Yesterday ESPN’s Page 2 had a poll up. It was a simple poll. “Do you want Alex Rodriguez on your team?”, yes or no.
61% of people who replied said no. If you are one of these people you are insane. He is a jerk, he is stupid, he does whatever Scott Boras tells him to but he is a truly great baseball player. Unless Miguel Cabrera or Aramis Ramirez is your third basemen there’s no way he wouldn’t improve the team. In fact, in this land where Miguel Cabrera is your third basemen (I guess that’s Florida but who knows how long that will last) you should probably move him to first before he explodes trying to catch a ball and stick Rodriguez there.
I think the Yankees should hold their ground, but if these rumors circulating are correct and ARod himself has approached the organization I think it’s safe to throw that all out of the window as long as they…stand their new ground. What is that new ground? According to the Daily News it means Boras cannot be involved in the negotiations. If that’s true, and it happens, I’m cool with it.
Yes, it’s strange for a guy to negotiate without his agent but it’s happened before. The last time Andruw Jones’ contract was up, he and his father cut Boras out of the equation and dealt directly with the Braves. They gave the team the “hometown discount” which Boras would never have allowed.
I don’t think the Yankees would give or expect ARod to take any kind of discount (except maybe the “We are not insane like Brian Sabean” discount but that is standard across Major League Baseball), they just don’t want to deal with Boras and whatever crazy statistics he makes up to prove the thing that everyone knows: ARod should get paid a lot of money.
In other news, Mariano Rivera please accept your ridiculous contract already so that the team can concentrate on wooing Andy back.
As a Mets fan, it drives me nuts when Yankee fans (or, worse, Yankee beat writers) bitch about A-Rod. Someday I will tell my grandkids that I had the privilege to see this magnificent guy play.