someone to do an I-Rod on A-Rod - probably 1 year for $30 million - in the hopes of putting him in a good position for a raise next year to about what Boras wants now.

52

I consider that highly unlikely, cmkeller. Rodriguez’s long-term value will never again be as high as it is right now, and the odds of A-Rod matching (let alone exceding) this season’s performance are quite small. After a one year deal, they’d be in the position of trying to negotiate a raise after A-Rod’s performance has declined in his age 32 season and the accepted wisdom around baseball is that Rodriguez has begun his long, slow decline.

Boras knows these things. They’ll get a long-term deal done one way or another.

53

Boras is smart, but he outsmarted himself this time. Whether or not A-Rod wants to be a Yankee, he NEEDS the Yankees in the mix to jack up his salary. Boras screwed that up big time, which is why he keeps telling everyone the Yankees are still in the hunt, when they clearly aren’t.

But back to the anti-Alex sentiments… again, I don’t even like the guy, so it feels weird to be defending him here. But if Mariners fans still love Randy Johnson but hate Rodriguez, I have to wonder why. Have they forgotten how Randy totally quit on them in his last season at Seattle? A decent man, a professional in his position would have sucked it up and given his best performance, knowing he was going to collect a hefty paycheck somewhere else the next year. Instead, he sulked and pouted and lost like he’d never lsot before, all in a transparent attempt to get traded.

Sadly, his trick worked. and surprise, surprise! As soon as he was traded, he remembered how to pitch again!

Alex Rodriguez may be a jerk, but he NEVER quit on his team and his fans the way the Big Putz (er, Big Unit) did.

One other thing- I’ve used this example before, but I’ll use it again. Alex Rodriguez has a reputation as a post-season choker, and is reviled for it. But you know what? There’s ANOTHER New York infielder who deserves the title of postseason choker FAR more. The man I’m thinking of is a Hall of Famer, a man with a .311 lifetime batting average, a man who’s routinely hailed for his courage and class. And yet, this fellow played in 7 World Series, where he batted a measly .234.

You’d THINK a guy with those kinds of numbers would be reviled. You’d THINK he’d be held up as the quintessential example of a guy who never came through in important games. You’d THINK everyone would call him the biggest choker ever.

So, why doesn’t anyone ever call Jackie Robinson a choker? His numbers in the post-season make A-Rod’s look stellar!

Hey, I KNOW how stupid it would be to call Jackie a choker- I KNOW it would be absurd to suggest a man who could bat. 311 while receiving death threats could be unnerved just because he was playing in a big game. I KNOW the concept of “choking” is without merit.

But since plenty of people here obviously DO give the idea credence, I ask: why don’t you call Jackie Robinson a choker who disappeared in “clutch” situations?

If A-Rod is a choker, Robinson was far worse. Sauce for the goose? Or just proof that “clutch” and “choker” are silly terms?

54

It appears A-Rod is going to re-sign with the Yankees after all.

It appears that he’s going to get the same offer the Yanks were originally going to give him during the World Series, minus the $21.3M subsidy from the Rangers they’ve lost due to A-Rod opting out of his contract. Regardless of that, it’ll still be a record breaking contract.

It also appears that A-Rod has gone around Boras to get this deal done. I wonder what the fallout of that might be, if any.

55

If this deal is done, I wonder if Boras gets his agent fee of 20-30 mil even though he wasn’t present during negotiations?

28 mil a year while still a bit steep is still 70 mil total less than the original Boras demand. But the Yanks can afford it, and who knows, in five years there may be may players getting that per year, though I doubt it. And I guess the Yanks will get the added benefit of having him on the team when he break Bonds record. If Manny is making 20 mil and Jeter something similar, I would say an additional 8 mil for a 50 hr 150 rbi guy isn’t unreasonable.

And the Yanks do look a bit bad for saying if he opts out they will absolutely not try and sign him, but they’ll live I guess.

