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Watching the Mets/Yanks game last night, the broadcast crew was going on about the Yankees saying they would not be paying the HR bonuses to ARod for passing Mays, Ruth, Aaron and Bonds. (I think it's $6M for each bench mark.)

I don't know if it was Kruk or Mr. Bloody Sock who suggested the two sides should just agree to give that money to charity, but they reported the Yankees felt they could get out of making the "marketing opportunity" payments because ARod was no longer marketable.

Exactly whose fault is it that ARod is less-marketable than he used to be? Marketing is propaganda. It's like the Yankees have been reading out of Bud Selig's playbook on how to denigrate your own (league) team. For crying out loud, they own their own network. They can report their own news.

I hear the fans cheer pretty loudly when ARod comes up to bat in Yankee Stadium. Perhaps the Yankees should embrace ARod's accomplishments rather than litigate them.

I mean, is the guy on the team or not? The Yankees are free to say Rodriguez is a bad guy and his numbers mean nothing, but if they feel that way, they should release him. If not, they should treat him like he's part of their ballclub.

As I understand the situation, the Yankees have two contracts with Rodriguez - one for playing and the other is a marketing type contract with payments made for certain milestone home runs. As we know, teams have no relief under the standard playing contracts for PED use - they are bound by the collective bargaining agreement and so Rodriguez served his suspension and the Yankees cannot get out of the playing contract. The Yankees' theory, as I understand it, is that the separate marketing type contract is not governed by the collective bargaining agreement and, therefore, PED use can impact the team's obligations. The Yankees intend to argue that Rodriguez's PED use essentially killed any marketing value with respect to the anticipated milestone home runs and, therefore, they should not be obligated to make the payments under the contract. I do not fully understand how you can have multiple contracts with the same player and if this marketing type contract truly is unaffected by the collective bargaining agreement. If it is separate, and the contract contains language giving the Yankees an out on the marketing payments because of the PED use, then they should pursue that out in my opinion.

I'm a huge Yankees fan but I thought they were stupid for renegotiating Rodriguez' contract (when he opted out, they should have let him walk). His PED use is an embarrassment to baseball and the pinstripes and I wish he played elsewhere. His suing baseball and the players' union (while its leader was dying of brain cancer), while throwing the Yankees' doctors under the bus in an effort to get out of a suspension when he clearly was guilty of PED use (as he later admitted) was appalling. I do not think the Yankees owe him one penny more than what he might be entitled to. If they have an out under this marketing type contract, they should pursue it. Rodriguez does not deserve any more of the Yankees' money, and his own actions have rendered the milestones as complete non-events.

(Just my two cents based on what I have heard about the contracts.)

Mike

Yah Mule wrote:I mean, is the guy on the team or not? The Yankees are free to say Rodriguez is a bad guy and his numbers mean nothing, but if they feel that way, they should release him. If not, they should treat him like he's part of their ballclub.

It's the Arte Moreno school of baseball management.

Yah Mule wrote:I mean, is the guy on the team or not? The Yankees are free to say Rodriguez is a bad guy and his numbers mean nothing, but if they feel that way, they should release him. If not, they should treat him like he's part of their ballclub.

This.

Actually, the Yankees should do what they are doing. He's playing well and helping the team right now. Keep him in the lineup, on the team and try to earn something back from the $25 M's that it's costing you this season.

But battle him on every other issue and make him look like the jerk he is. If I were the Yanks, I wouldn't be in a hurry to pay out these bonuses either.

That being said, the contract they gave him in '07 has to be the worst contract in MLB history. So they have only themselves to blame.