I'm calling it: "eye-popping" is officially overused as a compound adjective.

In many ways, he remains the last vestige of the George Steinbrenner Yankees, a spectacle bought, overpaid for and impossible to ignore.

At this point, he can only try to mentor the rest of the Yankees, a ragtag group of underpaid rookies.

Is it a stretch to imagine a day when Rodriguez’s 10-year deal that could earn him more than $300 million — including bonus money for breaking the career home run record — will be considered the most ill-advised player contract in the history of the game?

If he breaks the HR record, it will be money well spent. OK, not well spent, but not a complete ####-up. The point is, you cannot hold the incentives against him while simultaneously saying he's finished. Either he is through, and $30 mil comes off the books, or he is not, and the Yanks still get some value for their $$$

Why is Arod being singled out when Teix has nearly a similar length contract and is performing even worse than Arod, and arguably at a rate level worse than him since he joined the team.

Teix is garbage right now.

But, on the other hand, Captain Jeter is at an eye-popping .290. If he finishes the year at .300 we'll never hear the end of it...and hell, he'll deserve the credit for rising from the dead. Sure he barely hits a double, but his .350 OBP has got to put him near the top for SS, right?

Meanwhile, Jeter got four more hits tonight, and is hitting .333 / .388 / .477 / .865 since he returned from the DL on July 4th. And very few of those hits lately have been of the infield single variety. Who in the hell would have predicted that?

EDIT: most of a coke to WJ

At the very least, he's no longer a liability.

Why is Arod being singled out when Teix has nearly a similar length contract and is performing even worse than Arod, and arguably at a rate level worse than him since he joined the team.

That is a great question. Some writers still talk about him as if he is a perennial All-Star when he hasn't been a star level hitter at first for nearly two seasons.

Sure he barely hits a double, but his .350 OBP has got to put him near the top for SS, right?

Tied for third in the AL. Escobar has a .376 OBP right now, I don't think Jeter's getting there. Still, he's now an above average hitter right now (his RC+ was at 100 before tonight). This hot streak has been awesome to watch/follow.

I saw what you guys did there (# 6-8). Changed the subject from the prospects for the A-Rod deal going forward and thought we wouldn't notice, huh?

Deft, that.

[4-5] Maybe because Araton doesn't follow Baseball? Articles like this lead me to wonder how long the Times is stuck with his contract.

Remember how Rodriguez opted out of that contract in 2007 and the Goldman Sachs people acted as intermediaries between player and team after negotiations collapsed and both sides announced they were moving on?

He's really serious about Alex being the symbol par excellence of the age, not sub-prime mortgages, credit default swaps, the housing bubble.

And all this time I thought Barry's head was too big to fail.

Who knew -- Chone puts AROD at +11 in the field.

Yikes! By WAR this is an horrific contract so far. The last 3 seasons is $100 M for only about 10-11 WAR.

I saw what you guys did there (# 6-8). Changed the subject from the prospects for the A-Rod deal going forward and thought we wouldn't notice, huh?

Deft, that.

Well, I guess nobody ever pulls the wool over the eyes of Sam M. Santana!

the most ill-advised player contract in the history of the game?

There's a sense in which every cent paid Alex Rodriguez since 2001 has been the most ill-advised salary in history, if you take the view that today's ballplayers are overpaid prima donnas and all that. He's had a big target on his back for a decade of sniping from the pressbox.

There's another in which, what are you smoking, the pipe of bitterness? Since his new contract, AROD has had three straight 30 HR, 100 RBI seasons, and the Yankees won their first World Series in nine years. This is probably not worth $300M or even $275M in direct dollar terms, but the most ill-advised contract in history? I can understand not remembering Wayne Garland, but surely people remember Gary Matthews Jr. Vernon Wells is still around. The Phillies paid Adam Eaton $8M in 2008, and that came close to costing them a World Championship :) AROD is not even on the Ill-Advised Chart.

It's hard to complain too much about what the A-Rod contract might become when you can look at the Angels and the double stupidity of the GMJ contract followed by trading for Vernon Wells.

