For $350 million, you too can own an A-Rod

November 2, 2007 by Benjamin Kabak 32 Comments

Another day, another ridiculous Alex Rodriguez story.

Buster Olney, the official ESPN writer of River Ave. Blues, has a report that states something mind-boggling: A-Rod wasn’t going to even meet with Yankee officials if they didn’t start their contract extension offer at $350 million. The Yanks were initially willing to go up to about $250 million for the next eight years and fell $100 million short of Scott Boras’ insane demands just for a meeting.

Basically, Boras wanted the Yanks to pay A-Rod a whopping $43.75 million per year to play baseball for them. Does he really expect any team to approach that figure? And what’s he going to do when he has to settle for less than the $30 million a year the Yanks were basically offering as a starting point for negotiations? With the Yanks starting the conversations at $150 million for five years, I believe they would have been willing to go up to $175 million, and Boras wouldn’t even sit down to listen to these ridiculous figures.

For that money, A-Rod isn’t really a good fit anywhere.

stuart

obviously the NY lover did not want to play for the Yanks…

Is there any chance Borass blew this and has given payrod bad advice?????
- Jon
  
  Totally. I think Boras is starting to panic. He’s begging the Yankees to bid on him, offering to donate money to a charity of Hank Aaron’s choosing, etc.
  
  I see a 7 year, $160M contract in ARod’s future…
Jersey

Ah, “sources say” many things. $350 million is such an enormous, unbelievably high figure – and $43 mil is almost DOUBLE the next-highest-paid player (Giambi, which makes me sick).

I have a hard time believing even Boras would start at such a high sum. Either it was his way of saying “In other words, so long” or these sources are wrong.
http://riveraveblues.com Mike A.

Boras and Co. are just scared of not having the Yanks to leverage against in the negotiations. Boras has been sticking it to clubs for years, it’s about time someone gave him a taste of his own medicine.
Jon

That is about the number that I thought would be Boras’ initial asking price with the Yankees. I think the $350M would also be over 10 years, so the AAV is not quite that high.

However, saying that the Yankees would have to START there is absurd.

I thought it would break down like this:

Yankees offer (an extension that would result in) $230M/8.
Boras offers $350M/10.

They haggle back and forth for 10 days, and then settle on something like $288/9, or if the Yankees wouldn’t go that high, THEN he’d opt out.

As I’ve said countless time, the fact that they wouldn’t even have those conversations proves Alex has no intention of playing in NY. Boras is currently begging the Yankees to bid on him as a FA because they need him to drive the price up.
Brian

I’ve got an offer. How about a $230 million offer for 8 years as Jon put above. Then $1 million for every playoff hit. $2 million if it’s a homerun. We would pay A-Rod an estimated total of $238 million over the next 8 years.
That’ll insult him.
NYFan50

I will be surprised if he gets more than $250M/10. I would not be at all surprised if the supposed Yankee extension that would have brought him to $243 (?) for 8 years is 10-15% better than his best offer.
Jersey

As much as I’ve liked rooting against Team Rod over the past few days, in a way I do hope the Angels or someone does shell out some enormous figure – because the more money they lock up in their third baseman, the less money they have to spend elsewhere going forward…right? It’s the golden handcuffs. What do you guys think?
- Jon
  
  Well, yes and no. On one hand, it would handcuff the team he signs with. On the other, it’s only one team, and it could drive up salaries for all players.
  
  If it were the Red Sox, then it would make more a of a difference (not because they’re the Sox, but becaus they’re our prime competition in the east) – almost to the point where it would be smart to negotiate with ARod just to drive the price up.
  
  But now our credibility would be gone if we did that.
  
  Anyway, look at it this way – if a competitor pays him $30M+, then like you said, it will hamper them for years. And if he makes much less than he thought he would, the joke is on him. We win (sort of) either way.
NYFan50

Man, this site needs a generic messageboard for off-topic but baseball-relevant postings. :) I don’t know where to put this, but it is somewhat ridiculous like A-Rod’s contract.

http://msn.foxsports.com/mlb/story/7400932

The article has this nugget: “The Giants have even let it be known that Tim Lincecum, their No. 1 pick in 2006, can be had for a quality bat.”

