I thought A-Rod was in the driver's seat. He was going to get $31 million a year from the Giants, Angels or Dodgers. His agent Scott Boras, despite being a little off with his timing off A-Rod's opt out during the World Series, was setting up one of his classic negotiations. And he was going to win. I had no doubt.
If someone asked me, what's the weirdest turn this story could take? I would say that it would be the New York Yankees getting back into the game and buckling on their stance that they wouldn't deal with Rodriguez after he opted out and they lost the Texas Rangers' contribution to the deal.
But I would have never guessed that Rodriguez himself would have turned on Boras and gone to the Yankees himself.
Every player who signs with Scott Boras knows this deal. It's usually top dollar. You'll go where you go and happiness comes from the buck. Not the place. Not the team. I, by the way, have no problem with this. If a player wants to live that way, it's his deal.
If this is what we think it is--A-Rod's firing of Boras and the "Boras philosophy"--some time over the last couple weeks, he reached into his wallet and realized that he has made $170,416,252 throughout the course of his career. And he realized that the difference between finishing his career with $470 million and $420 million wasn't worth going to a team and a city that he didn't want to go to. (Plus, the value of him being in New York for the rest of his career probably makes up this difference.)
