New York Yankees: Alex Rodriguez meets with ownership
By Jason Evans
As Alex Rodriguez continues to struggle, New York Yankees owner Hal Steinbrenner met with the aging slugger
There have been rumors going around about the New York Yankees just taking a loss and eating the $28 million left on Alex Rodriguez’s contract including all of next season. Rodriguez is soon to be 41 and is having the worst season of his career.
Rodriguez is currently hitting .206 with a .619 OPS. He is 2-23 on the Yankees all important homestand since the All-Star break. Rodriguez has not registered a multi-hit game in June.
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Yankees owner Hal Steinbrenner met with A-Rod before Friday night’s game vs the San Francisco Giants.
According to a source, the meeting took place at Yankee Stadium and was initiated by Steinbrenner. A party privy to the conversation said, “It was a very positive conversation,” and that the subject of the Yankees releasing Rodriguez never came up.
As much as Rodriguez has not been productive this season, I can’t see the Yankees just out and out releasing him and eating that kind of money. I’m sure GM Brian Cashman would like to do so (he’d like to do a lot of things, but that’s a different story) but that kind of money is definitely an ownership call.
The Yankees are in a tricky spot. They are waiting on contracts like Rodriguez to expire and trying to field a contending team at the same time. They sit 6.5 games out of the division and 4.5 out of a wild card spot. They have been on a role lately but still have some ways to go to get back into a wild card spot.
Rodriguez has been out for early batting practice before every game this week. He told ESPN that he is working on a new approach at the plate that he believes is reducing his strikeouts and his “chase rate,” his tendency to swing at pitches out of the strike zone, which plagued him earlier in the season.
“I feel like I’m ready to be really productive again,” he said.
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He can say what he wants to, however, until he actually produces, can the Yankees afford to have him hit every day?