A-Bomb

Scott Boras says that Alex Rodriguez opted out of the final three years of his contract yesterday because the Yankees’ roster is too unsettled.

Bull.

If that were the real reason, A-Rod could wait ten days to see how negotiations with the other big three – Mariano Rivera, Jorge Posada and Andy Pettitte – work out.

Rather, I see a few other more likely explanations:

• A-Rod is just that selfish, and just that money-hungry. For his sake, I hope this is false. For seven years already, he’s had a tough, tough time playing under the weight of his last contract, which is still the heaviest in baseball.
• A-Rod stole some signs from those three other free agents; he knows what they're planning, and he just decided to be the first to go.
• He saw how the Yankees treated Joe Torre this fall, and Bernie Williams this spring, and he doesn’t want to be treated with similar lack of respect and dignity in the future.

Either way, A-Rod owed the Yankees more than this. The team stuck with him for three years of erratic play (before he finally relaxed in 2007), when no one in baseball (including their fans) would have blamed the team for trading away the best player in the game.

Now after just one season of positive predictability, A-Rod simply packs and leaves without even listening to a negotiation? He just fouled out of the hearts of Yankees fans.

Cubs … Giants … Angels … even the Red Sox: You can have him.