With all that's happened here, Alex would be wise to opt out
Thursday, July 12th 2007, 4:00 AM
When the season ends, A-Rod can just sit there while Arte Moreno of the Angels or the new Cubs owners or even John Henry start throwing money at him. Why would he want to stay? "
The story is out there now, big as Alex Rodriguez's numbers and big as his need to be loved, that the Yankees, who said they wouldn't negotiate with A-Rod during this season, will negotiate with him after all. Mostly because he is having this season.
It is frankly the kind of season that must occasionally make him feel as if he is back in Texas, absolutely knocking the old cover off the ball for a bad team.
The Yankees, and that means Brian Cashman these days, would be crazy not to try to put some kind of offer to Rodriguez on the table. At least they can say they tried. But the way A-Rod is going, love him or not, it's hard to see how any kind of offer at this point will change much.
Think about this: If the Yankees ever do come all the way back on the Red Sox and he ends up hitting 60 home runs as they do, his value as a potential opt-out free agent after the season only goes up.
Then think about something else from A-Rod's point of view. Not mine or yours or Cashman's or even George Steinbrenner's:
Why would he stay?
This is a Yankee season nobody can blame on him, a season that has him right where he wants to be, which means pinstriped hero, at least for now. All he has to do is keep hitting. When the season is over he doesn't have to be bashful or phony this time, tell us it is all about the farm system the way he did when he went with the Rangers. He can just sit there while Arte Moreno of the Angels or the new Cubs owners or even John Henry start throwing money at him.
You think the Red Sox won't be in play if A-Rod is in play? Come on. They spent $51 million just to get a seat at the table with Daisuke Matsuzaka. Not only do they have the money in Boston, they have something else:
An opening at shortstop. A position Rodriguez gave up to come to New York and play next to a shortstop who sometimes seems reluctant to give A-Rod the time of day.
Scott Boras, A-Rod's bag man, is right: There is no reason for his client to negotiate with the Yankees right now. What's in it for A-Rod, except perhaps for the stroke of seeing the Yankees reverse their field and try to negotiate a new deal with him when they said they wouldn't do that for a pinstriped World Series hero such as Mo Rivera?
There is only one way for A-Rod to do what he did last time he was a free agent and go for the very biggest and baddest money available to him. And that is to find out, after the season, what the biggest, baddest offer really is.
Last time around, Boras got $252 million off Tom Hicks of the Rangers because that was twice what Kevin Garnett had gotten from the Minnesota Timberwolves of the NBA. This time around, you can make book on the fact that the magic number is $30 million, multiplied by however many years Boras can get off the next owner willing to let Boras walk him around the block the way Hicks did when A-Rod left the Mariners.
Maybe Boras is even looking for one year of David Beckham money at the back end. Maybe the Yankees think they have enough money to trump all the reasons A-Rod has for getting out of New York when the season is over.
And you better believe he has his reasons, whatever he says in public, and you better believe the Yankees know exactly what they are:
* The treatment he feels he has gotten, up until this season, from an awful lot of vocal Yankee fans, all the ones who wanted to drive him to the airport after the way he hit last October against the Tigers and want to carry him out to Monument Park on their shoulders now.
* The treatment he has gotten in the media, not just here and not just on the sports pages, but on the front pages when he got caught with that strip-club blond in Toronto. As A-Rod's stats get gaudier, by the way, his sidemen are now blaming his off-field problems on the tabloids for that. Right. The tabs did it! The Post must have fixed him up with the blond on Match.com.
* The treatment he got from Joe Torre in last year's playoffs when Torre batted him eighth against the Tigers. A-Rod can hire skywriters to say he and Torre have kissed and made up on that one. You know when No.13 will forget where he hit that day? On the 13th of Never.
* Finally, there is the treatment he has gotten from Derek Jeter. You weigh in however you want on this relationship. But A-Rod thought that by agreeing to leave shortstop, even though he was on his way to being the greatest shortstop in history, he could get Jeter to forget the lousy things he said about him in Esquire magazine. He was as wrong about that as he was yelling at some backup third baseman in Toronto and thinking nobody would think it was a big deal.
Suddenly, without a single point added to his postseason average as a Yankee, A-Rod appears to be the one holding all the good cards. Suddenly, it is the Yankee variation of the old Bob Arum line: Yesterday I was lying, today I'm telling the truth. Yesterday they weren't negotiating. Now they are. It is easy to see how they can't let him walk without at least making him an offer.
But really: Knowing what we know about A-Rod, why would he stay?
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