THURSDAY: Rodriguez may not be entirely firm about his decision to retire, as he texted Mark Feinsand of the New York Daily News that “I’m thinking in terms of my contract which ends in 2017. After that, we’ll see what happens. I’ve got two years and more than 300 games to play.” One of Rodriguez’s friends tells Feinsand that the slugger could decide to keep playing if he’s reasonably close to Barry Bonds‘ all-time home run record. A-Rod currently has 687 homers, so he’s still a significant distance behind Bonds’ mark of 762.
WEDNESDAY: Long-time MLB star Alex Rodriguez has decided to retire after the 2017 season, he tells Andrew Marchand of ESPNNewYork.com. The veteran will wrap up his career when his contract with the Yankees is up after next season.
Rodriguez, 40, will no doubt go down as one of the most talented and controversial players in baseball history. He went from hyped prospect to star in his first full season, a 1996 campaign with the Mariners in which he led the league in batting average while playing a stellar shortstop. That was his first of five outstanding seasons in Seattle and first of six in which he finished with an OPS of over 1.000.
Entering the open market in advance of his age-25 season, Rodriguez inked a ten-year, $252MM contract with the Rangers — an unheard-of sum at the time and still one of the three largest baseball player contracts ever. A-Rod continued to produce in Texas, finally winning an AL MVP award in 2003, though the club didn’t post a winning season over his three years.
Things took an interesting turn when Rodriguez was shipped to the Yankees for Alfonso Soriano before the following season. Though he was still a quality defender up the middle, he moved to third base to play alongside Derek Jeter. Rodriguez went on to take home two more most valuable player nods in 2005 and 2007, then opted out of his deal in the midst of the World Series — only to strike yet another ten-year pact to stay in New York, this one for $275MM. Rodriguez ultimately helped lead the way to a 2009 World Series win, though his offensive production began to wane as he entered his mid-thirties.
PED allegations and a 2014 suspension significantly marred his legacy, however, and at one point it seemed in question whether he’d ever suit up for the Yankees again. But Rodriguez has, rather miraculously, managed to rebuild some of his public image and turned in a strong .250/.356/.486 campaign last year as the club’s regular DH.
New York owes Rodriguez $20MM in each of his final two campaigns. He’ll likely surpass Babe Ruth on the career home run list at some point before hanging up his spikes. While his performance record will always come with at least an implicit asterisk, Rodriguez already rates among the top 15 position players in history in terms of total fWAR.
Doesn’t come as much of a surprise.
I pray one day all the steroid guy s get in if earned cause if they did it the entire career the would be dead by now.from cancer. So put a hatch tag by there name bug let them in if stat’s show they belong
Holy hell, trying to read this
lol
“words. words, words”
Translation – “After speaking with Jesus, I hope players who used steroids get in to the Hall of Fame. If they used steroids their entire careers, they would be dead now from cancer. Put a hatchback vehicle next to their plaque if their stats show they belong in the Hall of Fame.”
You deserve a medal lol. Well done.
Put you in the hall of fame next to a hatchback for your mad interpretation skills!
not only is it authentic frontier gibberish……
Nice Bravos4evr
Not to be out done by Mo, Jeter and Big Papi… Arod plans his 2 year farewell tour.
Except people like Mo, Jeter, and Papi.
People are hastagging BaeROD. Love is blind.
Who or what is BaeROD?
Kevin Gregg doesn’t like David Ortiz. David Price and he have had some dust ups as well. Fans in other cities get sick of his antics.
Pretty much expected, but dang is he fun. Controversial? Sure, but fun, loads of fun. Hope he goes into casting or player scouting/development, regardless of his past, the man is a baseball genius.
O/T – Glad to see we can edit comments now (on a PC at least, not sure about the app or through mobile web)
Two year farewell tour?
Blows Jeter and Kobe out of the water.
one year off the roids, and one year on them. that way we can say goodbye to both of the players he was.
Lol
I dont particularly care for players who used steroids, however we dont know how much they effect stats. Also these players with all those homers still must make contact, (why don’t all steroid users have 600+ homers?) Let them in the hall with. ** or something
we kinda DO know how much it impacts stats, you can track roid users by their “double peak” in their stat lines.
WOW THIS IS SOME REAL BIG TIME NEWS!!!
Yeah he plans to retire because that’s when he stops getting paid. Peter Gammons you guys are NOT.
Why not retire now?
Because he still has 2 years and $40+ mil on his contract?
He also hit 33 home runs last year, so he still has something left.
Is there any real reason for him to announce this now?
In case there were teams thinking about signing him after his deal is up?
Same reason he decided to announce his free agency during the World Series.
