Can the Yankees Avoid Paying A-Rod’s Milestone Bonuses?
The legal controversy surrounding Alex Rodriguez seemingly knows no end. Fresh off a season-long suspension – and a year filled with litigation – Rodriguez is currently preparing to return to the New York Yankees for the 2015 season. In addition to the $61 million the Yankees still owe A-Rod under the 10-year contract he signed back in 2007, Rodriguez can potentially earn another $24 million in bonuses by reaching four different home run milestones in the next three years.
Under the terms of his 2007 contract, the Yankees will pay A-Rod $6 million every time he moves up the all-time home run leaderboard. Rodriguez’s 654 career home runs currently rank fifth all-time, trailing only Willie Mays, Babe Ruth, Hank Aaron and Barry Bonds. If Rodriguez hits six home runs in 2015, he would earn the first $6 million bonus by tying Mays’ career 660 home runs.
According to a recent report in the New York Daily News, however, the Yankees are preparing to contest the bonus provisions in A-Rod’s contract. When the team agreed to the milestone bonus structure back in 2007, it assumed Rodriguez’s march to the all-time home run crown would prove to be quite lucrative. In light of Rodriguez’s subsequent fall from grace, though, the team now understandably thinks A-Rod’s home run milestones will not be nearly as valuable as it initially hoped. As a result, the team is exploring its legal options.
So do the Yankees have any realistic chance of voiding Rodriguez’s bonuses? As is so often the case with the law, the answer is: It depends.
Assessing the Yankees’ odds of success in this case are particularly difficult because A-Rod’s home run milestone bonuses are not a part of his standard playing contract, but instead are incorporated in a separate side agreement between Rodriguez and the Yankees. Because that agreement has not been made public, it is obviously impossible to know exactly what the contract says — and what the Yankees can argue to get out of the agreement.
Nevertheless, one can reasonably assume the Yankees’ legal attack will follow one of two approaches: First, the Yankees may be able to argue Rodriguez has breached the milestone bonus agreement in some way. Depending on the terms of the agreement, for example, it is possible that the payment of the bonuses is conditioned on Rodriguez not violating Major League Baseball’s Joint Drug Agreement. A-Rod’s suspension for his involvement in the Biogenesis scandal, then, could theoretically give the team the legal grounds to terminate the bonus agreement.
Realistically, though, if Rodriguez’s agreement included a provision relating to his use of performance-enhancing drugs, we likely would have heard about it by now. Indeed, as soon as news of the Biogenesis scandal broke back in January 2013, the Yankees reportedly began exploring whether the team could cancel the rest of Rodriguez’s playing contract. While the team was unable to void A-Rod’s standard player contract because it specifies that MLB’s JDA sets the punishment for PED use, the same limitations may not apply to the side agreement. Nevertheless, if there were a cut-and-dried argument that A-Rod has violated the milestone bonus agreement, the team presumably would not still be exploring its legal options two years later.
Instead, the Yankees will likely rely on a different argument to contest Rodriguez’s bonuses. As the Daily News reported, the team is apparently preparing to argue that A-Rod signed the bonus agreement under false pretenses. Under traditional principles of contract law, if you convince someone to enter a contract with you by lying about a central aspect of the agreement, then the other side can void the contract on the basis of fraud.
In this case, the Yankees will presumably argue that Rodriguez defrauded the team by failing to disclose his prior PED usage. Remember, when A-Rod signed the bonus agreement back in 2007, he still had not publicly confessed to steroid use. It was not until February 2009 that Rodriguez admitted he took PEDs during his time with the Texas Rangers.
The Yankees, then, will likely assert that A-Rod should have disclosed his prior PED usage to the team before signing the bonus agreement. In particular, the Yankees can argue that Rodriguez knew the team was willing to pay the bonuses in exchange for the positive publicity and goodwill his career home run chase would generate. The team can also assert that A-Rod knew that if his prior PED use were to become public, then those benefits would largely disappear. Given all that, the team will likely contend Rodriguez was legally obligated to notify the team that he had previously used PEDs.
How strong this argument will prove to be is somewhat uncertain. If the Yankees can show they specifically asked Rodriguez about his past PED usage during the negotiation of the contract, and that he lied about it, then the argument could be successful. If the team never specifically asked A-Rod about PEDs, though, then his legal obligation to disclose his prior usage becomes less certain. Indeed, considering that PED use in MLB was already quite well known in 2007, Rodriguez can argue the Yankees assumed the risk that he might one day be tied to steroids.