56

Oh, this is so fun. I mean, all those Yankee fans who absolutely freaked out when he opted out and screamed “good riddance!” to the skies? What now? What does it sound like when all of Yankee Stadium boos a home player who just hit a home run? I think we’ll find out in early April '08.

And after this, I’m pretty sure Brian Cashman couldn’t be any more emasculated unless he was Scott Boras. What a great day.

57

I think you have the wrong take on this. Alex came back, hat in hand and took the deal he was offered, eating the $21 million. He did a good job stating that he and Cynthia wanted to stay in with the Yanks. This will play out OK with the fans. I don’t expect much booing.

No hit on Cashman as this is being spun out in the Newspapers as A-Rod returning “Hat in Hand”. Besides it was Hank and not Cashman that issued the ultimatum.

I realize you hate the Yanks, but you are looking at this the wrong way. A-Rod will be making an average of 27.5 million over the next ten year. That is exactly what he was due for the next 3 before the opt out. Effectively he got no pay raise, but he got 10 years guaranteed and the new largest contract in Sports history. (All assuming this goes through)

The big winners in this are the Texas Rangers, they just got out of a $21.3 million obligation. The only loser in the end is BoreAss[sup]TM[/sup] who no longer looks invulnerable. That alone is worth a few rounds of applause.

Jim

58

They booed him last year, and he hit 54 home runs with 150+ RBIs. They’re going to boo him.

I thought I remembered Cashman making a similar statement about not pursuing A-Rod if he opted out. He was very firm about it. The way this is playing out does not bode well for Cashman’s authority in the future, is all I’m saying.

No, I think the Yankees are very smart to do this, and A-Rod is very smart to do it as well. The player and the team are the best possible fit. I just think this development, which is going to require a lot of people to stop on a dime and completely reverse their opinions, makes for really interesting theatre.

59

The fans finally stopped booing after April, it was long overdue, but I also understood where the boos were coming from. I really don’t think the boo birds will show up unless he has a terrible April, then all bets are off.

The hard-ass approach came from Hank, Cash might have repeated it, but it was Hank’s proclamation. I don’t think it will hurt Cash much at all. This is just another case of the Steinbrenner family bypassing Brian on big money free agents. As long as you don’t see the young pitchers traded for over 30 veteran position players, we will know Cash is still making most of the important decisions.

A-Rod is a great fit for the Yanks, very hard to replace and due to the market and the TV revenue, he will earn more money for the Yanks than any other team could hope to make except maybe the Mets. If he really assaults the Home Run record, the extra revenue might pay for his contract by itself.

As far as the Mets, it made little sense to sign him on the baseball side as they have young All-Star caliber players at SS & 3b. However, an argument could be made that it would be a huge boost to a nearly new cable network. An A-Rod assault on the HR record could possibly have pushed the new Mets station over Yes in ratings. That may well have paid for his contract.

Additionally the Mets do not fill Shea and A-Rod does put fannies in the seats. Not as much of an issue with both teams going into new stadiums, but well worth remembering.

Jim

60

I don’t think Cashman (or Boss Jr.) takes the slightest bit of a hit for this. The Yankees wanted to negotiate before the opt out because they got $21M extra to work with, putting them in a better negotiating position. They held a hard line after the opt out because they didn’t want to be bargaining chips in the free agent market.

Since Rodriguez came back to them personally, saying he wanted to be a Yankee, wanted to negotiate exclusively with them, and was willing to eat the $21M to make the deal, the Yanks get back everything they were trying to get pre-opt-out.

Big Winner - Texas - saves $21 mil, finally gets out of an overpriced contract
Slight Winner - Yankees - get the deal they wanted originally, don’t compete in free agent market directly
Slight Loser - A-Rod - loses $21 mil, but still gets a huge pay day and may have mitigated some of his greedy persona
Big Loser - Boras - looks really really bad, and may have irreparably damaged his negotiating power.