DALLAS (AP) – A-Rod is baseball’s newest lightning rod, a quarter-billion dollar example of the star system dominating professional sports.
Even before the All-Star shortstop finalized his $252 million, 10-year contract with the Texas Rangers on Monday, baseball’s doom-and-gloom faction was saying the money has become too much.
“This amount of money spread out over 10 years could probably buy three franchises or so at the bottom end of market value,” said Sandy Alderson, an executive vice president in baseball’s commissioner’s office.
Rangers owner Tom Hicks predicted Rodriguez will lead his team to national prominence, to “fulfill its dream of continuing on its path to becoming a World Series champion.”
Hicks paid $250 million to buy the entire franchise three years ago from a group headed by George W. Bush (news – web sites) and Rusty Rose.
“The Rangers are serious about winning,” Texas general manager Doug Melvin said. “I know expectations will be high. We’re ready for that challenge.”
But, while A-Rod now has I-Rod – catcher Ivan Rodriguez – as a teammate, they don’t pitch. Texas hasn’t added much to staff that had a major league-worst 5.52 ERA last season.
And the Rangers must contend with teams who claimed Rodriguez and agent Scott Boras bamboozled them into overpaying by tens of millions of dollars.
“I’m the whipping boy for `baseball games will destruct,”’ Boras said.
The contract calls for a $10 million signing bonus paid over five years and salaries of $21 million in each of the first four years – well above the $15.8 million Minnesota paid its entire team this season.
The 25-year-old Rodriguez gets $25 million a year in 2005 and 2006, and $27 million in each of the final four seasons. A total of $36 million is deferred at 3 percent interest, the money to be paid from 2011-2020.
The contract is double the previous record for a sports contract: a $126 million, six-year agreement in October 1997 between forward Kevin Garnett and the NBA’s Minnesota Timberwolves.
And it was finalized just two days after Mike Hampton’s $121 million, eight-year deal with Colorado, which had been baseball’s highest package. New York Yankees president Randy Levine criticized Texas as among the teams “whining about out-of-control payrolls” and said it would be “the height of hypocrisy” for them to “ever complain about anything again.”
“At first they were talking about 200 million – 250 (million) came out of nowhere,” said Rodriguez’s new teammate, Rafael Palmeiro. “It’s just incredible.”
Rodriguez, who can opt out of the agreement after seven years and become a free agent again at age 32, came away with an average salary of $25.2 million – 48 percent higher than the previous top, the $17 million Toronto first baseman Carlos Delgado agreed to in October as part of a four-year contract.
But A-Rod fell short of the highest average salary in sports. Los Angeles Lakers center Shaquille O’Neal will average $29.5 million in an $88.5 million, three-year extension that starts with the 2003-04 season.
Michael Jordan made about $33 million in 1997-98, his final season in the NBA.
“People are talking about the money, but you have to recognize the type of player he is and what he can accomplish,” Oakland general manager Billy Beane said. “And he’s only 25 years old.”
The lanky infielder from Miami – he’s 6-foot-3 – was highly prized because he became a free agent at such a young age. In seven seasons with the Seattle Mariners, he has a .309 career average with 189 homers and 595 RBIs.
This year, he made $4.25 million in the final season of a $10.6 million, four-year contract he signed against Boras’ advice in 1996.
“Yes, he’s special because he can hit a baseball. Yes, he’s special because he can hit it a long way,” Rangers manager Johnny Oates said. “We’re talking about more than hitting a baseball. We’re talking about marketing an area.”
Seattle and Atlanta were the other known finalists. The Braves did not make an offer, one senior baseball official said of the condition of anonymity, saying that they pushed Boras to name a price. The amount of the Mariners’ offer was unclear, but Boras said it was for five years.
“There would have had to have been a major hometown discount to get us into the ballpark,” Mariners general manager Pat Gillick said.
Added Boras, “The ownership was not here. It was in Hawaii. It was very clear to us.”
In February, Seattle traded Griffey to Cincinnati rather than risk him becoming a free agent after the 2000 season. The Mariners decided they would keep Rodriguez and try to re-sign him.
Seattle won the AL wild card and swept Central Division champion Chicago in the first round. But the Yankees beat the Mariners 4-2 in the AL championship series.
Asked what was next for Seattle, manager Lou Piniella said: “We’ll go upstairs and take a close look.”
In Texas, Rodriguez joins a team that has never gotten beyond the first round of the playoffs. The Rangers already had signed three free agents in the first three days of the winter meetings: first baseman Andres Galarraga ($6.25 million), third baseman Ken Caminiti ($3.25 million) and right-hander Mark Petkovsek ($4.9 million).
The Rangers already have a powerful lineup, but their starting pitching is weak, with Rick Helling going 16-13 last year and Kenny Rogers 13-13.
“We will build our pitching,” Hicks promised.
After winning the AL West in 1999, its third division title in four years, Texas dropped to 71-91 and finished with a 5.52 ERA, the worst among the 30 major league teams.
“This will mark the beginning of a national prominence for a franchise,” Boras said.