So he can anticipate the rootinest-tootinest farewell tour of all time. Whether he gets it or not….who knows?
This wasn’t some bomb shell press conference. He was pressed about his future plans and stated that he thought it was time to be at home and be a dad. He has since stated that he is still unsure about his future. I am not an Arod fan, in fact I think he treated the MLB and Yankees like a jerk, but people have to give him some credit.
Not to start an argument here, but I think MLB institutionally is going to find a way to send signals that juicing was illegal….but, we can’t ignore historical data so much that we wipe out many of the best players from the steroids era. Not for everyone. For those people off the ballot, like Palmeiro, I don’t see redemption rounds. And for players like Sosa, who are barely hanging in, I think many voters will just mentally adjust down his numbers and never vote him in. But for top tier players, like A-Rod, Clemens, Bonds, sooner or later, maybe with 80%, they are going to get in. MLB will do this because it’s in its self interest to do it. It knows it’s sitting on a time-bomb–the likelihood is that amongst the group of high-achiever popular players, both recently retired and still playing, who have never failed a test, there are some who used. The last thing MLB wants is to have an inductee later revealed to have been a user, while a Bonds/Clemens/ARod is still de facto barred. And they aren’t going to want to have to explain why a handful of favored players who have failed a test are going in, while some of the greats continue to be passed over. I’m not saying this is the right thing to do, but I think it will happen, as a business necessity.
MLB has nothing to do with the hall of fame. The baseball HOF is a private institution that was built to bring in tourists to the owner’s string of hotels in cooperstown.
I wasn’t suggesting that Manfred could tell HOF–who doesn’t do the voting anyway. I was saying that MLB will, through it’s conduct, indicate it is ready to hold its nose and move on. There will also be a low-level buzz, as the writers are faced with the possibility of more and more players who they like who either are people who failed tests or who might have. That’s why I think that things will change, gradually. It’s kind of a thought process that is already beginning with Bonds and McGwire coaching. From the writer-voters side, watch the way some of the writers have begun to justify their votes–they are starting to parse out the differences between alleged, failed a test, penalized, etc.
If you’ve ever been to Cooperstown, you would know that there are no hotels. It’s all mom and pop BNBs, which adds to it’s charm. What’s your next theory ?
and where’s big papi to tie this all in with a trade benefitting his Sox ?
Lol. There is always a conspiracy theorist in the crowd. You’re right, any chain hotel near Cooperstown is 25-30 miles out of town. Doubleday field is a pleasure to play on. If you or any kids you may coach have the ability to do it, I highly recommend looking into it.
Everyone loves a good conspiracy theory.
Always happy to oblige on the conspiracy front. I like politics as well,
I hope he never gets into the hall of fame, he don’t belong and neither does bonds
Well they likely won’t.
Bonds was HOF before PEDs, A-Rod took them his whole career. Bonds hated having the spotlight taken from him by users Sosa+McGwire, ergo he got into them and we have ONLY Bud Selig to blame for all of it.
Dont hate the player, hate the game.
Any more excuses you want to make for Bonds? I bet he only took peds one time right? LOL
Wow, that is an awesome response. My day just got better reading this. Thank you.
Yes, bud selig made him take roids. No responsibility on his part. Why not just say the fans made him do it since he is free of all guilt in this issue?
Jim Thome is the greatest home run hitter of that generation. That said, I don’t care if ARod, Sosa, Manny, Bonds and McGwire go into the hall, provided it is POSTHUMOUSLY. Don’t let them reap any earthly rewards for their nonsense.
Thome (612) ahead of Griffey (630)?
It could possibly be justified if you take into the account that Griffey had 11304 PA while Thome had 10313 PA.
So Thome edges out Griffey when it comes to HR/PA.
Thome? Griffey, George Kenneth Jr.
Sad day for baseball… Not sure why this isn’t breaking news.
Extremely talented but I don’t respect his choices at all… won’t be sad to see him go. Doesn’t help that I’m a Sox fan though.
The only choice I wish A-Rod made was asking Jeter to move off SS, so us baseball fans didn’t have to watch those last 10 years of Jeter’s career where he was downright horrendous and “past a diving Jeter” turned into “past an uninterested-at-diving Jeter”.
Jeter is the worst defensive SS of all time by a million miles, based only off his stubborn, me-first, team-second mentality that he always had but no one ever talked about it.
Jeter’s a HOFer due to his bat though, no doubt, but as a player he’s the most overrated one there is. I’d rather have Bonds and A-Rod in the hall than him.