I’d trade any hitter the Yankees have right now for him. Any of them. Can you imagine Pettitte/Hughes/Chamberlain/Wang/Lincecum next year? Getting Lincecum enables you to package Wang up for Miggy Cabrera (to play 1st).

What if: exit Wang and Melky, enter Miguel Cabrera. Exit Cano (enough?), enter Lincecum. Add Morgan Ensberg to platoon with Betemit at 3B. Attorney General to play 2B? Assuming Po & Mo are back, the only need becomes a few relievers…
- NYFan50
  
  Oh, and by trading Wang you replace him in the rotation with Kennedy, so your rotation consists of Pettitte/Hughes/Chamberlain/Lincecum/Kennedy, and some form of Mussina.
- Count Zero
  
  Are they serious? Lincecum? That’s so outlandish it would make me suspicious there’s something physically wrong with him.
- Jon
  
  That’s very hard to believe. Look at the source too – Ringolsby. No way.
  
  But, anyway – why wouldn’t the Giants just trade Lincecum for Cabrera? Why would the Giants want to trade Lincecum – some injury? What’s the point of trading offense for pitching, only to go and trade pitching for offense?
  
  So you’d want to trade Wang, Melky, and Cano for Lincecum and Cabrera? Who plays CF? You really want Gonzalez batting every day?
  
  That’s a whole lot of movement for no net gain. And Cabrera is making $25M over the next two years, and then becomes a free agent.
  
  No thanks.
  - NYFan50
    
    I’d sign one of the CFs on the market to an overpriced deal that we’d regret in 3 years. :) And you were right about just trading Lincecum for Cabrera. I didn’t think that one through. And no, I don’t REALLY want Gonzalez batting every day, but if that’s the price of getting Lincecum I take it in a heartbeat and try to figure out something better. Until that something better comes along I stick him out there and hope for the best.
- dan
  
  Trade Abreu, Horne, and A-Jax for Lincecum.
  
  They would have to at least think about doing that deal. If they say no, throw in Marquez or some shit– the yankees won’t need much young pitching talen in the minors if they have a 6 man rotation of wang – pettitte – hughes – joba – kennedy – lincecum (in no particular order). The offense would probably only be slightly above average, but I dare you to look at that rotation without cracking a smile.
Chris

I would be shocked if the Marlins took Wang / Melky for Cabrera, but if they would, the Yankees would be retarded not to pull the trigger immediately.
Gibb

i feel like arod news can be summed up over the last couple of days as:

This just in, Arod is a douchebag.

In other news, so is boras.

Further indicators pointed today that, Arod, is, in fact, a douchebag.
barry

if you really want miggy you are smart to wait until he’s a free agent to see what happends over the next two years, he could degrade in performance or get better he doesn’t have a long enough track record and he always seems to be putting on some weight.
- usty
  
  Eh…so did Tony Gwynn and Kirby Puckett….and they continued to hit just fine.
  - barry
    
    So lets take he chance that he’ll just be another overpaid player sitting on the bench.
dan

I have no idea if this is true or not, but I’ll post it anyway

http://coedmagazine.com.nyud.net/sports/3445

Probably fake, but what the heck.
- http://www.riveraveblues.com Ben K.
  
  Dude. Come on. Co-Ed magazine? That’s about as reliable a source as Perez Hilton.
  - http://riveraveblues.com Mike A.
    
    What, no faith in Steve from Seton Hall?
- http://www.riveraveblues.com Ben K.
  
  Also, players cannot sign with teams other than their former team until the 16th day after the World Series ends.
  - dan
    
    Well that’s the kind of hack reporting you’d expect from a hs kid…. and apparently a writer from Seton Hall. In my defense, I did say it was probably fake.
    - http://www.riveraveblues.com Ben K.
      
      Where did you find that one anyway?
      - dan
        
        My friend sent it to me…. No, I’m not a regular reader of Co-ed magazine
        
        Count Zero
        
        I’m glad you clarified that. ;-)
Jamal G.

I heard Boras is expecting in the range of……………………………………………………..12 YEARS FOR $400,000,000.00
- Mike R.
  
  How many MLB teams are even worth $400 million? 4? 5? And at least one already said “We’re out”.
http://yankeesetc.blogspot.com/ Travis G.

pinky to the lips – ‘One-hundred TRILLION dollars… mwahaha.’
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