A-Rod and Boras

Alex Rodriguez is sched­uled to make $27 mil­lion a year for the next three years after this sea­son is com­plete. He can elect to ter­mi­nate this con­tract in order to receive more money, upwards of $32 mil­lion a year, and tack­ing on addi­tional years to his con­tract that would likely be his last huge money con­tract, or at least the last one that would end in his “prime”.

Rodriguez turns 32 later this month, and at the end of his cur­rent con­tract he’ll be 35. I’m no mas­ter of eco­nom­ics, but in all like­ly­hood the con­tract that Rodriguez would receive to play into his late 30s/early 40s would be larger if he were to sign an exten­sion now than if he were to play to the end of this con­tract and enter­ing the free agent mar­ket at the age of 35, when most play­ers are see­ing a decline in sta­tis­tics (under inves­ti­ga­tion San Fran­cisco out­field­ers excluded).

Agent Scott Boras’ threats (we’ll just say they’re his instead of Rodriguez just to make him look bet­ter and make an agent the vil­lian, which is easy enough to do) to ter­mi­nate Rodriguez’ con­tract at the end of this sea­son and test the free agent mar­ket are geared solely at one team — the New York Yan­kees. Well, that’s obvi­ous, since the team with the most to lose if Rodriguez does this is the Yan­kees, who lose one of the best offen­sive play­ers in base­ball, and receive no com­pen­sa­tion for it.

The Yanks are in an unusual posi­tion though in that they have the most money to spend for Rodriguez, and not in the usual “Yan­kees are rich” way. With the way Rodriguez’ con­tract is struc­tured right now and the agree­ment that the Yan­kees and Texas Ran­ders made when the Yanks acquired Rodriguez for Alfonso Sori­ano a few years back, the Yan­kees are only pay­ing $16 mil­lion of the $27 mil­lion that Rodriguez is con­trac­tu­ally oblig­ated this sea­son, and for the next three sea­sons bar­ring a ter­mini­a­tion of the con­tract. If the con­tract is ter­mi­nated, then Texas loses its oblig­a­tion to Rodriguez and the Yan­kees, and every­one starts from scratch. This threat to ter­mi­nate his con­tract is thought to add added lever­age to what­ever nego­ci­a­tions that Rodriguez and Scott Boras wish to make, since the Yan­kees essen­tu­ally have a “$33 mil­lion off” coupon that the player and agent can make expire.

Boras says that $32 mil­lion is a start­ing point, since after next sea­son ROdriguez could force the Yan­kees (if he didn’t leave this sea­son) to raise his salary $5 mil­lion a sea­son from his cur­rent con­tract of $27 mil­lion per year. That’s not much of a threat, and even fac­tor­ing in 2008 (which isn’t cov­ered by that pro­vi­sion), it would cost the Yan­kees an addi­tional $15 mil­lion, which is still made up for by the $33 mil­lion the Rangers are paying.

The ques­tion is an exten­sion. All par­ties involved seem to be inter­ested in an exten­sion past 2010. How long that exten­sion is involves two fac­tors — the con­cern for poten­tial dropoff of Rodriguez’s sta­tis­tics after the 2010 sea­son, and how long of a con­tract Rodriguez would stand to get if he became a free agent at the end of this season.

To try to grasp that, let’s look at the man Rodriguez was traded for — Alfonso Sori­ano. Sori­ano, the big ticket free agent last sea­son, signed an 8 year con­tract, and he’s six months younger than Rodriguez. A sim­i­lar 8 year deal for Rodriguez would mean a five year exten­sion from the Yan­kees, or 8 years on the open mar­ket from another team, end­ing his con­tract at the age of 40. While the aver­age free agent couldn’t com­mand that kind of com­mit­ment, espe­cially at the age of 32, Rodriguez isn’t your aver­age free agent. Rodriguez stands right now as a Hall of Fame player; not “if he keeps up this pace”, but if he announced tomor­row that he wasn’t going to play another game, he would be elected into the Base­ball Hall of Fame on the first bal­lot. His skill level is there, so that when he does hit his decline, bar­ring a com­plete dis­as­ter, he should still be a bet­ter than replace­ment level ballplayer for a long time to come.

Add onto that the home run record. While it’s a given that Barry Bonds is even­tu­ally going to break Hank Aaron’s 755 home run record, Bonds turns 43 years old in a week. He’ll break the record, but prob­a­bly not break it by much, and I don’t expect him to play next sea­son. If Bonds hits 30 home runs this sea­son (he’s on a bet­ter pace and hit 26 last sea­son), that’ll put the home run record at 764. Assum­ing Rodriguez stays healthy and hits home runs at the pace he has been (about 44 a sea­son), it will take Rodriguez 5.66 sea­sons to pass Bonds, some­where in 2013. The team that has him under con­tract has him for every home game dur­ing that chase, draw­ing in fans as he gets closer and closer. Even fac­tor­ing in a decline or major injury would still put the mark within reach dur­ing that 8 year period.

