Escape from New York…

Alex Rodriguez does his best Snake Plissken impersonation… bolting from the big apple as soon as he possibly could.

When the world series came to a close (Congrats Red Sox), the stove for potential free agents was already red hot. All but certain American League MVP Alex Rodriguez (aka A-Rod) had ten days to decide if he wanted to opt out of the last three years of his contract which would have paid him $25.1 million dollars per year. After the monster season he just had, I predicted that his agent (the evil, money grubbing Scott Boras) would spend the next ten days begging Alex to opt out and test the market. Turns out it didn’t require that much arm twisting: it took all but ten seconds for A-Rod to opt out of his contract. The champainge in Colorado was barely corked when the opt out was exercised. Now that he has opt’ed out, he becomes an unrestricted free agent, and take offers from all 30 clubs.

This tells me one thing: Alex Rodriguez doesn’t want to play for the New York Yankees. If he did, he would have let Scott Boras (his agent) spend the next ten days squeezing the Yanks for every dollar he could muster, and then sign at the last possible moment. He didn’t even give the Yankees a chance to table a offer to extend his contract, which was rumored to be coming as soon as Wednesday. The extension would have seen him make close to $28 million a year for the next eight years. Scary thing is A-Rod will land a much bigger contract on the open market. Teams like the White Sox, Angels, Dodgers, Cubs, Tigers, Orioles and even the recent champs Red Sox are expected to get in on the bidding for who is right now the best in the game. But the fact is when Scott Boras is the agent, all 30 teams have a chance to land this guy because only one thing makes an impression on this agent: money. If you’ve got the money, A-Rod and Boras are going to listen.

Even my Blue Jays have the extra coin thanks to a strong loonie, but I doubt Mr. Rogers is going to break the bank for a new Short Stop, even one that hits 50+ homers a year. Shame, he would have fit nicely in there with Frank Thomas and Vernon Wells. But here is an article I found rather interesting about the A-Rod situation and the state of the Bronx Bombers, which is not too good at the moment…

Peter

Squeeze play on A-Rod an error

Written by Steve Politi

Let’s pretend you’re a stellar employee who just had a record-setting year that kept your company afloat. Then, in a span of a few days, your supervisor gets run out of town, your best co-workers threaten to leave with him and your boss refuses to let you listen to lucrative job offers from other firms.

You’d probably break a dozen traffic laws rushing to Kinko’s to get your résumé ready.

So ask yourself this one, Yankees fans: How, exactly, is Alex Rodriguez the bad guy here?

Granted, his timing was the equivalent of an everyday Joe quitting his job during the holiday party. Upstaging the World Series was petty and dumb, and it makes him an easy target for criticism.

That’s his fault. But if A-Rod is batting cleanup for the Angels or Cubs next season, blame Brian Cashman and Hank Steinbrenner, not the soon-to-be MVP and agent Scott Boras. The Yankees hierarchy are the ones who tried to paint Rodriguez into a corner, insisting he negotiate with them — and only them — and not opt out of his contract. They misplayed this one.

Hammerin’ Hank should look at his depleted lineup, swallow his pride and come up with an offer that keeps Rodriguez in the Bronx. Instead, the Boss-in-training is trying to spin A-Rod as disloyal, insisting that he wants only players who want to be Yankees, whatever that means.

“If you want a comparison,” he said, “look at Derek Jeter, who, since he was a little kid, he’s wanted nothing out of life but to play shortstop for the New York Yankees.”

The $189 million is probably nice, too.

Earth to Hank: Most of the players on your roster want your money more than they want your pinstripes. Cash is fast becoming one of the only reasons for a free agent to sign here.

The past seven years have certainly proven this is not the top destination to win championships — Boston is, and you can make the argument that a half dozen other teams have equal or better talent than the Yankees.

The Bronx is, however, the most demanding place to play, with the unrivaled expectations and scrutiny (and those pesky tabloids that run photos of you with unidentified blondes on the front page).

Now, after Rodriguez finally developed a relationship with Joe Torre, he faces an unknown quantity in Joe Girardi — whose personality could remind him of Buck Showalter, the manager he hated in Texas.

There are plenty of reasons for A-Rod to stay here, specifically the eight zeroes at the end of his paycheck. This is about money with A-Rod and always will be, but that hardly sets him apart from other elite players. Jorge Posada and Mariano Rivera, popular stars from those championship teams, could be sitting at the bargaining table with the Mets in a couple weeks.

Bernie Williams wasn’t seen as disloyal when he used a fat offer from the Boston Red Sox in 1998 to extract a bigger payday from the Steinbrenners. He was a savvy businessman who turned a five-year, $60 million, take-it-or-leave-it offer into a seven-year, $87.5 million deal.

The Yankees upped their deal by 46 percent at the last minute because they woke up and realized they needed him. Fans love to look back on those title-winning teams and say the Yankees won without star players, but they conveniently forget that Williams was among the best outfielders in baseball, and that the roster also included Jeter, Posada, Rivera and Paul O’Neill.

Rodriguez might not fit into the mold, but this team needs his bat in the middle of its lineup. The Yankees had 84 home runs by right-handed hitters. A-Rod had 54 of them. He had a season unmatched in franchise history by anyone not named Ruth or Gehrig, two players who never had the ability to test their value on the open market.

But now Hank Steinbrenner, who seems to have inherited his father’s stubbornness but not his baseball acumen, said the team won’t negotiate with him, and that’s a mistake. Steinbrenner is denying the fans a chance to watch the most exciting player in baseball and significantly downgrading his team.

Mike Lowell? Wilson Betemit? The Yankees have no replacement in their farm system and no option through free agency. Since the Indians eliminated them three weeks ago, the Yankees have lost a manager with four championships on his résumé, a bench coach who was a beloved player and, now, the league MVP.

They are increasingly looking like a leaderless franchise without a plan for the future. But at least A-Rod gave them a nice parting gift as he headed for the door: someone to blame.

Reprinted from nj.com