This is a dispute that will likely continue to percolate for awhile. Rodriguez’s first milestone bonus won’t become due until he hits his sixth home run of the season and ties Mays. At that point — assuming the Yankees decide to contest the bonus — the team will refuse to pay Rodriguez. A-Rod and the Major League Baseball Players Association then will presumably file a grievance against the team, a process that would likely take several months to play out before being decided by an arbitrator. And if A-Rod loses the arbitration, there is always a chance that he could once again decide to appeal that decision to a federal court, even though the odds would be heavily stacked against him at that point.
Ultimately, then, legal controversy appears likely to continue to follow A-Rod for quite some time.
Nathaniel Grow is an Associate Professor of Business Law and Ethics and the Yormark Family Director of the Sports Industry Workshop at Indiana University's Kelley School of Business. He is the author of Baseball on Trial: The Origin of Baseball's Antitrust Exemption, as well as a number of sports-related law review articles. You can follow him on Twitter @NathanielGrow. The views expressed are solely those of the author and do not express the views or opinions of Indiana University.
I don’t get why all this logic doesn’t apply to his standard contract. And the yanks tried to void it and clearly couldnt.
Agreed. Has this situation led to teams adding contract provisions that allow them to terminate a contract after failed PED test?
His player contract is well protected by the union and collective bargaining. The CBA does not allow teams to void contracts for PED’s, the PED punishment system was bargained and agreed upon during the last contract negotiation.
I also think that the bonuses will stand, its seems like nonsense to me that the Yankees think they took zero risk when they offered those incentives. There was already plenty of smoke on the horizon and to argue that they never had any idea that he may have used PED is pretty disingenuous.
Or if they really cared about a positive, PED-free home run chase, that would have been in the contract….
You would think they might be worried that A-Rod could somehow prove that they completely knew he was using the whole time.
If they were concerned that he might point out they knew all along they would be very unlikely to pursue this course.
At the time in 2007 there was plenty of talk about A-Rod being the guy to clean up the HR record mess due to McGwire, Sosa, Bonds, etc.
Also remember that he was originally outed as a result of the leak of his positive tests during baseball’s original year of “anonymous” testing that led to – when the players couldn’t hold up their end – mandatory testing to follow. An outing, and frankly violation, of the agreement between MLB and the Players’ Association, though neither were directly responsible for it (as far as we know). And the other offenders by and large remain safe in their anonymity – maybe Manny and Big Papi also, though Ortiz maintained innocence and receives not nearly the condemnation.
Not that I want to defend A-Rod. He doesn’t deserve it, and I hope somehow NY prevails, though I consider it unlikely.
Just trying to add context and caution against people slinging unfounded suspicions – perhaps based on their feelings for or against particular organizations or individuals – of what they knew or didn’t know or do. This has hurt the perception of players in HOF voting and others based simply on suspicion or lazy analysis (“They’re all guilty”).
Arod will be arguing the Yankees were aware of abuse and complicit. (Clemens, Giambi, Pettite, Knobloch, Justice, Stanton, Neagle, Grimsley). They benefited greatly when those violations went unseen, but now want a refund when it backfires.
I hope they are stuck with every penny. I agree with whoever tweeted (can’t remember who) that the Yanks should void their WS Title if they void his milestone bonuses.
Very intelligent idea.
Considering Manny Ramirez played on 2 Boston WS teams, I don’t think we want to open that can of worms, do we?
He isn’t being serious, he is pointing out the hypocrisy of the Yankees accepting the benefits of PED Arod at the same time as trying to get out of the downside.
They are not trying to get out of the downside (well, they did try, but that isn’t what this is about).
This is not about his player contract. If it were, I would agree with you.
It is a marketing deal, and A-Rod has obliterated his marketing value with his behavior over the last 2 years.
Again, I don’t think the Yankees will win the case, but as the article lays out, it is not as black and white as it seems.
There will only get out of it if there is very specific language in the contract that allows them some recourse for his image being damaged. We have no idea is this is the case, so its kind of pointless speculating.
The Yankees agreed to buy an asset at a future date if certain conditions were met. The condition is being met but the asset is now worthless. I don’t think this is a valid reason to be able to void a contract.
Honestly, I kind of hope we do! Which WS titles would stand? Certainly not the Oakland A’s. Really, going back, you’d probably have to erase the entire modern history of baseball if you dig down deep.
Considering that the BBWAA has already created a fustercluck out of the HOF process going down this road, why not get that fire burning even higher?
If owners agree to return money to fans for extra revenue generated by PED fueled home run chases, then their argument would be slightly less hypocritical.
Red herring.
