A-Rod's Decision is a Smart One
Alex Rodriguez is a smart guy. You don't get paid the kind of money he does without being a smart guy, with or without Scott Boras for an agent. As a smart guy, A-Rod sees the writing on the wall. That is exactly why he's bailing on the Yankees. He sees what is coming on the horizon for the Yanks, and it isn't pretty. Now if he's really smart, he'd take a pay cut and go to the Red Sox. Talk about what a reversal of a curse that would be for the new millennium. More on that later. For now, suffice it to say that A-Rod is grabbing the life raft and jumping off a sinking ship by taking his opt-out clause.
Yankees fans are probably seething already over that first paragraph. I'd be angry too, if I were one. If you put emotion aside, and look at the organization in a logical light, it is a mess at the top. Conventional wisdom, for years, held that the Yankees would get better once Steinbrenner and his manic insanity finally handed over control of the team. Conventional wisdom, despite all explanation, was wrong. As crazy as George was, at least he was decisive and proactive. The recent storylines out of New York could be a prelude of more confusion to come. Between Cashman and the Steinbrenner sons, one gets a sense that there are too many cooks in the kitchen and that the power structure is a mess.
Firing Torre didn't help matters at all. His stability in the dugout might have been able to offset the transitions, power struggles, and contradictory statements from the front office but we will never know that now. Girardi is surely qualified as a replacement in the basic requirements of the job, but can he bring the stability the Yanks need along with his savvy with young players, all while dealing with veterans that he once played with? Time will tell, but if the answer is "no," then there is going to be a world of trouble for the organization if he can't handle the pressure of managing in New York with perfect precision.
Time will ultimately tell whether the Steinbrenner sons manage to fritter away Dad's empire (I'm personally leaning towards "yes") but in the short term, things aren't looking good for any Bronx faithfuls. Cashman's expensive, aging free agent prospects have consistently underperformed, and admittedly, A-Rod's own postseason performances have been lackluster. There is hope on the horizon in the way of a youth farm movement, but for now it is still a bloated, aging lineup in the Bronx.
The irony of the whole ordeal is the torrid rise of the Sox during this Yankees downturn (and I hate describing getting into the playoffs every year as a downturn, but it is). Now if only A-Rod could take a pay cut and join the Red Sox, the ultimate sports irony would be complete. It would be the equivalent of the Ruth loss of last century in reverse, and perhaps set off (or continue, to be more accurate) a reversal of fortune with the Red Sox dominating the new millennium and the Yankees falling into cursed disarray. If there's a more perfect possibility in the category of sports irony, I'd like to hear it.
Would such a move be out of the realm of possibility? I don't see why not, assuming A-Rod cares at all about winning. Yeah, I know he probably doesn't care about that as much as the money, but for the sake of argument let's assume he does care about winning a championship. Any player who wants to win would be insane not to go to the Sox right now, if they have the chance. The Sox have balanced pitching, hitting, and defense, and an attitude that gets results when it matters. They are clearly the best team in baseball right now and could be extremely dominant next year given the passion and savvy of their front office (which is really the polar opposite of the Yankees in success over the last few years). For everyone that isn't a Red Sox fan, the possibility of an A-Rod / Red Sox deal should be a frightening possibility.
