Three Sixty

By Jon

It seems as if A-Rod has decided pinstripes don't look so bad on him after all.

Rodriguez has apparently all but ditched Scott Boras and reopened talks with the Yankees.

This could mean a couple of different things:

A) A-Rod and Boras realized there wasn't a team willing to take on his enormous contract demands (reportedly $350 million). This is probably the most logical explanation. There's no way one player is worth that much cash. You know you won't have a suitor if your demands are too much for the Yankees.

B) A-Rod realized that Boras is a moron and more or less told him to hit the road. All of the crap Boras pulled with A-Rod pumping wealth into the YES Network is just that..... crap. Sorry Scott, but the Yanks don't need your client to pimp their network, they have history and one of the most dedicated fanbases in baseball on their side. Boras has reduced A-Rod's market value (just how much it is reduced remains to be seen) and drew the ire of baseball followers everywhere with his dubious Game Four announcement, and A-Rod may have finally had enough.

C) Boras may be up to something. The fact that Boras is even a teensy bit involved in the negotiations seems a bit fishy. Color me incredibly skeptical. This may be some elaborate scheme concocted by Boras to make A-Rod more appealing to the Yankees and the media. With A-Rod contacting the Steinbrenner's personally, as opposed to through Boras, it seems that he WANTS to be in pinstripes, and this very well could be true. It also makes Boras look like the villain, and effectively takes away any blame from Rodriguez for the crazy demands and dramatics caused by his opt out. Boras may have been the one to put A-Rod up to personally contacting the Yanks as part of his master plan to save Rodriguez's credibility and may save him some of the dollars he threw away over the past few weeks. Also, if it seems like they are in serious talks with the Yankees, another team may feel forced to offer Rodriguez the contract that he can't refuse, making Boras seem like a "superagent" once again.

After typing this out, I may have convinced myself that Boras is still in control. There's no other reason that I can think of as to why Scott is still around, even if his role is diminished. A-Rod giving up the $20 million of Tom Hicks' money is certainly a nice gesture, but when you are talking about hundreds of millions of dollars, it's just a drop in the bucket. Call it my gut feeling, call it intuition, whatever. But I won't believe that Rodriguez had a change of heart until he signs on the bottom line.