The entire point of the marketing bonuses was because the Yankees wanted to have A-Rod chase the “clean HR record”.
It is embarrassingly naïve in retrospect, and because of that, they probably should be stuck paying. But I don’t see what one has to do with the other.
This contract was signed AFTER the PED scandal broke, after testing was in place, after everyone knew the 1998 chase was bogus and Bonds was guilty.
By this argument, the owners can basically never ask for any PED testing because they missed it 20 years ago. This is NOT the same situation as keeping players from that era, when everyone agrees that owners were as complicit as the players, out of the Hall of Fame because everyone had turned a blind eye.
This deal was signed after all of that, and while I think the Yankees will lose their case, I don’t see why it is hypocritical. These are not performance bonuses in his player contract. It is a separate MARKETING DEAL, and A-Rod has destroyed all of the value of that deal with his actions over the last 2 years.
“The entire point of the marketing bonuses was because the Yankees wanted to have A-Rod chase the ‘clear HR record.'” False.
“This is a separate MARKETING DEAL.” In name but not spirit.
The bonuses were called “marketing” bonuses because the CBA doesn’t allow performance incentives. These were really performance incentives – A-Rod would receive bonuses for staying healthy and productive long enough to break the records. The agreement called them “marketing” bonuses to avoid the CBA prohibition on performance incentives.
“The entire point of the marketing bonuses was because the Yankees wanted to have A-Rod chase the ‘clear HR record.’” False.
I have to disagree with you here. There was big talk about the clean A-Rod being the man to win back the career home run title from that cheater Bonds. (Yes, we were all naive back then.) This is not a trivial issue; A-Rod’s accomplishments would have been far less valuable – perhaps worthless – if he was a known cheater. Whether it has any legal meaning is another matter.
Actually this is quite a good point.
I agree that this is only a marketing deal in name but that doesn’t change things. If Arod and the MLBPA try to argue that it is a performance bonus then the Yankees can argue that the deal is not valid under the CBA and therefore it is null and void.
Yes, Tom Cranker is right – Money in a baseball player’s contract is simply money to play baseball.
I enjoy many of the Fangraphs joke comments, but I don’t get calling oneself Sandy Alderson (someone who is not out there running his mouth about the yankees) and then try to make this ho-hum CAPS marketing deal point.
Sandy is a cool longtime baseball wizard, and at least worthy of being well joked on Fangraphs.
“Yes, Tom Cranker is right – Money in a baseball player’s contract is simply money to play baseball. ”
Which would be true, if it was in his player’s contract…
Paul-
We were not “all naive”. To people a little less misty eyed about the game and the world it was extremely clear where things were for years.
The “then we will have a clean HR record”, and “X didn’t use PED’s because look at his body and swing” comments were always ridiculous to critical thinkers.
Positive publicity aside, and without challenging the validity of the year-by-year numbers, I wonder if the Yanks could argue that ARod’s use of PEDs amounted to a misrepresentation of the likelihood that he would reach the specified standards.
That’s what I was thinking. Without PED usage, A-Rod might not (but theoretically could) be anywhere near any of these home run milestones. It’s almost comparable to lying on your resume.
The cost of insuring an athlete against injury at age 39 is probably like 75% of the cost of the contract. It wouldn’t make sense to bother.
So if the Yankees can’t void this portion of his contract do they stiil try to benefit from his HR milestones?? Do they sell t-shirts, have a celebration when (and if) he passes these milestones??
No that is the entire point. 7 years ago they would have been able to do all that and make a bunch of money now that chase isn’t nearly as valuable
That sounds like a Yankees problem not an A-Rod problem
Seems unlikely he will pass anyone but Mays, which is a shame as he shouldn’t be mentioned in the same breath.
Yeah, that Mays took took amphetamines to high heaven. He’s a despicable cheater.
That is what I love about fans, they act like steroids are the first time that cheating struck the sport.
False equivalence much?
What is false about it?
Mays was not some saint.
I think they are bring him to Spring Training hoping his hips are too screwed up to play and they can put him on DL and attempt to get insurance money. If he’s able to stay on field but stinks I think they may consider cutting him. They are on the hook for 60m either way, why pay 6m if you dont have to?
I can’t imagine they have insurance for this late in his contract.
Of course, ARod could argue that he is such a jerk that even if he hadn’t been caught cheating, his home run chase wouldn’t have generated any goodwill anyway.
Check Mate!
The Yankees can easily avoid the Babe Ruth, Hank Aaron and Barry Bonds bonuses- by simply giving Rodriguez playing time in accordance with his age and recent performance. He won’t be hitting 20 HRs per year getting 250-300 PAs, and if by some miracle he does, the Yankees should be ecstatic to get something out of the whole deal at this stage.
