A-Rod Wants to Talk to Yanks Without Boras

Oh, I see.

 

I'm not sure teams--at least good ones--have ever been built thru free agency. It's been noted how the Yankees have spent oodles of cash re-signing the guys they drafted and developed. The '90s Braves were largely built from within, though that legendary rotation was augmented by the Maddux signing. How many consecutive years did the Dodgers infield of Garvey-Lopes-Cey-Russell play together?

The 1997 Marlins and the Yankees of the late '70s--with Reggie Jackson and Catfish Hunter--are exceptions that prove the rule.

Agents have always spun their high-priced client as being the missing piece to a puzzle. It only took until recently for teams to finally figure out they were full of shit.

 

11/14/2007 7:44 PM ET By Barry M. Bloom and Bryan Hoch / MLB.com

NAPLES, Fla. -- The New York Yankees are getting close to re-signing third baseman Alex Rodriguez to a multi-year contract that would pay him as much as $290 million, multiple baseball sources told MLB.com as the owners gathered here Wednesday for the final quarterly meetings of the year.

Though one source cautioned that the Yankees "don't have a deal yet," the possibility of it happening was the main topic of conversation as committees met on Wednesday in preparation for Thursday morning's joint session of the 30 owners and/or their representatives. ...

Randy Levine, the team's president who is in town for the meetings, declined to comment on the Rodriguez situation, saying only that he didn't want to "negotiate in the press."

But a baseball source at the meetings with knowledge of the negotiations said that the Yankees now have an open dialogue with Rodriguez. The source also denied a report published on Wednesday that the Yankees specifically told A-Rod that they would not negotiate with Scott Boras, his agent.

The source added that Rodriguez "reached out" to the Yankees, but that the team has "no right to tell anyone who should represent" any player.

A team, of course, can talk directly with a player as long as it doesn't try to circumvent his representation.

The Padres did just that last week with right-hander Greg Maddux, another Boras client, when the San Diego club and pitcher came to a verbal agreement on a one-year extension to his contract worth $10 million. The paperwork on the deal, said Padres general manager Kevin Towers at the time, was being handled by Boras.

 

See Vaughn, Mo - What did the Mets give him - 50 Mil over 3 years .

 

Didn't the Mets just take on Vaughn's awful Angels contract? I thought he was part of a trade.

 

The Mets traded one bad contract (Kevin Appier) for a worse one (Vaughn).

 

Where exactly did I say that I thought Rodriguez was going to get the money he wants? I didn't. Where did I say he wasn't going to re-sign with the Yankees? I didn't.

I simply said it was stupid of him if he panicked this early in free agency, that the sourcing on the initial story was shaky and that the Yankees could be inviolation of the agreement with the Players Association. That last one was based on the Ken Rosenthal story I linked (here or on the Hot Stove thread. I forget which).

And if the Yankees give him $290 million after insisting up and down that they wouldn't be negotiating with Rodriguez if he opted out, who exactly caved?

 

Sounds like a mutual caving to me.

 

Will Boras be hurt, long-term, by the Game 4 stuff?

I say no, but some could say this is a chink in the armor. Of course, if five clients drop him 10 probably will be calling asking to get added to his portfolio.

 

I know there are some Yankees fans--Boom, Angola--on the board, so I want to ask them if it is going to be tough to root for ARod now that he's re-signed or close to re-signing.

I'm not criticizing the player, who is phenomenal. But with all of the off-field shit, including announcing his opt out during Game 4 of the World Series, I would think that it would be hard to root for ARod.

 

It wouldn't exactly be a new thing to have Yankee fans rooting against Rodriguez.

 

I just like it that a team finally -- apparently -- said they were tired of Boras' crap. The Yankees apparently wanted to negotiate directly because they thought Boras would take their offer and then bargain with other teams off of it.