Every day counts when it comes to the imperfect storm of Alex Rodriguez’s 211-game suspension and the Yankees’ desire to get their 2014 payroll under the $189 million luxury-tax threshold, and it looks like the Yankees are going to have to wait even longer than they hoped for a resolution.
Two sources confirmed an ESPN story Friday that independent arbitrator Fredric Horowitz is unlikely to render a ruling until January.
In light of the appeal hearing concluding on Thursday, both MLB and Rodriguez have until Dec. 11 to file written briefs and another 10 days after that to file replies to each other’s briefs.
Once Horowitz has received all of that information, he has 25 days to issue his decision, which means it very likely will be 2014 before he does so. He can uphold, eliminate or reduce the sentence.
The Yankees repeatedly have stated they are operating as though Rodriguez and his $25 million salary will be on the books. They are determined to get under the threshold, so they will limit themselves accordingly as they pursue free agents such as Carlos Beltran, Shin-Soo Choo, Brian McCann and their own Robinson Cano and Hiroki Kuroda while remaining hopeful Japanese right-hander Masahiro Tanaka becomes available via the posting system. Those free agents won’t wait around forever, though, so the deliberate timeline of the A-Rod saga hinders the Yankees’ ability to improve themselves.
In an interview with ESPN, Rodriguez expresses satisfaction with how the hearing went.
“We crushed it,” Rodriguez said. “They had nothing.”
There will be no public disclosure of information by Team A-Rod on Friday. There could be a presentation next week, though it’s unlikely to be transcripts from the hearing.