This is really a fight about $6 million. Chump change for the big spenders. I am sure that there would be lawyers willing to litigate if the Yankees were foolish enough to try.
True
They could just not play him at all, which is probably more in line with his age and recent performance. He’s 40 and hasn’t played a full season since 2010.
If the Yankees don’t play a healthy and capable ARod and keep him from reaching his bonus, the player’s union would be obligated to file a grievance.
Though one wonders if the real intention of the Yankees in all this is to make him feel as uncomfortable as possible in hopes he’ll just leave.
Everyone was aware that Bonds record was tainted but they included his milestone into the deal. If they want to reward A-rod for reaching a tainted milestone why would they want to back out when their own player behaves in the same manner as bonds did. It’s hard to argue that they were unaware of the risk.
If a clean player breaks Bonds’ record, it will be a Big Deal and will “re-legitimize” the all-time HR record.
Isn’t the point that a clean player can’t break the record? Guys like ARod are not clean, and guys that might be clean like Pujols are never going to get there.
Mike Trout has 98 and is only 22!
There’s just no way that with the league wide offensive environment that anyone is going to come close for quite some time. Trout is the best player in baseball, and maybe the best player of the next 20-30 years, but he’s not a HR hitter like BigMac or Bonds. He’s a 30HR/year player right now. He needs another 20 years to get over 700 at that rate.
With the way things are going, the best of today’s young players are going to be lucky to break 500. A couple of the older players, who played through the offense of the early (or earlier) 2000’s will still get over it (like say Cabrera or Ortiz), but sheesh, take a look at this list: http://www.baseball-reference.com/leaders/HR_active.shtml.
For players still in their 20’s Longoria and Zimmerman lead the way with 184…. And they are 28/29. Bonds wasn’t really a power first guy when he was young, as we all know, but he had 222 by 28, McGwire with about 2 seasons less than Bonds at the same age, was at 220 at 28. That was even before the HR-craze of the mid-90’s through mid-2000’s. Those were late-80’s, early-90’s HRs, and here the late-2000’s, early-2010’s can’t keep up. So forget the mid/late-2010’s keeping up with the late-90’s, early-2000’s.
I disagree Walter. If rules are implemented to favor offense then I can easily see guys getting into that range. It sounds like the goal is to get back to the offensive hayday WITHOUT the use of steroids. You do that by eliminating the shift, modifying the strike zone, etc.
I’m not suggesting that Trout will break the record but it’s pretty silly to put a ceiling on his power potential. You suggest that he is a 30 HR hitter now. Well, he hit 36 HR’s last year and did that at age 22. I don’t think it’s a stretch to suggest that in the current environment he could peak at 45 HR’s. Throw in a rule change that lowers the strips off the highest part of the strike zone and he could hit 50.
I agree with Garret. In order to increase home run numbers, we should eliminate the shift. It is unfair that sluggers hit a screaming liner over the fence only to have it caught by a shifting shortstop.
“Isn’t the point that a clean player can’t break the record? ”
Why not? Did Hank Aaron take PEDs?
Obviously it is embarrassing to think about now, but why was it crazy in 2007 to think A-Rod was a once-in-a-generation talent who was capable of breaking the record?
Obviously SOMEONE has to have the record, why not A-Rod (asks us from our ignorance in 2007)?
Hank Aaron took Amphetamines which have a profound affect on your ability to focus (i.e. hit).
Hank Aaron tried greenies … They made his heart race, figity, and sweat.
Can we all drop the whole narrative of hank Aaron took greenies and equate that to sustained ped use until we come across more information saying it was more than that.
I’m sure we’ve all taken something that wasn’t ours before. That doesn’t mean we need be cast as a criminal in any and every context.
I wouldn’t be surprised if greenies from the 70s had the same effect as monster or red bull. Anyone really believe that greenies extended hanks career or led to that breakout season where he hit 68 home runs?
Garrett, of course its not impossible to see Trout move from ~30 HR/year to 45/year, but I don’t think that’s something to bet on. These mega-stars often start off at a very high level and don’t really improve. And while Trout did jump from 27-30 to 36 last year, he did so with a pretty significant trade off for strikeouts. Maybe Trout can top out around 45, and do that on and off through his peak. However, if he’s hitting 36 now at 22, I have a hard time seeing him hitting 45 HR still at 35.