That said, the Yan­kees have a built in 33 mil­lion dis­count on any con­tract that they can offer. The ques­tion is whether or not Boras and Rodriguez will actu­ally go through with ter­mi­nat­ing the con­tract. My guess is that they won’t, mainly because if they do, I think it takes the Yan­kees out of the equa­tion, and that’s the last thing — tabloids be damned — that Rodriguez and Boras would want to do.

Let’s say, for argument’s sake, that Rodriguez wants to make $35 mil­lion a year for the next eight sea­sons. That’s his num­ber, and he won’t back down from that. Even with his tal­ent, that might be a hard sell to Boston or Chicago, who prob­a­bly don’t want to com­mit $280 mil­lion dollars.

So Boras says “hey, for you guys, make it $30 mil­lion a year. Every­one else, it’s $35 mil­lion.” That would be some­thing Boston or Chicago might lis­ten to a lot more closely. It wouldn’t be some­thing that Boras (or any player or agent, more than likely) would do, but if they did, that team would prob­a­bly be a lot more will­ing to make that deal. That’s the posi­tion the Yan­kees are in, and that’s what Boras and Rodriguez are star­ing at. For the Yan­kees to offer Rodriguez a $35 mil­lion a year con­tract for the next eight sea­sons, the Yanks only need to spend $30.875 mil­lion a year (yeah, I said “only”), and advan­tage that other teams don’t have. If Rodriguez is truly look­ing for money, then the Yan­kees are the best place for him to get it.

So do the Yan­kees have the advan­tage in nego­ci­a­tions? Not a chance. If Rodriguez isn’t look­ing for that much more money, he can ter­mi­nate the con­tract and get at least what he’s mak­ing now (if not more) from another team. Is Rodriguez going to make as much money as he could with the Yan­kees and extend­ing his con­tract? No, but it’s very unlikely that he’ll lose money com­pared to his cur­rent deal. Rodriguez has very lit­tle to lose. If you went to a casino and some­one offered you a game to play where the worst you could do is get your money back, you’d play that game every time, all day long.

The Yan­kees, while get­ting back some pay­roll room ($16 mil­lion a year for the next three years), have to replace Rodriguez’s bat in the lineup. Here’s a list of OPS+ lead­ers as of right now for play­ers who’ve played at least half their games at third base:

1. Rodriguez
2. Ryan Braun (MIL)
3. Chip­per Jones (ATL)
4. Miguel Cabr­era (FLA)
5. Troy Glaus (TOR)
6. David Wright (NYM)
7. Aramis Ramirez (CHN)
8. Mike Low­ell (BOS)
9. Mike Lamb (HOU)
10. Mark Reynolds (ARI)
11. Casey Blake (CLE)
12. Adrian Bel­tre (SEA)
13. Wil­son Betemit (LAD)
14. Hank Blalock (TEX)
15. Melvin Mora (BAL)

Braun, Chip­per, and Wright just aren’t avail­able. The same could prob­a­bly be said for Mark Reynolds. Cabr­era may or may not be shopped by Florida, but at this point, there really isn’t a pack­age that the Yanks could put together to get him that they’d do. Glaus has a no-trade clause. Ramirez just signed a huge con­tract to re-up with the Cubs. Mike Lamb is a bit funny on that list since the Yanks picked him up after Aaron Boone’s injury left them with a hole at third base going into Spring Train­ing, then dumped him off to Hous­ton when they swung the Rodriguez trade. Betemit’s OPS+ is spiked because he plays for the Dodgers and recently had a power surge, but he failed mis­er­ably as a starter for the Dodgers at the begin­ning of the sea­son and is now a bench player. Casey Blake still looks to be arbi­tra­tion eli­gi­ble, and depend­ing on his price, the Indi­ans would prob­a­bly hang onto him.

Of those, that leaves one clearly avail­able player (Mike Low­ell), and a hand­ful of guys (Bel­tre, Blalock, Mora) who teams might be will­ing to deal. Low­ell will be 34 next sea­son, Mora 36. Blalock still has holes in his swing and has seen his slug­ging per­cent­age go down every year since his rookie sea­son, and has an OPS 200 points higher at Texas’ hitter-friendly home park than on the road. Bel­tre? Incon­sis­tant and still sched­uled to make $12 mil­lion a year, and a career OPS of .786.

Given those options (keep in mind that most would have to be traded for, so money + prospects), then $30 mil­lion to Rodriguez doesn’t sound like a bad option, does it? Bear in mind that Rodriguez, offen­sively, has nearly twice the OPS+ of the aver­age player — add that to the (even­tual) chase for the record and the pro­duc­tion that the player gives to the team on a con­sis­tant basis, and you have a solid invest­ment, allow­ing the Yan­kees to focus in on larger areas of need.