The tenure of Alex Rodriguez as a baseball player with the New York Yankees is about to come to a close. The club announced at a press conference Sunday morning that Rodriguez will play his final baseball game on Friday, Aug. 12. The Yankees will release him from his player contract at that time and he will assume a position of special advisor and instructor with the club beginning next spring.
Alex Rodriguez will play his final game Aug. 12
He’ll take on a position of special advisor with the club at that time.
Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports
“This is a tough day,” Rodriguez said, speaking slowly and looking overwhelmed by the moment. “I love this game and I love this team. And today I’m saying goodbye to both. This is also a proud day. I was 18 when I broke into the big leagues. ... At 18 I just wanted to make the team.”
Rodriguez thanked the Steinbrenner family for giving him an opportunity to play and for allowing him to “mentor the next generation of Yankees.” Rodriguez will report directly to Hal Steinbrenner in his new role.
“Accepting the end gracefully is part of being a professional athlete. Saying goodbye may be the hardest part of the job. But that’s what I’m doing today.”
This marks the second veteran departure announced by the Yankees in three days, with first baseman Mark Teixeira on Friday announcing his retirement effective at the end of the 2016 season. The big difference between the two, however, is that Teixeira is a free agent at the end of this season while Rodriguez is due $20 million in 2017, plus the roughly $6.2 million remaining on A-Rod's 2016 salary.
Rodriguez said Hal Steinbrenner approached him with the idea and that he felt “humbled” that Steinbrenner would ask him to mentor the next generation of Yankees.
“The Yankees are excited and I’m excited,” Rodriguez said.
Rodriguez, who missed all of 2014 while suspended from baseball for numerous performance enhancing drug violations stemming from his role in the Biogenesis scandal, had a resurgent year in 2015. Last year, Rodriguez his 33 home runs for the Yankees, hitting .250/.356/.486 in 151 games.
In 2016, however, Rodriguez has been either hurt or ineffective, and in some cases a combination of both. Hitting just .204/.252/.356 with nine home runs in 56 games, Rodriguez missed 21 games on the disabled list in May with a strained right hamstring.
Since the beginning of July, Rodriguez’s playing time waned, starting just nine of 32 games, going 5-for-38 (.132) with one home run during that span.
“The world we all live in, everybody makes mistakes,” Yankees GM Brian Cashman said. “Everybody has problems. everybody made a left turn when they should have made a right turn. It’s just what do you do after the fact when the balance comes back in play?
“I think Alex is really returned and been great in that clubhouse, tremendous with our coaches, tremendous with the front office. And I think representing the franchise since his return, he’s been everything we wanted. Unfortunately this year the performance hasn’t’ followed. But without last year’s performance we’re not in the postseason.”
This season is a far cry from 2015, when Rodriguez reached milestones of 3,000 hits and 2,000 RBI, and also passed Willie Mays on the all-time home run list.
“I would have had an unbelievably fun time trying to go after them,” Rodriguez said.
“Those were not the cards I was dealt and I’m at peace with the organization’s decision.”
Through Saturday, the 41-year-old Rodriguez ranks fourth all-time with 696 home runs, is third with 2,084 RBI, eighth with 2,021 runs scored and sixth with 5,811 total bases.
“I do want to be remembered as someone who is madly in love with the game of baseball, someone who loves it at every level,” Rodriguez said. “Someone who loves to learn, teach it, play it, coach it. And hopefully I’m going to be remembered as someone who tripped and fell a lot, but someone who kept getting up.”
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