A-Rod Deal Looks Close

Yahoo’s Tim Brown has quietly been doing a fine job gathering info about Alex Rodriguez’s dealings with the Yankees.  Here’s a link to yesterday’s column, and here’s today’s.  A summary follows.

• The base of the contract is ten years, $275MM.  There are also performance incentives that can bring the value higher.
• The third party Rodriguez sent to initiate contact with the Steinbrenners was Mitch Modell, the sporting goods guy.
• The whole idea of the Yankees trying to bar Scott Boras or A-Rod having strife with Boras appears false.  Everyone’s on good working terms, and the events of yesterday may even have been orchestrated by Boras.  John Harper paints a very different story based on his sources, so you’ll have to decide who to believe.
• Brown suggests a contract announcement could come on Monday at the same time Rodriguez is named AL MVP.