Just take a look at some of the recent great hitters and their early HR power vs career averages:
Name : Age 22 HR total : career average
Cabrera: 33 : 35
Pujols : 34 : 40
A-rod : 42 : 41
McGwire : 49 (age 23, rookie year) : 50
Bonds : 25 : 41
Fielder: 28: 34
Manny : 31 (in strike shorted year, 35 if averaged to 154 games: 39
Beltran : 22 : 28
And that’s 162 game averages, most players don’t actually play 162 games/year but rather ~150 or so. So we should probably drop those by maybe 5-10% across the board. The only one that made a shocking transformation was Bonds, and we have a pretty good idea why that happened.
Sorry, I just don’t see it. Its just too many IFs. If we have a rule change, if he can change from a 30-35 HR hitter to a 45 HR hitter, if he stays healthy for 15+ years.
Reg, I’m not sure eliminating the shift would help HR totals. Power hitters aren’t giving up on PAs to get singles the opposite way enough to eat into their total chance for a HR enough to really make much of a difference. All it really would do is help a power hits BA because a few extra screaming grounders or low line drives find wholes.
@Steve Us.
Rather, @CircleChange11
This is the point I wanted to make – I think if Bonds’s milestone is included then the Yankees’ case is greatly weakened.
Clean player liberating home run record from cheater would, if anything, be a bigger deal than clean player passing another clean player. It has that justice vibe to it. So, no, it does not weaken the case at all and probably strengthens it.
But if the point is to replace Bonds at the top with a “clean” player (astounding ironic to think about this in retrospect) then it makes perfect sense. From a marketing perspective or otherwise.
It was ironic to think it at the time. People invested in the game were clinging to “innocent until proven guilty”, and silly rationalizations based on body type.
People less in love with the game had no illusions about the score years before that. The idea that A-rod was definitely clean in 2005 or 2007 is laughable. The standard of evidence for legal matters is a lot less than the standard of evidence for common sense.
A clean player would have to have Bonds talent plus some, incredible durability, and the desire to keep playing baseball to around 40 years of age despite already making upwards of 400M and playing in an era where relievers are all flamethrowers with sliders
They’d be doing it in an entirely different era than Hank. They’d need to be much more talented now in comparison.
It’s be like asking someone to break hendersons SB record, but do it in an era where everyone throws 93+, catchers are primarily defense, and pitchers use the slide step from the stretch. Its hard to imagine that such a human could exist.
I don’t think the Yankees care about the $6 million bonus (the other benchmarks are either unrealistic or a boon to the on-field product). I think the organization plans to use a dispute over the marketing bonus to create acrimony, aggrivation, and annoyance – compounded with limited playing time and marginilization – to try and force Arod out of the game.
This is all about a test of wills… what will Arod endure to collect his $60+ million vs. what will the Yankees do to avoid paying it.
If that’s really their approach, they should just eat the rest of his contract and cut him. Because just hoping they can continually aggravate him and hope he goes away has the potential to backfire spectacularly. Why risk the product on the field?
The most probable scenario is that A-Rod will resort to using steroids again, which would result in a lifetime ban without pay and get the Yankees completely off the hook. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Yankees have private investigators tracking his every move. They would have a much better chance of catching him than MLB’s absurdly soft drug testing protocol.
I’m pretty sure the Yankees still have to pay.
A-Rod has absolutely zero reasons to use steroids ever again. His name is already tarnished. Asterics will persist next to any achievement. He’s not playing for another contract. Why would he do anything to jeopardize his $60M paycheck?
Pride and the completely irrational and downright stupid belief that he won’t get caught.
Exactly why Barry Bonds used steroids.
I have to say in a battle of who can annoy the other the most, ARod will win that. He wins every time he picks up his ridiculously large check.
You guys get that ARod types dont get that they’re the problem, right? To them, everyone else is just jealous, etc and they’re always the victim. They have this unreal ability to live in a self-created reality.
To me the yanks look like the person that lost everything in the divorce, yet still want to fight over who gets the riding mower. Let it go.
Nathaniel – how does the player’s union have any jurisdiction over a “side agreement” between the player and team? Do such side agreements have to also be approved by MLB, like standard contracts?
Also, in the same vein: If they cut him, and someone picks him up, they won’t be tied to the side agreement, presumably. Can we assume the Yankees, by virtue of cutting him, but still having to pay his guaranteed contract (less the minimum paid by any team that picks him up) don’t have to pay the bonuses if he gets to them?
The MLBPA had to approve A-Rod’s bonus side agreement, so I presume that the union would have jurisdiction to participate in any disputes that may arise out of the agreement, especially since it relates to Rodriguez’s compensation.
