en-us Copyright 2008 - All Rights Reserved. Sat, 25 May 2013 14:45:33 GMT 15 By Seth Roberts
You can calm down now, Southern California; Alex Rodriguez will not be joining any of your teams. The perennial all-star third baseman signed another record-breaking deal with the New York Yankees, locking himself up for the next ten years for the paltry sum of $275 million. The move means that the Yanks will go down as the team that bought out not only Mr. October (Reggie Jackson) and Mr. November (Derek Jeter), but now also Mr. Regular Season as well. Even though Rodriguez is no longer available for teams to salivate over, the race for free agents is just beginning. It is a decidedly weak field this year, but there are enough big names still on the market to keep things interesting. The story of the postseason will be where third basemen Mike Lowell, last seen hoisting the World Series MVP trophy with the Boston Red Sox, will end up. Red Sox Nation has been clamoring for his return – and it appears likely – but Lowell has also been entertaining offers from the rival Yankees. What it will come down to is whether or not Red Sox General Manager Theo Epstein agrees to offer Lowell a four-year contract. After Lowell, perhaps the premier player on the market is centerfielder Andruw Jones. Jones is fresh from his worst batting year in his career – he could only manage a miserable .222 batting average while striking out 138 times for the Atlanta Braves – but the fact that he still drove in 94 runs and won his tenth consecutive Gold Glove award means that he should have several teams knocking on his door in the next few weeks. Finally, supercloser Mariano Rivera is still looking for a team. This fact is essentially meaningless as the Yankees will likely do anything it takes to bring back their best pitcher for at least another couple years. After these three names the free agent list becomes a mess of little-knowns and has-beens, which is good news for proponents of change; it means that there will be a lot of trades this offseason. ]]> Fri, 16 Nov 2007 22:38:00 GMT