TAMPA — Miguel Cabrera agreed to his 10-year, $292 million contract and, suddenly, I was writing these two names again — Robinson Cano and Alex Rodriguez.
The trio is linked by the length of their deals, the industry outrage against each mega-pact and — in the case of Cabrera leap-frogging A-Rod — by the record total of the contract.
But here was what stood out for me — I was writing the names Robinson Cano and Alex Rodriguez again. There was a time in the offseason when it felt like I had a Ripken-esque consecutive-day streak of typing one or both of those names, such was the Everest-proportion stories in which they were involved.
And then Yankees camp opened and they were ghosts, heck, there were actually articles about the unoccupied condition of Rodriguez’s locker. But then what followed was — if not forgotten — certainly gone from the daily consciousness. It took Cabrera’s contract to bring that duo back together, to make me — at least — realize how near thoroughly the Yankees have moved on from the two storylines that swallowed their offseason whole.
Like death, there was a grieving period — or in A-Rod’s case within the Yankees walls, a celebration — when it was clear that both were done with the team, at least for 2014 in Rodriguez’s case. And as with death, those left behind moved on. As Derek Jeter said to me recently, “what other choice is there? There is a season to be played.”
Indeed, the 2015 Yankees will have to move on without Jeter, much as this current club is pressing forward without Andy Pettitte and Mariano Rivera — two other storylines that dominated and now have faded with time, albeit reborn for a few days this spring when the Yankees traveled to Rivera’s native Panama.
Oh, it will come up again. The first time David Robertson blows a save. When what feels like the inevitable injury for Brian Roberts occurs. If Kelly Johnson keeps botching balls as he tries to master third base full time.
The Yankees did what few organizations can or would do: They spent a half-a-billion dollars to change the subject, to cover up for the lost offense of Cano, to put together the next Yankees team in the aftermath of Rodriguez, Pettitte and Rivera.
Perhaps the most intriguing item that now lingers in the absence of Cano and A-Rod is who is going to receive the blame, who will incur the fans’ wrath should this science experiment go wrong. Say what you will about A-Rod — and you probably already have — but he was the punching bag for an entire team. When things went wrong — whether it was his fault or not — Rodriguez was at least the symbolic face of failure from February through October … particularly October, in fact.
By the sheer size of the contract that would have been necessary to keep him — plus the fact fans already were peeved about his jog-athons to first — Cano was going to get that baton from Rodriguez. But now who?
Who is about to learn that A-Rod’s greatest act as a teammate was serving as a human shield to others? It won’t be Jeter. It might be uncomfortable if he struggles, but he has built up too much collateral to be a target on his farewell tour.
My suspicion is Mark Teixeira is not going to be as fortunate. He is entering Year 6 as a Yankee, but by his dwindling impact and the lack of big October moments, he has not put enough in the bank to counteract animus should he, for example, suffer through yet another one of his traditionally poor Aprils. CC Sabathia also runs some risk here, for the size of his contract if nothing else.
Among new players, Jacoby Ellsbury stands out because of his dispassionate mien and injury history. Will we hear this by May — the Yankees should have stretched and kept Cano rather than overpaid for the Boston guy?
“I think we will only hear stuff like that, the booing, if we are losing,” Teixeira said. “And our plan and expectations are that we will win.”
Yes, that will be the best protection to assure that those names that dominated November-through-January remain mostly non-spoken from April-though-October.