Whether the bonus agreement would apply should A-Rod be waived and picked up by another club is a good question. The standard player contract obviously addresses a player changing teams via a trade or waiver pick-up. Whether the bonus agreement does as well is impossible to know without seeing the contractual language. My intuition is that it would only apply to the Yankees, but you never know.
The simple answer is NO.
Are the Yankees also going to forfeit their 09 WS title since ARod hit 6 homers and had 18 RBI in that playoff run? Listen, I hate ARod as much as the next guy, but I have no sympathy for the Yankees on this one. You gave him the contract. You gave him the HR bonus contract. You profitted like hell when things were going well. Now you have to “pay” since things have gone sour. Some investments go bad. Pay the man, move on, and forget about him.
Only if the Yankees get to replay the 2010, 2011, and 2012 playoffs where they were eliminated by teams featuring Manny Nelson Cruz and Jhonny Peralta….
Two wrongs don’t make a right. This argument isn’t about the players outside of the organization that harmed the Yankees. This is about the Yankees profiting from a suspected dirty player and then wanting to avoid repercussions when things go sour.
Let’s assume I get a stock tip on a company that has been rumored to have a suspect background. I profit off them for months but lose everything after the rumors have been confirmed. Do I have the right to say I want my money back because they ended up being sneaky? No. The point of blame is on the investor.
The Yankees should suck it up and name A-rod the starting shortstop. Give him the spotlight and let him earn his bonuses. I just checked and Bonds still has 762 home runs. 763 might be worth more than they think. Or, if he might fail spectacularly – I would pay to watch A-rod embarrass himself night after night, wouldn’t you?
He earns $6 million for tying Bonds and another $6 for breaking that record, but honestly there is almost no chance he earns over $12 million on these deals, and I would bet he doesn’t get more than $6 million. He’s 101 HRs away from 755. In three years, no way. Giancarlo Stanton hasn’t hit that many homers in the last 3 years, in over 1600 plate appearances. If he hits the 61 necessary to pass Ruth, he’d have exceeded reasonable expectations.
I am a Yankee fan and I feel that Arod is a cheater, despite him also being screwed over by the MLBPA when it came to defending him. That said, I would be very interested to see the language of the contract where it says “Yankees agree to pay X dollars in the event the player reaches Y milestone, providing people still like him enough to spend money on the jar of infield dirt we plan to use to rip off our idiot fans”.
$6 million is nothing to the Yankees (except if it were what it might cost to give their office workers dental insurance). OK, let me rephrase: $6 million is nothing in player costs for the Yankees.
They’re shooting themselves in the foot by complaining about this. They’ll probably have to pay the first bonus, it’s only 6 home runs away. But Rodriguez has to hit 60 home runs to catch Ruth. All they have to do is not play him all the time, and he won’t make it. Even if he plays every day, he might not make it.
It’s really not worth the hassle for the Yankees to argue over $6 million.
The solution is simple. Let Garrett Jones and Chris Young share DH duties. Release Rodriguez, eat the money, and lose the headache.
Yeah, but then he files a grievance against the Yankees for preventing him from getting to the milestone. ARod won’t go away as gently as Bonds did.
A grievance with much lower chance of success, if any chance at all.
You cross that bridge when you get to it. If he plays like he did prior to the injury Rodriguez cannot reasonably blame his reduced playing time on the contract. He simply is not very good right.
In his last two years, he played about a full season’s worth of games and put up 2.4 WAR. He had a wRC+ of 113 in each season. If he plays like that, then the yankees cannot reasonably blame reduced playing time (or cutting him outright) based on performance.
A grievance can only be filed on something covered by the CBA. Since the side agreement is not he would have to claim some breach of contract with respect to the side agreement.
Unfortunately if it were that simple there wouldn’t be lawyers involved.
For example if they release him and he goes to another team at the minimum salary and hits 6 HRs, do the Yanks (or his new club) still have to pay him? I’d expect NY’s lawyers were smart enough to have covered at least that contingency – the HRs would have to be hit as a Yankee – but we really don’t know that do we?
I hope the Yankees have to pay all because I hate them.
This is hilarious, truly hilarious. If Aroid is such a negative from a marketing perspective, why don’t the Yankees pay him the balance of his contract or negotiate a buyout of his contract and/ potential bonus? I’ll tell you why, even if he is nothing more than a sideshow these days, he will still put people’s butts in the seats and the Yankees know that.
Stop acting like a bunch of weasels; you are the New York YANKEES for god’s sake. You made a bad deal and now you are trying every gambit in the book to avoid your obligations when it comes time to pay the piper. Suck it up and move on.