Jeter is the worst defensive SS of all-time? You should change your name to, ” Just Another Clueless Fan”. Yes, Jeter fell off defensively the last 4 or 5 years of his career but he was an excellent defender the first 15 years. Had great range and a strong, if not always accurate, arm. The Yankees won the WS in ’09 with a 35-year old Jeter at SS. He couldn’t have been that bad. You sound like the typical, bitter, anti-Yankee, ” Jeter wasn’t really that good, he just received a lot of press because he played in NY”, dunce. The guy has the 6th most hits in MLB history. He was a winner and all-around player. You just made yourself look foolish calling him overrated.
While Jeter is not the worst defensive SS ever, he was definitely bad his whole career. People thought he was good because he made highlight plays, but look at advanced metrics. DRS (fielding bible) career -152, one year above average. UZR/150 career -7.1, 1 year above average. Before UZR was around there was TZ, which covers the first 7 years Jeter was in the league, 1 year above average. So totaling UZR and TZ he had 2 years above average.
I wasn’t aware Jeter had priority over a GM/Ownership by telling them where he gets to play on the field.
“Jeter’s a HOFer due to his bat though, no doubt, but as a player he’s the most overrated one there is”
Jeter is 58th all time in career bWAR. He is ahead of:111 (yes One Hundred and Eleven) HOFers and only 46 are ahead of him (though to be fair, if we let all guys with HOF numbers in like Bonds/Clemens, he’d probably be int he 50’s somewhere) and you call him the most overrated?
If he ends up making the HOF, does his picture include his needles?
Good riddance to this PED using scumbag cheater!!!!
Would you shut up already with the ridiculous name you have and your PED using PAPPI. All you do is make your self look like a real tool when you post your crap. At no time have you ever posted a legit comment that make any sense. And just so you know there was 9 Boston players on the 2003 roster that where on the list of 103 failed drug test but I am sure you will say there is no way a Red Sox player would ever had cheated. You are as dumb as they come and I award you ZERO points.
Please post 1 shred of evidence that Papi took PED’s?
He failed a drug test you idiot. You are not even a baseball fan. You are what people call troll and you are only a fan of the Red Sox. In your eyes the Red Sox are a model organization and no way possible that there could be any bad with them. Why not just stop with your non sense and try to be a baseball fan. Every post you make some stupid comment about that team and then say how no one on your Red Sox would ever do this or do that. There is no way a person would act as dumb as you act on purpose to be a troll. I know there is something wrong with you and what it is I dont know.
No need for the personal attacks, I respect your opinion, as wrong as it might be, please try to respect mine. Papi already cleared it up, he tested positive for some supplements that were not even banned from MLB at the time. He stopped taking them and he’s passed every single drug test since then. Papi is 100% clean. Now let’s try to stay on topic, this post is about Arod, not Papi.
“he tested positive for some supplements that were not even banned from MLB at the time”
Actually that is not true (nor is it false) because it was never revealed what he tested for. It could have been something illegal, it could have been something legal. We may never know.
All hail the bigpapi4ever. He is never wrong or mistaken LOL Congrats. You earned dumbest post for the day award AGAIN.
I wont feed the trolls any more with you and for now on I will just comment LOL on your post and have fun reading everyone else ras on you for the crazy thoughts that go on in that head of yours. Someday you will learn to be a actual BASEBALL FAN and not a troll. Have a nice evening.
And you open a comment up calling a baseball player a scumbag cheater and then you get upset with a so called personal attack? What does go on in that head of yours we will never know LOL
As it was said in the movie “Fever Pitch”, Red Sox fans are one of gods most pathetic creatures.
You have your opinion, I have mine. We’ll have to agree to disagree I guess.
“Manny Ramirez and David Ortiz were among the 104 major league players listed as having tested positive for performance-enhancing substances in 2003” – ESPN
There is opinions, then there are facts. Ortiz doped at some point. This is a fact. There is no “agree to disagree” on fact.
That’s old news Brixton., Papi already confirmed that it was just supplements that triggered the false positive, not PED’s. Papi is clean and alway has been.
Yes, because the accused and tainted PED-user is always the most trustworthy guy ever.
I assume you agreed with A-Rod the first thousand times he said he didn’t do anything.
I also assume you’re in full support of reinstating Mejia because he claimed he didn’t do anything the last 2 failed tests?
he was dirty, he probably still is using, but just using something that the tests can’t detect. papi is a dirty player, deal with it son
Get your facts straight, Arod admitted to PED use. Mejia was proven to have taken PED’s with today’s advanced testing. Papi flunked a bogus test that MLB already admitted was a flawed test. The situations have no correlation, Papi is 100% clean until proven otherwise, and that’s why he will be a first ballot HOFer and Arod will always have to buy a ticket to get in.
Maybe I missed when MLB said the test on Ortiz was bogus. Do you mind linking me to that for confirmation? Maybe you’re right..
