Alex Rodriquez…I know he is the elephant in the room or the loud obnoxious friend no one wants to admit they brought to the party, but we need to talk about him. Yankees General Manager Brian Cashman gave an interview to ESPN that aired Sunday night before the team’s rain shortened loss to the Red Sox, he had a few things to say about the third baseman.
It started with Cashman being asked to say the first thing that comes to mind when he hears these names:
Mariano Rivera
“Greatest reliever of all time and the most humblest person of all time.”
Robinson Cano
“One of the best second basemen of this era with a chance of being one of the best second basemen of all time.”
Alex Rodriquez
After a long pause, “Complicated. It’s kind of like the Clint Eastwood movie The Good, The Bad and the Ugly.”
Yes, he just compared A-rod to a Clint Eastwood movie. It gets better. He was then asked what his hopes are for when the 37 year old returns. “Hopefully he can return to being at the very least an above average player at third base because that’s what he’s been for the last few years. Once his injuries came into play with him, they may have taken away his ability to be a superstar. But he’s still an above average player at that position and hopefully that’s what we’re going to get.”
Above average (not great, not superstar) above average is what Cashman is hoping for because he is realistic, he knows Rodriquez isn’t going to live up to that albatross of a contract he gave him. “It’s something I think even Alex would tell you, he couldn’t live up to that contract,” Cashman said. “It’s an enormous contract and I think that, I would say probably, he couldn’t live up to it. But he’s doing everything he can to try to do so.” Sounds to me that Cashman is greatly regretting giving A-rod that contract. Just incase anyone forgot, that contract was 10 years $275 million with the possibility of exceeding $300 million if Rodriquez reaches a certain homerun milestone. A moment that left baseball fans everywhere scratching their heads.
Rodriquez admitted in 2009 to using performance-enhancing drugs earlier in his career, and his name also was linked to PEDs in January in an investigation of the Biogenesis anti-aging lab in Miami. When asked about the situation in Miami Cashman had “no comment.”
It seems that Cashman doesn’t have much confidence in post injury Rodriquez who hasn’t played yet this year after undergoing his second career hip surgery in January. He is expected to be back after the All Star break, but do Yankees fans even want him back? He hasn’t been very productive for a long time now and the team signed Kevin Youkilis who has been a sold replacement at third. The team also brought up the youngster David Adams from Triple A to play third for a few games and he was very impressive. Rodriquez was benched multiple times while batting 3-for-25 (.120) with no homers and no RBIs during the playoffs last October, that speaks volumes!
The team needs to get young and I personally like Adams and the work he has done thus far. I say keep Youkilis and develop Adams. However, nobody wants A-rod, the team tried to offload him this off season but the rest of the league can see that he is on the rapid decline. The team isn’t going to let $275 million sit on the bench, and nobody wants to trade for him, so I fear that the Yankees are stuck with him for at least the final 5 years of his mega contract. I have had many a conversations with Yankees fans since October and I haven’t heard a single one of them defend A-rod. If our General Manager and Manager clearly don’t have confidence in him, how are we supposed to? Giving him that contract was a huge mistake. If they had that money back, great players that actually produce like Cano would already be signed to a new deal, and Nick Swisher would have never left the Bronx.
Prediction: when if A-rod comes back this season, he will be booed at Yankee Stadium.
What do you think? Like him or hate him?