I'm calling it: "eye-popping" is officially overused as a compound adjective.

I think it's still OK for things that involve the literal popping of eyes, e.g. "the eye-popping ending of Total Recall".

I think it's still OK for things that involve the literal popping of eyes, e.g. "the eye-popping ending of Total Recall".

"Eye-popping" is the third breast of English.

Meanwhile, Jeter got four more hits tonight, and is hitting .333 / .388 / .477 / .865 since he returned from the DL on July 4th. And very few of those hits lately have been of the infield single variety. Who in the hell would have predicted that?

I will admit I thought he was done, and this latest stretch does impress me. That said, he's still not hitting for much power, is he? This is mainly BA and walks driven, and I did think that he could still have some good months that way. Mainly I thought his power was completely gone and his BA ability was way down. I still thought he could fluke into a high batting average, and a BABIP of .343 in July and .429 in August seems to be what happened, for the most part. (The .343 was probably just some deserved good luck, while the .429 is simply a fluke and not sustainable.)

I will admit I thought he was done, and this latest stretch does impress me. That said, he's still not hitting for much power, is he? This is mainly BA and walks driven, and I did think that he could still have some good months that way. Mainly I thought his power was completely gone and his BA ability was way down. I still thought he could fluke into a high batting average, and a BABIP of .343 in July and .429 in August seems to be what happened, for the most part. (The .343 was probably just some deserved good luck, while the .429 is simply a fluke and not sustainable.)

Of course this six week run doesn't mean that Jeter's back to 2009, since his XBH are almost exclusively confined to doubles. But at least there's this: Most of his recent hits have been legitimate line drives or hard ground balls in the classic Jeter mode. Earlier in the year his average, pitiful as it was, would have been even lower if not for all the infield squigglers. I guess the best way to put it is to say that for the first time in well over a year, I'm actually looking forward to Jeter's plate appearances, instead of ducking behind the couch in anticipated horror. How long it'll continue is anybody's guess, but right now I'm just enjoying it for what it is.

And who knows, if Papi can arise from the dead at 34, maybe Jeter can do likewise at 37. Can't blame us for hoping.

It's a lot to expect of Jeter - or A-Rod - to equal every aspect of their younger game at an older age. The angst about Jeter wasn't that he had declined but that he had collapsed. There is absolutely no way Jeter is an All-Star level player the last three years of his career. But if he can be a solid performer, as he has been recently, then the contract isn't bad and it'll be a feel good story for his fans. Hell, that really is the best ending you can hope for from an aging HOFer: not a liability. They're going to get worse, else they would play forever.

It really is too early to say on A-Rod. "if his physical decline continues at the rate it has been going" is a big disclaimer. I mean, if his physical decline accelerates any, he'll be dead by 2017. And, again, contracts like this are not written expecting HOF level peak at the end of it. Only idiot sportswriters and bad GMs seems surprised that aging ballplayers decline.

It's a lot to expect of Jeter - or A-Rod - to equal every aspect of their younger game at an older age. The angst about Jeter wasn't that he had declined but that he had collapsed. There is absolutely no way Jeter is an All-Star level player the last three years of his career. But if he can be a solid performer, as he has been recently, then the contract isn't bad and it'll be a feel good story for his fans. Hell, that really is the best ending you can hope for from an aging HOFer: not a liability. They're going to get worse, else they would play forever.

Bingo. I don't know any Yankee fans who think or even hope that peak Jeter is back. At this point, we're just happy if he's not a disastrous train wreck like he was the first couple months of the season.

Araton needs to smoke the objective pipe.

Hell, that really is the best ending you can hope for from an aging HOFer: not a liability. They're going to get worse, else they would play forever.

Yeah, it's really nice to see him out there not embarrassing himself. Watching him the last couple of months has been a blast from the past and an absolute joy. Heck, he's got a better OBP than the team's 20 million dollar first baseman.

I also get a shocking amount of satisfaction from the fact that Repoz has had to stop posting those obnoxious comparisons to Biggio's 3000 hit season.