Alex Rodriguez Distractions Will Only Intensify as He’s Thrown into Public Eye
February 5, 2015 · Zachary D. Rymer · Jump to comments
Article Source: Bleacher Report - New York Yankees
If it’s not already on your mind, consider this your first warning:
The Alex Rodriguez circus is already making a comeback, and it’s only going to get worse.
If this hasn’t been on your mind, don’t worry. That’s hardly a character flaw, and it’s understandable.
The A-Rod circus did just take a year off, after all. The New York Yankees veteran was originally hit with a 211-game suspension resulting from Major League Baseball’s investigation into Biogenesis in 2013, and the decision was largely upheld last January, resulting in Rodriguez being suspended for the entire 2014 season. Like that, Rodriguez was barred from setting foot on the diamond.
And man-oh-man was that a nice change of pace.
Beyond being spared the sight of a disgraced and badly damaged shell of his A-Rod self, his suspension effectively brought a halt to the nagging headlines that are practically joined at his hip. The only distraction in Yankeeland was Derek Jeter’s retirement tour, which proved to be the good kind when the Yankees ultimately fell short of October for a second straight year.
But those days are over. Since the start of the offseason, the A-Rod circus has been slowly reanimating.
For starters, there was that report about A-Rod allegedly revenge-peeing on his cousin’s wall. There were the ones about him daring to work out at the hot corner and daring to desire to play there. Then the one about him getting tips from, of all people, Barry Bonds. Then the one about the Yankees rejecting his request for an apologetic meeting. Then the one about them trying to get out of paying his bonuses. And most recently, the New York Post‘s report about A-Rod splitting with his beloved.
I think that’s everything. Even if it’s not, you get the idea. A-Rod’s year out of the spotlight is over.
And he hasn’t even stepped back into the public eye yet. That will finally happen when he arrives for spring training in a couple weeks, and one can imagine how that’s going to stir things up.
Mind you, Rodriguez’s spring training really shouldn’t be a big deal. The Yankees are a baseball team first and foremost, and he’s not an especially important part of said baseball team.
It’s not just that he’s a 39-year-old who hasn’t been healthy since 2007, productive since 2010 or active since 2013. How he could possibly hope to bounce back from these things would be a major storyline if he was actually expected to fill a big role, but he’s not.
The Yankees made sure of that when they spent $52 million to re-sign Chase Headley. That’s everyday third baseman money, and general manager Brian Cashman told The Associated Press that’s the plan.
For A-Rod, this means a demotion to designated hitter. And while Cashman said he hopes Rodriguez—he of the career .942 OPS and 654 home runs—can become a “tremendous DH,” he didn’t sound optimistic.
“I can’t expect Alex to be anything,” said Cashman, adding, “Even before the suspension, he wasn’t the same player at third base on the defensive or offensive side.”
So though Rodriguez still has three years and $64 million remaining on his contract, the Yankees have already pushed him into a corner. As such, Ken Davidoff of the New York Post hit the nail on the head:
The Yankees are over Alex Rodriguez, clearly. They’re not through with him, but they’re over him. The rest of us should follow their lead and focus on matters more relevant to the team’s 2015 hopes. Like the extremely volatile starting rotation.
He’s right, you know. For those both inside and outside the Yankees organization, there are more important matters at hand than A-Rod.
But let’s not kid ourselves. A-Rod being who he is and spring training being what it is, he’s about to be a constant storyline.
It will start with his arrival. Him finally being there for the cameras and microphones is going to be a huge deal and will result in everything he does and says being obsessively examined. There will be his quotes and actions as they happened, and there will be talk of what they really mean.
Not that it will be a big moment for only him, of course.
Rodriguez’s teammates will be asked to sound off, as will coaches and executives. That will result in many utterances of the company lines, but you can also count on anonymous quotes bubbling to the surface. Those will be more direct, and will surely incite some South Park-style rabble-rabble-rabbling.
And that’ll just be the start. From there, the A-Rod circus will proceed in one of two directions.
If Rodriguez has a bad or even as much as an unspectacular spring, all eyes will be on the A-Rod Doomsday Clock. The possibility, nigh, the necessity of him being either benched or dumped will come up. And there will, of course, be anonymously sourced reports about the Yankees looking into both.
Rodriguez will catch wind of all this and possibly take it in stride. Or possibly not. Either way, those around him will be asked for their thoughts. Out will come the company lines through gritted teeth, with the more honest takes coming anonymously. More rabble-rabble-rabbling.
On the flip side, A-Rod might have a good spring. Maybe he’ll come out looking like his year off did him some good. If he does, maybe that’ll calm everyone down.
But don’t count on it.
If a good spring happens, some will buy into it and invite a beaming A-Rod to say, “I told you so.” Then the hunt will be on for anyone willing to eat crow. The top targets will be in the front office, where all those wanted Rodriguez gone will be made to look like fools whether or not they speak.
Others, however, won’t buy it.
A good spring would inevitably have some thinking A-Rod must be back on the juice. Maybe there will be nothing other than his history with performance-enhancing drugs to lean on, which indeed should signal no-fly territory. But meh, who needs facts when you just dream up a juicy story and get away with it?
If people start peddling that conspiracy theory, grab the popcorn. Word of it could cause Rodriguez to figuratively explode. Or maybe literally explode. His teammates, coaches and bosses, meanwhile, will either roll their eyes, shake their heads or, anonymously, nod their heads.
And on it will go into the season.
At the start, there will be a big fuss about Rodriguez returning to play real baseball again. There will also be the anticipation and reaction to his first game at Yankee Stadium, followed by ongoing reactions to what will be merciless booing at every road game. And depending on how he performs, the A-Rod circus will be about the Doomsday Clock, awkward redemption or unrelenting suspicion.
For their part, the rest of the Yankees will do their best to focus on baseball, and they may be able to even with the A-Rod circus looming over everything.
We tend to think distracted and/or dysfunctional teams are categorically doomed, but that’s not always the case. Chemistry matters, but talent matters most. If the Yankees have enough of it, they’ll be fine.
But even if the Yankees are winners in 2015, the A-Rod circus will create a sense of joylessness about the whole thing. If they end up being losers, the A-Rod circus will intensify the joylessness.
Can it all be avoided? Sure. The Yankees could release Rodriguez. Or he could retire, which he could do on his own or be forced into by poor health.
But don’t count on it. The Yankees releasing A-Rod would require them to eat his remaining contract, which is something they surely would have done by now if they were willing to do so. A-Rod’s retirement is even more unlikely, as you just don’t walk away and leave $64 million on the table. And after a full year off to rest, it’s hard to imagine his health barring him from playing.
In all likelihood, it will be at least another year before Rodriguez’s playing days finally come to an end. So alas, don’t bother hoping you won’t have to experience the A-Rod circus in 2015.
You can already hear it coming. And once it arrives, there will be no avoiding it.
Note: Stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com unless otherwise noted/linked.
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