I’m not a conspiracy theorist. I don’t believe that MLB’s discipline of Alex Rodriguez is specifically designed to get the Yankees out from under their contract obligations to him and save them from their awful mistake of promising him all of that money they agreed to give him before the 2008 season.
But man, it sure is a stroke of good fortune for the Yankees! Buck Showalter agrees:Getting Rodriguez’s $25 million salary off their 2014 books would effectively reset a Yankees payroll projected to exceed a $189 million luxury tax threshold the club hoped to slip under. And if they’re freed from the $86 million owed Rodriguez from 2014 to ’17? Showalter fears Commissioner Bud Selig’s zeal to ban Rodriguez might turn the Yankees into free agent predators again.
“If Bud lets them get away with that, they’re under the luxury tax,” Showalter told USA TODAY Sports. “If they can reset, they can spend again and I guarantee you in two years Matt Wieters is in New York.”
That’s ridiculous. Why would the Yankees wait two years to use A-Rod money to sign Matt Wieters when they can simply sign Brian McCann this winter?
But in all seriousness: intended or not, let no one pretend that this Biogenesis business won’t be a boon to the Yankees.