He has $238 million left on his deal, plus potentially $30 million in incentives for different milestone home runs ($5 million for each milestone). I think you’d have to assume a team would rake in at least some marketing money for each home run, though probably not nearly as much as they would have before the steroid revelation or as much as they’d by worth in NYC. It’s probably not a lock that he makes it to each milestone, though, either. So say you value his contract at $250 million at the next 9 years. How much would the Yankees have to pay just to get someone else to take him for bucket of baseballs?

First, you know one of his most productive remaining seasons this year. Maybe, at best, he ends up being a +4 win guy this year? If you are confident that he wouldn’t have any long term effects, you might be able to project a bounce back next year and the year after, followed by declining value for the next 6 years. Still, A-Rod is one of the most talented players in the game, a guy who definitely works hard, and who you wouldn’t think would completely fall apart overnight. You’d have to think it’s possible he could be worth 36 or so wins over next nine years. It’s probably impossible to estimate what a win will be worth over the next nine years; I mean, the government, financial markets, Warren Buffet – no one seems to know how and when the worm might turn for the economy. It seems like the most we can estimate is that in next few years there will probably be some deflation in win values, followed by an increase in the early teens. If you assume these two countervailing forces even out and for the life of the contract, maybe a win is worth about 5.3 million or so for the life of the contract. That gives him about a $190 million of value over the next 9 years. I know the general rule people apply around here for signing a player long-term is .9 to the total value to compensate for the risk of injury, etc. associated with a long-term contract. However, given the length of A-Rod’s contract and the fact that we know he has a somewhat serious injury problem right now, you’d have to think a team would be even more risk averse than normal. Maybe a .8 factor? $190 million X .8 = 152 million, almost $100 million less than my estimate of the remaining value of A-Rod’s contract. Is that unreasonable, to think that to take him off his their hands, the Yankees would have to pay another team about $100 million?

I don’t even know how one could go about including a “A-Rod can be a distraction, do we really want that in our clubhouse/newspaper reports every day?” factor or a “there aren’t very many teams that could afford even a reduced, $150 million, 9 year contract on their books right now” factor in the calculus. Some that might very well be mitigated by the “A-Rod does put butts in the seats” factor, though. Figuring that out, though, is probably well beyond me.