Rivera Agrees to Three Year Deal, and More Thoughts on Last Weeks News

Mariano Rivera (who incidentally shares the same first name as my grandfather) has agreed to a three year $45 million dollar contract. Phew. For all the instability in the the days following the Yankees loss in the the ALDS, A-Rod's opt out, and Joe Torre's departure it is more than comforting to see the veterans returning, albeit slowly. It's hard not to respect a guy like Rivera. In addition to his 433 regular season career saves (3rd all time) he has a post season era of .77 in 76 games. That's not to mention the fact that he has built schools and donates Christmas presents every year in his native Panama. Still, there will be those that say how can you pay a 37 year old reliever that much money. Well the simple answer is that Mo isn't your everyday closer, but that should go without saying. Rivera pitched slightly fewer innings this year, mostly because the early season didn't give Torre many opportunities to use him, but his era was still a respectable 3.15 (granted it was a career high not counting 1995) with 30 saves. More importantly though Rivera only blew four saves all season. I am willing to bet that he will continue to produce results at least over the next two seasons. After that we will have to wait and see. Regardless, the aura of the sandman alone is worth the price tag.

I've been thinking more and more about the A-Rod issue. I do think that his actions have helped him regain some much needed credibility, but I am interested to hear what he has to say after the ink is on the contract. Personal baggage aside he is the best player in baseball and Yankees fans need to remember that in spite of everything that has happened so far in this off season we never would have made it to the ALDS if not for his contributions. While ultimately A-Rod bears responsibility for opting out in the first place, I do feel somewhat bad for him. No doubt Boras pushed him hard to opt out selling him on the idea that certainly no one other than the Yankees would be able to afford him so it was a win win situation. He could stay in New York but make unheard of sums of money. When that obviously wasn't going to pan out I would be willing to bet that Boras said, oh well, we'll look someplace else despite his clients best interests. I could be wrong on this, but actions do speak louder than words so the fact that A-Rod came to the Yankees on his own terms without Boras says a lot. Still, it will be an uphill road before the fans truly trust and re-accept A-Rod. Such a shame considering he was finally starting to fit in.

This leads to another question, are the days of Scott Boras over or is this just a hiccup in the days of greed in baseball? I think that it is too early to tell. While I do think that the days of Scott Boras are quickly coming to an end, unfortunately I think that there will be someone right there ready to pick up the pieces of his fallen empire. However, one has to assume that the days of over the top contracts are over. It will be quite a while before baseball sees another A-Rod type contract. Then again that is what everyone said after A-Rod signed on with the Rangers in the first place. So I guess that there really isn't an answer to this question. In the meantime we will all have to sit back and enjoy the meltdown that will soon engulf Boras.

On an unrelated topic you will notice that I haven't talked much about my vacation yet. I will sooner or later, but in the meantime this picture of the view from my room speaks a thousand blog entries: