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Until Mike Trout dethroned him for the title of "Mike Trout."
I don't believe it.
I really don't care one way or the other about A Rod, but he definitely comes off as one of the most vain human beings in sports.
So she's definitely the one who leaked the whole flirting story, right?
Behind pretty much every owner.
It's not about anything but this. The Yankees want him gone; but they don't want to look as stupid as they actually were with regards to the contract. No one is going to eat any substantial part of that contract. Therefore I think that this will be a protracted negotiation.
That question is already answered -- the money will be flushed. The only question is whether the Yankees first hand it to another team before it goes into the crapper...
Public figures are public figures and they forego some (most?) of their privacy. But a private figure should not be subject to being aired out.
I vehemently hope that you erase the mentions to this young woman's name from this and/or any other thread.
If the Phils have to carry a shitty $100M contract, might as well be at a position where it's not blocking someone who might be useful.
Well right now it's in the reported neighborhood of $150 million per year.
I just don't get this from the Yankees' side of things. Unless they really thing A-Rod is cooked, this smacks of using the long-time pinstripe scapegoat to divert attention away from how shitty almost everyone else in the lineup has been.
Think about how quickly this has unraveled. In the span of a week we've gone from seeing A-Rod pinch hit for to him being benched to all of this talk about how the Yankees are going to unload him this off-season. Yankees management must be either really dumb to let this get away from them like it has or this was a premeditated plan made to have the appearance of a sudden development. It just doesn't really make sense otherwise.
This is just ####### idiotic.
"We're spending more than this player is worth, to get above-average production. What we need to do is pay someone else to get that above average production, saving an insignificant amount of money, and then try to find someone to play 3B who will probably be a worse producer. But at least we'll save almost no money."
It certainly makes a boatload of sense for the Phils, and the awful contracts match up well. I'm not sure the Yanks want to acquire someone as limited defensively as Howard, though.
Or maybe he'd just rather play everyday than be on the short side of a platoon.
I'm sure he'd like the team to keep winning, but watching Chavez continue to go 0-for-his-Yankee-life-in-the-playoffs makes Girardi look like a real idiot for swapping them out...especially when Chavez makes an error in the field.
Yup. I mean, if the Marlins supposedly offer Bell with the Yankees eating the rest, why on earth wouldn't the Phillies get in on that? Offer Rollins, since the team can move Jeter to 3B and claim it's because of the injury and not diminished performance.
The Howard for A-Rod thing won't happen, unless the plan is to DH Howard full-time, and I'm not sure there's evidence Howard would do well in that role... or at least certainly not enough evidence that I'd roll the dice and acquire the only contract in baseball that is possible more unmoveable than the one I'm getting rid of.
EDIT: Editor, heal thyself...
This is key. The market for third basemen right now is awfully thin. Unless they think Eric Chavez can suddenly stay off the DL and continue to be productive, your FA options are Kevin Youkilis (if you trust him at third), Edwin Encarnacion (who is a DH now), Mark DeRosa or Brandon Inge. You could get lucky and maybe the Phils turn down Ty Wigginton's option.
I figure they get around his defensive shortcomings by having him DH.
Not that it really makes any sense anyway, since finding a replacement 3B is going to be much harder than finding a DH, but then dumping ARod doesn't make that much sense in the first place, and if they're really committed to that, I can see them figuring that bad $100M is better spent on having Howard than massively subsidizing someone else to take ARod.
Hands off! He's Blue Jay property for another 3 years.
Edwin signed an extension in July. He won't be a free agent until after 2015 or 2016, depending on whether or not the Jays pick up his option. Hopefully he'll never have to play another inning at third.
Hopefully Valbuena will be also. Not bad enough for them to lose 100 games, I had to watch this schmuck swing the bat?
It's clear by now that, while Girardi may have started us down this path, the Yankees are clearly on board. The question is why. The gossip about the girl in the stands doesn't really make sense, as this path was started down before that point - ARod had already been benched once and pinch hit for twice - and you don't make playoff baseball decisions that way. Though it would be quite ironic coming from Brian Cashman, a man who allowed a second woman into his marriage who turned out to be unstable, contributing to the demise of his marriage and an embarrassment for the Yankes.
In any event, assuming this is a baseball decision, them benching ARod and not pinch-hitting him means the Yankees have to believe he is just done and can't help them anymore. On what evidence? 25 PA? 0 for his last 18 vs RHP - but with some hard-hit balls and being robbed a couple times?
On what basis can he possibly be said to not be able to hit LHP?
Since the gossip issue doesn't make sense and the baseball reasons don't make sense as far as supporting a complete benching in favor of an 0-14 player and without even pinch-hitting duties, there must be something else going on. But what? The Yankees should say so; because I don't know how as a fan of this team - which I'm not - you can sit there and root for the Yankees when it's clear they're not trying their best to win. If Chavez goes down I would have to believe we will not see ARod.
I think the most supportive argument you can make for Girardi is that A-Rod is just not healthy. He didn't really do much after his return from injury and obviously he's been poor in the playoffs. It's not as visible an injury as Lowell in 2008 but it wouldn't surprise that that is the driver here.
What makes it unlikely that that is the cause is the failure of the Yankees to say anything. Why not just say "hey, he's still hurt" and give the guy some cover?
Is he even available? Does anybody know?
.300/.351/.520 with 3 HR
Since then (September 19):
.202/.299/.214 with 0 HR
He might/probably would... but I think I'd be unhappy if my GM paid that much.
So ... AROD and money for Wells & Callaspo is about the closest thing I can come up with. AROD and money for Hanley is conceivable.
Except ... I hadn't thought about Jeter's injury which might require a move to 3B/DH (or gives the Yanks cover to make the move). Some of this nonsense might be fueled by that -- they want to open 3B for Jeter.
Then, yeah, ARod for Rollins starts to make sense although I'm not seeing what problem that solves for the Phils, it just shifts their hole from 3B to SS. Does Amaro really want to dump Howard? Howard & Rollins for ARod I think actually saves the Phils money (while probably making them a worse team) if they want to start their rebuild.
Any ridiculously overpriced SS out there? Besides Jeter.
Can Alfonso Soriano play 3B?
He is all things to all people.
He has played third! Years ago.
Weren't Yankee fans calling for his benching during the 2003 post-season? Talk about a guy who has struggled in October...
Eek.
This has truly been a bizarre, WTF story. Ibanez was left for dead a few weeks ago, after having had a .600 OPS for a long stretch. Now we're at the point where ARod can't pinch hit for him in the 9th inning against a LHP with the season on the line.
At this point, I'm not sure I'd even want an even-money swap of Soriano for A-Rod... and that's considering the Cubs have an absolutely gaping hole at 3B.
Maybe if the Yankees tossed in a lottery ticket and ate even more contract (meaning - the Cubs get A-Rod for say... 30 mil total -- compared to the 36 mil they still owe Soriano).... but a straight-up at salary neutral for the Cubs?
No thanks... not interested.
I saw some ESPN talking head claim that he talked to GMs about it, and the consensus was roughly 1 year for $5M.
Not sure I buy that. At least one fool GM would hand him 2 yr/$16M or something. Maybe up to the 3/36 you mention.
Yep, this whole thing has a weird feel to it. I was thinking maybe there's something like a pending 50 game suspension under appeal right now or something like that. But since it's the Yankees it seems like that would leak pretty quick. But this reminds me of a combination of the Melky Cabrera and Jose Guillen suspensions ... weird rumblings preceded the big news.
This A-Rod thing is like a crazy version of Tim Lincecum's whole year. Lincecum's gone well into the post-season out of the bullpen until he was announced as the starter for today's game. Granted Lincecum was downright terrible through 2/3rds of the season, but he's been pitching better -- he's only really had 1-2 bad starts since early August and used to be the OFFICIAL STAFF ACE -- but they kept going with Zito.
The team (Bochy, I think, and maybe Sabey-sabes) also bad-mouthed him early in the year when he was struggling, saying "it wasn't mechanics" but rather "conditioning and mental." How did they know? Why were they so sure that they'd say it to the press? I figured maybe they had to bail him out of the drunk tank (or whatever the pot version of the drunk tank is) in the middle of the night and pay someone to keep it quiet. It seemed like they were kicking him when he was down, and why do that unless you think he deserves it?
Regardless, it seems Lincecum continued to get punished for God-knows-what well past the point where his season turned around, to the detriment of the team. There must have been a reason.
Just like A-Rod -- it seems almost a sure thing that he won't be back in the line-up -- like there's been a conversation along the lines of "you're done for the year, and you know why."
(I was in Boston this week on business, and the local Fox morning news had a segment called 'Let it Rip,' -- where they speculate wildly on stories with absolutely no evidence to support their ideas.)
You'd have to be crazy to think that A-Rod would have a hard time getting more than 2/16 on the free agent market. He hit .272/.353/.430 in his worst year ever for an OPS of 112 and is only 36. Projecting in a straight line would be foolish. He'll have a dead cat bounce at some point, even if its only up to an 850 OPS.
A-Rod hits 90 home runs that land 1 foot past the fence next year.
Yep, this whole thing has a weird feel to it. I was thinking maybe there's something like a pending 50 game suspension under appeal right now or something like that.
Holy ####. That makes some sense in a weird sort of wya. Or our dept. happy hour was better than I'd thought.
How funny would it be to see the Yankees' B Team get no-hit out of the playoffs. It's happening now through 4 innings. You can't blame that on ARod; he's had 7 PA in the series.
And the answer is simple: Because they don't trust A-Rod in the postseason.
If the retort is, "Then that's stupid, they should trade the risk for A-Rod's reasonably projectable 2013 and 2014 regular seasons," no argument, but the answer's the answer.
I will caveat by seconding the possibilty that something like a positive roid test or other weird development is going on behind the scenes.
Wow.... just wow...
really?
I don't think I'd go even half that -- unless both those contract were heavily incentive-based. I'm not saying A-Rod isn't getting jerked around, but that seems like 'guaranteeing' a bounce back salary, or at least, guaranteeing an arrested slide.
Aramis Ramirez got 3/$36 last year. ARam was no spring chicken, was fragile, had only 3.1 WAR over the previous 3 years including a horrible 2010. Jeter signed a couple years ago for 3/$51 and nobody batted an eye. Abreu got 1/$9 (following his 2/$18 at 36). Even Carlos Pena pulled down 1/$7.25 and pre-busted Melky got 1/$6.
If the last month is ARod's future then he's toast. Otherwise, he's still an above-average 3B who wouldn't kill you at 1B/DH but can probably only be counted on for 450-500 PA a year. That's not a particularly valuable player but 2-3 WAR still costs you about $8-12 M per year.
However, I think what has followed is supremely ridiculous. I wouldn't want to be on the hook for a lot of money to A-Rod and I wouldn't give up either money or great prospects to get him. But I think he'll be a good player for another couple of years. Of course, he might be great. And he might be done.
Pretty funny. The Yankees are basically flailing in desperation and disarray. Hard not to see the humor in that.
The M's offer Stefan Romero for A-Rod plus $100 million.
Has a team that reached the ALCS ever ended a season in such disarray?
Yeah - but he's doing that in 2/3 a season nowadays... I mean, he'll be 37 next year - maybe his bat can bounce back, maybe not - but what are the chances he ever plays even 140 games in a season again? What are the chances that he never eclipses 99 games again?
I mean - I'd be willing to overpay for A-Rod with some wild and crazy incentives, but not overpay with guaranteed money in the hopes that he can bounce back
No chance that something like this is affecting his availability. Did this "positive roid test" cause Girardi to PH Ibanez for him? Did it cause Girardi to bench him in game 5 of the ALDS, then bring him back in the ALCS? Why is he rostered for the ALCS if they can't or are not allowed to play him?
I appreciate the efforts to grasp at straws in explaining the unexplainable, but the steroids conspiracy theory makes zero sense.
I can recall teams getting bounced unceremoniously from the playoffs.
I cannot recall a team inflicting this many bloody wounds on itself in hastening their ouster. By jerking Arod, Swisher, and Granderson in and out of the lineup and with the Jeter injury, they've turned half the lineup over.
The counter to the theory, beyond its unlikelihood, is the fact that the Yankees are entirely adrift, engaged in almost serial benchings.
I'm not watching the same game. The Yankees I'm watching today are flailing like they have a train to catch. Their minds are somewhere else. There is no sense of urgency or desperation or hint that they understand this is an elimination game. They are sleepwalking. Even Girardi, not getting a reliever up after Cabrera's HR. Everyone wants it to be over. Today.
I think my schadenfreude would be complete if all the Yankees just came out on the field in the 7th and took one show off, and just sat there, ala Luke Wilson/Baumer in the Royal Tannebaums.
I can't say I blame them.
Wrong thread.
Oh, I think it's quite probable that he isn't fully healthy. The problem is that this really doesn't let Girardi/Yankees off the hook for handling the issue at all. If he's to injured to play productively, you say "unfortunatley he is too hurt to help us right now, he'll be missed, but we'll try and move on without him" etc. What you don't do, is completely throw him under the bus, and then make the bus back up and reverse over him 7 times.
Well right now it's in the reported neighborhood of $150 million per year.
How much would that leave on his contract for the acquiring team to pay?
The Yankees never scored a run before the sixth inning of any game. They never had a lead in the series. Enough said.
Yeah - but he's doing that in 2/3 a season nowadays... I mean, he'll be 37 next year - maybe his bat can bounce back, maybe not - but what are the chances he ever plays even 140 games in a season again? What are the chances that he never eclipses 99 games again?