Can’t find the article right now, can someone help me, you guys know what I’m talking about. I’ll post it later when I have more time .
We will all be waiting. Even tho we know you will never find such a article unless you write it LOL
Wait, Papi wouldn’t outright say, yeah, I took roids? Who knew? Very few players have admitted guilt when caught. I don’t want to say anything 100% but odds are Ortiz took something banned and knew about it. Seems like a good dude and I have nothing against him but the evidence is not in his favor.
Baseball was in crisis. Steroid use seemed rife, and performance enhancers were readily available, perhaps nowhere more conveniently than over the counter in the loosely regulated pharmacies of Ortiz’s native country.
Ortiz was a regular at those drugstores, though he insists he never knowingly bought steroids.
“I was taking whatever supplements were good at the time, stuff that everybody was using that would sustain me in my workouts,’’ he said.
Which supplements? The substance that triggered his positive test result has yet to be identified.
“It’s been a long time,’’ Ortiz said. “I don’t know.’’
He must have a clue, he was told. He had previously stated he was “careless’’ about the products he put in his body.
“All I can tell you is, I was using what everybody was using at the time,’’ Ortiz said. “It’s not like I was picky about it.’’
Chill, man.
Fat Sloppy was also implicated on a PED list. Definitely explains why his numbers skyrocketed. He’ll get no farewell ovation from me. In fact, I hope Chapman drops him on his butt at Yankee Stadium in September, something many pitchers should have done years ago for this whining, plate crowding cheater.
He’ll go down as an epic CHEATER/PED User !!!!! So many Yankess that were PED users
Yeah, there were many PED users throughout baseball at the time…
Who else on the Yankees Mr. Ed? ARod took his punishment, and came back and his bat came alive.
Well, you had your last chance to cheer Jeter and Kobe, now, coming to a city near you, your last chance to heckle and jeer at A-Rod. Just think, you’ll want to tell your children you were there, telling A-Rod for that one last time that he was a cheater and steroid user.
Odd time to announce this. Maybe he wants to add “longest farewell tour” to his list of career records. I bet a lot of folks were already ramping up 10-year contract offers for the 2017/8 hot stove season…
Opposing teams should give him gradually diminishing awards as he makes his way on his exit tour.
I love how he found a way to trump Jeter.
Yankees will milk this for everything it is worth, never mentioning how they tried to void his contract.
#YankeesalwaysinArodscorner
Let’s just go for broke here….say by some “miracle”, A-Rod finishes 2017 with 749 homers. Think he’ll hang in for 2018 to go for #1?
Definitely. If he hits 25-30 hrs each of the next two seasons, he will play in 2018 trying to pass Bonds.
Alex Rodriguez was absolutely amazing in his prime and even now is still a threat with the bat. Sure he took PEDs but so did a large percentage of the league. To completely ignore this fact is wrong but to exclude these guys from history and act like they weren’t great is also wrong. Guys like A-rod and bonds and Clemens played in an era where a lot of players used and were at the top of the league. The hall of fame is to honor those who were the best in their time. Even though they used, so did a lot of the league. We can’t take away anything from them just because they did what every one else did, and then did it better. We should just be rewarding the guys who were at the top of the league without the help of illegal substances like Thome or Griffey. We can’t just block these guys from our memory and forget about this time period, it’s an important part of the history of our game. There should be a place in the Hall for all of these guys.
I think we’d be shocked at who used…or perhaps NOT at this point. I have direct personal knowledge that implicates not only a player that really hasn’t been suspicioned, but also his organization and representation working together in the mid 90s to supply him.
As far as the Hall…that’s entirely on the writers…and quite frankly many of them don’t even cover baseball and use it as the one self serving trump card they can play against a few players that might have made their job tough.
just to get it out of the way
Class of ’22!
I think it is obvious why he is announcing his retirement so early. It has nothing to do with “farewell tours” which probably wouldn’t exactly be lovefests. I think he is announcing now so he can go out on his own terms and wouldn’t be forced out by lack of what he would call a respectable contract offer. This negates any media/fan speculation on what kind of a contract he could/would get. And negates any possible collusion amongst the owners he might think would happen. I personally think someone would offer him a contract, but maybe in his mind, he thinks he might get no offers or would be “insulted” by a 1 year/$8M offer for instance. I think he is doing it this way, so he can say he retired when he wanted, not for lack of interest.
Retire today, ARod, please. Detestable brat.
I mean if he repeats his 2015 season over the next 2 years he will be 9 HR away. No way that the Yankees don’t resign him for 1 year and get ALL THE MONEY for having a Yankee be the all time HR leader.