Rodriguez announces sad end to storied career
It’s a new era for the New York Yankees. A disappointing season has led to a complete youth movement in the evil empire and to nobody’s surprise; Alex Rodriguez will not be a part of that. Just days after Mark Teixeira announced his would be his final season before he retired at the end of the year, Rodriguez announced he’ll be released after Friday’s game, will retire and take on an advisory role with the ball club.
In an emotional press conference on Sunday morning, a teary-eyed Rodriguez walked the media through the end of his baseball career. Rodriguez, who has only started one of the team’s last 14 games while hitting a career-low .204 this year, will be given the chance to start one more game in front of a home crowd at Yankees Stadium on Friday at the start of a three-game series against the Boston Red Sox, but after that game he’s done.
While Teixeira never lived up to his huge contract that was given eight years ago, it’s much easier to say Rodriguez was worth his incredible $275 million contract, that even by today’s standards is still a massive contract. Rodriguez continually has his struggles in the postseason and he was suspended for the entire 2014 season, but the man who came over in 2004 in a massive trade led the majors twice while wearing pinstripes and regular was an MVP candidate. This year has been miserable for him as he’s at catastrophic career-lows across the board, but he did once play a huge part in the Yankees winning a world series. He did hammer the ball and do what he was brought in to do.
Though he’s still on the team for a few more days, the end of Rodriguez’ career does seem a little bit empty. He’ll have the big send off on Friday, but he’s not leaving on his own terms and he’ll likely finish just below the 700 career-home runs plateau with 696 so far. Meanwhile, David Ortiz is having a tremendous year, going out on his major league tour and with a 13th deserved All-Star appearance while the Red Sox are winning.
Rodriguez will still be paid the rest of the $20 million he is owed this year and will be paid the entire guaranteed $20 million he’s owed next year, the Yankees are just going another way and older players like Rodriguez are not part of that direction.
And in a grander theme of this year, with Rodriguez essentially being told to retire and Teixeira and Ortiz both set to retire, it’s an end of an era of the great-arms race between the Yankees and Red Sox for supremacy. Rodriguez was originally supposed to go to the Red Sox as an answer for the Yankees winning the AL pennant in 2003. Ultimately in a series of twists and turns he ended up with the Yankees and somehow the Red Sox ended up winning the World Series anyway. That only forced the Yankees to shell out more big money to guys like Teixeira and CC Sabathia. That era is over.
But don’t miss it too much, after the Yankees cleared out $35 million in yearly salary with the trades of Carlos Beltran, Andrew Miller and Aroldis Chapman, and are about to rid themselves of another $22.5 million with the retirement of Teixeira, they have plenty of money to out and start a news arms race; likely targeting pending free agent stars like Manny Machado, Adam Jones and Bryce Harper, while the Red Sox have an additional $16 million to play with, with the retirement of the Ortiz.
Corey Johns
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