Right, you're probably getting about 120 games a season for the next 2-3 seasons. But, by the stats, he's still a perfectly good defensive 3B and he's still a better hitter than the average 3B. 9.6 WAR over the last 3 seasons. Only 2 WAR this year but even if you dock him 10 runs on defense, he'd have had 2.7 WAR in 2011 in 99 games. A quick Marcel puts him at about a 115 OPS+, dock him 5% and he's around a 105-110. I would think he still projects to something in the neighborhood of 6 WAR over the next 3 years. Nothing to get excited about but at today's prices that's arguably $30-35 M worth. I've got doubts he'd actually get 3/$36 as an FA as teams seem to have learned a bit of a lesson there. But an Abreu-like 2/$18 (with incentives, an option?) should be on the table.
Yeah, his days as AROD!! are over. It certainly doesn't look like he's going to have a Chipper-style swan song. But we come to that conclusion based on the last 3 seasons. The last month is just a bad month for now.
Highly unlikely. AROD's career is better - but Hanley is about 8.5 years younger, and had a reasonably comparable year with the bat. Both are negative fielders at this stage, but Hanley can still play short in a pinch.
The Yanks would have to throw something else in that Ned would want. And I can't see the Yankees agreeing to that.
I was under the impression that he had a no-trade contract and $122M guaranteed due, and that he explained to the press after the game that he would not permit the trade clause to be used, and that he expected big things in NY in 2013.
If so, this reads like analysis of how the unarmed hostage will choose to dispose of the armed captor.
Maybe, but let's ignore the AK-47 in the room, and who is currently pointing it, so to speak.
I agree but any trade of ARod is highly unlikely. For this to happen:
a) if we take bWAR numbers seriously, Hanley has been worth just 3.7 WAR over the last three years which is 6 wins less than ARod ... so not close. fWAR likes Hanley a lot better than b-r does and the gap is only about 1.5 wins.* Regardless, Hanley has hit worse than ARod over the last 3 years (while being much more durable). It seems clear Hanley has been at least slightly worse than ARod over the last 3 years.
b) but the Yanks are convinced ARod is toast and figure they are eating $114 M either way.
c) the Dodgers have either tired of Hanley (he was no godsend for them) or would rather have ARod at 5/$31 (or 5/$40 or 5/$50) than Hanley at 2/$31.
As you say, highly unlikely. But unless the Yanks really are going to sign Youkilis (hardly impossible) or move Jeter to 3B (certainly possible with the injury), the Yanks have to get a 3B back and have to eat a big contract. The only other swap I've come up with like that is ARod for Wells and Callaspo (one year left on his contract); ARod for Howard and Rollins (Jeter to 3rd) is the other one I can see.
The most likely outcome of course is that ARod stays put. There aren't a lot of albatross contracts out there right now -- Howard, Crawford, Wells ... must be somebody I'm forgetting. (There are plenty which will probably turn into albatrosses eventually but it's too soon for their teams to give up on them.) Helton, Soriano, Lackey and Zito are almost done. The Yanks can't trade ARod for Tex. People toss Heath Bell's name around but he's only owed 2/$18.
If ARod's truly done, if the other GMs are serious about nothing better than a 1/$5 offer, then obviously ARod's going nowhere but the waiver wire eventually. But we'll have no fun speculating with that as our starting assumption. So we have to assume that somebody thinks ARod has some left in the tank, say at as much left in the tank as Aramis Ramirez. Starting from there, what trades make sense for both teams?
* It's not all defense either and it's a pretty critical difference. Hanley has either been worth nowhere near what he's paid or he's worth about exactly what he's been paid. If the latter, the Dodgers really have no incentive to trade him.
For the right price, I'd love to see him in Atlanta as Chipper's replacement. The Braves are a contending them that needs a few pieces. They have a hole at 3B and are used to getting 120-130 games from their starter there. The team is otherwise pretty young. The offense is very lefty heavy with Heyward, Freeman, and a hopefully healthy McCann. With Jones' retirement, there is room in Liberty Media's budget. It's a low pressure media market and close to his Florida home. If NYY picks up $17-20m per year, I'd be happy to toss one or two of the Braves lottery pick minor league arms.
Sure, but we're not asking what you would do, we're asking what the market would do. The market frequently pays more than we would.
Crazy thought: A-Rod and cash to Boston for John Lackey!
fWAR has an unrealistically low replacement level.
True. If A-Rod doesn't want to leave, he isn't leaving. But I took this as both a sincere statement: "I'd like to stay" and a threat: "If you want me to leave, it's going to cost you."
