Joel Sherman

Joel Sherman

MLB

A-Rod the verdict’s big loser with career in peril

Alex Rodriguez’s camp has vowed to press on in its legal fight, to get to federal court to go after Bud Selig, the Yankees, Yankees doctors, perhaps the union and maybe others.

But in the immediate aftermath of Fredric Horowitz’s ruling that A-Rod will be suspended for 162 games, it is hard to see him as anything but a colossal loser in this. Of money, which he has spent oodles of to try to save his name and game. And also very possibly of his career.

Without a court upset that overturns a legitimate arbitrator’s decision, Rodriguez is not going to be eligible to play before 2015. At that point, he will be 39, turning 40 in July. He will have played little in 2013-14. He will still have two hip surgeries in his recent past. And, perhaps most vitally, he will have this stain and this ugly fight as part of his record.

Will the Yankees really take him back at that point? Or will they consider it addition by subtraction to just let him go and see if they can counter-sue to get as much of the $61 million they owe Rodriguez from 2015-17 as possible? And would any other team dare touch him, even for the minimum salary? Maybe there is a club desperate enough for the carnival, hungry to sell tickets.

But that is what A-Rod would be reduced to in the near future – a sideshow as much as a baseball player. Once viewed as among the greatest players ever, Rodriguez could find that his actions with illegal performance enhancers might have spruced his numbers and burnished his bank account. Ultimately, though, it led to his ouster from the sport he does indeed love. Led to him becoming a punchline and punching bag, a sad cautionary tale.

It could very well be that Sept. 25, 2013 vs. the Rays was Rodriguez’s last game.

The winners also are obvious: Bud Selig and the Yankees.

The Commissioner’s office went after Rodriguez with fervor. There certainly is place to wonder if they went over an acceptable line in how they pursued this case, particularly in paying for some information and teaming up with Biognenesis Ground Zero, Anthony Bosch. The leaders of the sport are going to have to examine if this is the best way to govern.

But ultimately their questionable tactics led to unquestioned results as far as punishing the Biogenesis gang, 14 in all.

And they got their big fish – Rodriguez, a player they felt was not only a user of illegal performance enhancers but a serial user who acted as if the rules did not apply to him, who acted as if he could lie and mislead with impunity, who seemed to be playing catch me if you can.

This should send a powerful message that central baseball can prosecute and succeed without a failed test, and they will risk all the potential embarrassments and questions of their actions to do so.

As for the Yankees, they get out of a great deal of Rodriguez’s contract for the 2014 season. Because the penalty was for 162 games, not 183 days (what is considered a full season), the Yankees will still be charged $3,155,737.70 toward their luxury-tax payroll. But that means they got out of $24,344,262.30 of the $27.5 million that is the annual charge for A-Rod for luxury tax purposes.

It means they still have some chance to get under the $189 million threshold, particularly if they are unable to sign Masahiro Tanaka. But it also now means if they go over the threshold, the penalty will be far less and they have A-Rod’s 2014 salary back to do with what they want.

Of course, even with this chapter closed, the book is not finished. Rodriguez’s spokesman has said A-Rod is planning to come to spring training, though there remains uncertainty over whether the Yanks must let him in and – if they do – whether they have to allow him to be a full participant.

At this point, however, it reveals the worst thoughts about A-Rod – that he cannot tolerate the idea of irrelevance. That he does not mind distracting all those teammates he claims he loves to satisfy his own agenda. After all – without long-shot success in court – it is not as if he would be preparing for the 2014 season.

The world learned Saturday that the season is lost to Rodriguez. And so, perhaps, is any future baseball career. He has instead been reduced to the big loser in his own circus. Not long ago, he was in the discussion for greatest player ever. Now it is the greatest, what? Cautionary tale? Joke? Waster of talent and money? For this ruling means A-Rod loses far more than just a year of baseball.