“If Aroid is such a negative from a marketing perspective, why don’t the Yankees pay him the balance of his contract or negotiate a buyout of his contract and/ potential bonus?”
You are missing the point completely.
No one is saying A-Rod is “a negative from a marketing perspective”. The Yankees and A-Rod made a side deal to share in the additional marginal dollars the team would earn from marketing his milestone HRs. Those dollars NOW, even if he reaches those milestones, are very unlikely to appear, because A-Rod has destroyed his own reputation through his own actions.
Whether or not the Yankee can enforce that legally is a different story. I tend to doubt it, but without knowing how the agreement was worded, we are all speculating.
“because A-Rod has destroyed his own reputation through his own actions”
To be fair, the yankees have seemingly gone out of their way to destroy his reputation as well.
The Yankees don’t care about the $6 million, I think they are just fed up with Arod. Do you how many hours the Yanks front office spent on this nonsense over the last couple of years? Time wasted that cold have been spent on helping to make the team better down the road. No, they are now trying to aggravate him. No Arod, you will not play 3B, you will try out as the DH. No Arod, we don’t want to pay the incentive bonus…in fact, he may just sit on the bench unless they absolutely need him. They might get lucky with a game-winning pinch HR or two but he has worn out what little was left of his welcome.
They can just release him. The 61 million is a sunk cost. He may produce 4 WAR over the next 3 years and will cost 9 million in bonus and tax plus legal expenses if they wish to pursue the loser. Assuming you can get a replacement DH to replace that WAR for about 4 million per WAR (mix of free agents and homegrown talent), the net loss in only 8 million over 3 years. Chump change
As it is Arod might as well be another Manny Ramirez and just admire the strikes flying past him and not bother trying. That would be a cancer in the clubhouse and impact the entire team.
More likely in my mind is the Yankees in cooperation with MLB are seeking to create a precedent to increase the cost of a PED suspension to the player by invalidating part of their future compensation, the first step of destroying the guaranteed contract. Its interesting Clarke has remained silent
It won’t work for this case but I would love to see future CBA agreements that:
1. Required the team to pay any promised money even if the player is suspended for PED/Steroid use
2. The player forfeit the money that was to be paid to him
3. Have that money be ear marked for things like community charities / promotion of the game / steroid or PED education for children, etc, etc
If the team simply does not have to pay the player they were unjustly rewarded by having a player cheat and that cheating presumably led to the team performing better. This penalizes the team by requiring them to still pay any future obligations.
If the player can receive the money for their performance they have reaped a financial windfall by cheating which is unjust.
Under my proposal both parties that benefit under the current structure are hurt and funds are repurposed for worthwhile activities designed to promote the long term health of the game.
Bonds’ numbers for his last season were .276/.480/.565 with an wRC+ of 157. No one made him an offer when he became a free agent because, y’know, who has room for a wRC+ 157 hitter in their lineup. And the endorsements didn’t exactly pile up.
The last time ARod had comparable numbers was 2008. His Yankee contract will be his last real contract in MLB and no endorsement money will follow. His handlers will make certain he does nothing illegal to jeopardize that contract and will make certain he does whatever is legally necessary to defend that contract.
If he performs poorly in 2015, then I suspect the Yankees will release him. It gets interesting if he actually performs decently in 2015 (say 2 WAR). Will the Yankees still release him? If they do, how many teams that could use a 2 WAR player at the major league minimum will make him an offer. I hope at least one team does.
His handlers will make certain he does nothing illegal…
His handlers should be sued for malpractice. It ought to be a record breaking case.
The Yankees made this bed, now they have to lie in it. A-Rod is owed every single cent of that contract because the Yankees were the ones foolish enough to sign it.
Ryan Howard agrees with you.
For the record, I sense the Yankees protests are more about trying to gain back some goodwill from this otherwise disastrous situation. If they try to stick it to A-Rod but fail, they can claim they tried to punish the cheater but their hands were tied. It probably will cost more than if they just paid him his bonus but they do look somewhat better this way.
I disagree. I think they look much worse this way. And from what I’ve seen, the overall sentiment is that they got themselves into this situation, and they should deal with the consequences.
But will A-Rod even hit 6 hr’s this year?
The Yankees should include an “IF you get caught using PEDs” clause in their next contract negotiation because I doubt they care if they do it under the radar.
I highly doubt they didn’t know about his PED use (or were at least suspicious about it) and they’d be stupid to not have asked him about it before negotiating this “marketing” deal after the ’98 chase and the Bonds scandal. They only seemed to switch their stance on this once A-Rod became “useless” and the BioGenesis story broke.
The bonuses are part of Arods compensation package, subject to the approval of the commissioner and MLBPA, an counts against the luxury tax (when and if a milestone is reached). As such, its part of the CBA which requires only 1 penalty for steroid use, which is suspension without pay.
Barry Bonds surpassed Aaron despite falling from grace with Balco. Players also fall from grace for being lousy, and there was always the chance Arod would be lousy by age 40, especially after 2 hip surgeries said to be unrelated to steroid use.
Pretty much every contract issued is based on marketing value of the player and how much revenue he will produce for the team. The fact this component of Arods deal is an addendum to the standard players contract seems to be moot.
The danger for Arod is the current arbitrator is a bagman for the MLB. He won’t get a fair hearing from him. MLBPA should have ousted him as is their right to do, but they are entirely co-opted by MLB now and don’t represent the players as much as the decline in players salary as a percentage of total revenue attests. Players need to wake up before an ugly precedent is set that will gut the guaranteed contract.
my first thought about defeating this contract is mistake. They can avoid the contract by using mistake as a defense to make the contract voidable. In this case the mistake would be that AROD was not using PEDs to inflate his numbers, and the yankees were unaware of this information at the time of contracting. Fraud needs some level of malice in order to work, in this instance, I think it is almost unnecessarily harder to prove than just mistake.
They could also go after something along the lines of an act of god/ force majure (sp? not in my spell check since it is a legal word). In this instance you would insist that the suspension and fall from grace warranted an act of god that neither party could have anticipated at the time.
They would be better off if there were specific provisions in the contracts. either case, the yankees have a genuine issue so long as the contract is simple.
Can the Yankees avoid paying the marketing bonuses? We have no way of knowing without seeing if there were any outs written into the contract. Seems unlikely.
I do understand why the Yankees might be trying to avoid paying them, and in reality probably just this one since it’s unlikely he’ll ever achieve the others. Maybe an outside chance he’ll reach 714, but even that seems out of reach as he’d have to average nearly 20 HRs a year up until he’s 42. It’s not so much the PED issue, but his action when caught, down to suing the Yankees doctor, among other questionable tactics. There is just bad blood here.
Yet it’s a losing bid unless there is very specific language in the contract, and that’s very unlikely. Remember, these marketing clauses were not about marketing at all. Boras and A-Rod wanted A-Rod to have a $30 MM AAV and a $300 MM contract for 10 years. The Yankees settled on $275 MM for an AAV of $27.5 MM, but if A-Rod achieved his HRs, there would be an additional $30 MM in bonuses (there are five potential bonuses not four as stated in the article), which would take his contract to more than $300 MM. A-Rod gets his claim, but the Yankees were able to shift part of the risk onto A-Rod’s performance and lowered the luxury tax hit on A-Rod’s contract from $30.5 MM to $27.5 MM, allowing them to save a million or so a year luxury tax wise.
So for the Yankees to claim now this is about marketing is disingenuous, and that will be brought out in court, which is why it will never reach the court. The Yankees will pay.
The Yankees should just eat the mess they’ve made for themselves. As for ARod, he should do one of two things:
1. shut up, keep his head down, practice his hitting and try to make the next three years as drama-free as possible
2. Take PEDs again. Why not? He can’t get much more vilified than he is already, and they might actually help him reach the Mays/Ruth milestones. If he doesn’t get caught, he gets more money and his relationship with the Yankees will likely improve a bit. If he gets caught again, he’s out of baseball and can retreat out of the public eye. At this point he has enough money that the loss of the last few years’ salary can’t be worth too much more than the freedom of not having to work in a place where everybody hates him, and he’s under constant judgment and scrutiny.
I wish the Yankees would stop acting like this is some moral outrage. They have played plenty of other guys that have juiced–public ally, knowingly, and even unwittingly. Who cares? It only matters because they think he sucks.
I don’t think he plays an inning for the Yankees this year. He’s done.
The only bonus in play is the 6 million for Mays. No way is A-Rod hitting 20 homers per year for 3 years, with his health record, after age 40.
How to prevent the 6 homers? Easy. Position change.
Inform A-Rod that he must report to spring training early, with pitchers and catchers. He’s now the mop-up pitcher. And since there is a DH rule, he’ll never bat.
And there’s a good chance he’ll throw his arm out pitching and have to go on the DL.
That’s brilliant man.
I know this might be a joke, but I’m pretty sure the MLBPA would file an easily winnable grievance if they tried this.
100+ comments and so far none about me.