A-Rod, surprisingly, to me, has carried himself with class and dignity through the last couple of weeks. Perhaps the Yanks figured he'd do some sort of sulk and they could use that to their advantage*. Perhaps this really is just a clash of personalities. It's pretty clear Girardi and several** Yanks just don't like A-Rod. Perhaps A-Rod's subpar postseason performance is because he's in cahoots with gamblers and this was Girardi's way of trying to minimize the damage. Who knows?
BIn the end, I suspect that if the Yankees make life hard enough of A-Rod and can provide a good landing place for him with some incentives, he'll waive the no-trade. But none of us really knows what is going on and it seems clear there are issues hidden from public view that are driving much of this. Because, given what we know, none of it makes much sense.
Sure - but I would presumably be one of that market, having at least some impact... I think any team paying more than 30 million for A-Rod is likely to get less than that in value -- Walt's #81 sounds about right, I'm just taking the low side.
Of course, there are certain situations where it's worth it to overpay -- if you're a legit contender with a hole at 3B, and you can essentially get him for free from the Yankees -- I could see going 35+.
I thought Lackey still had a fair number of years left... it feels weird looking at Soriano like he's no longer an albatross, but at this point, he really isn't. Sure, sure -- he's way overpaid -- but just two more years and it's not like he's really blocking anyone (nor is he any sort of clubhouse problem). I would have been willing to either jump dump or pay to dump plus get a lottery ticket back this past season, but at this point? I really don't care if he gets moved or not. I'm not expecting anything like 2012 in his 2013 or 2014 season, but I think it's not unreasonable to say Soriano's 2013 may well be somewhere in between his 2012 and 2011... say, 110 OPS+. I wish we weren't paying 18 mil for that, of course.
At this point with Fonsie -- I'd obviously listen to offers, and absolutely be willing to eat a good chunk of the remaining dollars, but I'd expect something of at least minimal value back. I'm no longer just desperate to dump him. A couple lottery tickets or a cheapish but unexciting OF or a backend SP with favorable contract situation or something. I'm not saying I would expect anyone to offer up that, but it would probably be in the neighborhood of what I'd ask for.
You're just a footnote tease, that's what you are.
QFT. Don't forget that this is the Yankees. The one team that couldn't care less about flushing money down the toilet, but for some reason they never seem to have to. I mean, the Cubs had to pay basically Zambrano's whole salary to be rid of him. But when the Yankees got tired of overpaying Irabu, they dumped him on the Expos without having to pay anything. They even got some useful parts. When they didn't want to overpay Sheffield any more, they got the Tigers to take him without having to throw in any cash at all. It's what they do.
Don't forget the Big Unit back to Arizona deal... it's not like the Yankees got a haul, but the only thing they really had to eat was Luis Vizcaino.
This is the narrative, but I'd like to point out for the record that it's not a 100% certainty that this is what has gone on for the last week.
Joe Girardi chose not to use Rodriguez as much as he could have in the Tiger series. That's not disputable.
But he could have been watching the ABs. He could have information that we don't share out here. Girardi obviously believed that he had better options than A-Rod this week. Despite all of the hand-wringing, I don't think he's necessarily said anything about not having him on the team at all going forward.
Are the Yankees better off with Jayson Nix playing every day at third and maybe as much as $50 million of payroll flexibility in 2013? I don't think they are, and I believe that Yankee brass, given time to process this loss, will agree with me.
You're just a footnote tease, that's what you are.
Hmm. I wonder what those were going to be.
* How, I have no idea.
** Certainly not all, IMO.
Erik, it's true that Girardi may have - hopefully was - basing his decisions on more than personal dislike. I'm more thinking how no one ever seems to rise very enthusiastically to his defense. You can imagine how it will go when/if Jeter has to be PH for or benched. One, he's already been there and they didn't do it. Two, they will fall all over themselves saying how it tears them up. I don't think Girardi sat A-Rod because he doesn't like him. I just don't think he's too broken up about it. Aside from how it hurts the team to not have a superstar 3Bman.
.300/.351/.520 with 3 HR
Since then (September 19):
.202/.299/.214 with 0 HR
I am not sure this eliminates the injury being part of the cause. I know personally that I had a knee issue that initially seemed to be fixed but then got progressively worse over the summer as I played. I needed additional rest before it got better. So I could see a scenario where ARod is pain free right after coming off the DL, but that it started to return as he continued to play.
Ewwww.
I don't think he goes anywhere, but we'll see.
Do the Yankees have anything else of value that they would/could throw into the deal?
Nova? Lots of B- to B pitching prospects.
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