Should A-ROD OPT-OUT?

Simply? No.

It seems the pundits are complicating this decision to the nth degree, per usual. They are looking to make the opt-out clause into some kind of PR tool that will "allow" Arod to escape NYC with face in place. Need I remind everyone that Arod is represented by Scott Boras, and Scott Boras does not care about face or feelings - he cares about cutting the best deal.

Boras advised JD Drew to opt-out of a nice contract with the Dodgers (3 more years at average annual salary of $11M) to get a nicer (pending) contract with the Red Sox (5 years at average annual salary of $14M). In this case, Drew locked up more years at higher salary rate.

Now, after this year ends, Arod has the option to opt out of remaining three years and ~$80M owed to him. If he were to do this, he could easily get a Vernon Wells/Soriano type of deal: 7 years for $130M or so. That's average annual of $18.5M - and locks him up until he's 38. Nice.

But, this path assumes his market value in 2011 (age 35) would be less than $18.5M and 5 years. This I can't understand. in 2009, Arod will be 34 years old and well on his way to chasing every offensive record known to mankind: home runs, runs, RBI, total bases, etc. He will be just shy of 650 HRs, 1800 RBI - I would think that chase alone would be attractive to a few teams.

So, look at present value of (very good) new contract in 2008, with keeping existing contract and signing new (average) deal in 2010:

Opt-out: new deal, 2008 - 2016 (ages 32 - 40) = $148M
Stay with current deal, then sign new deal in 2011 for 5 years at $14M a year (total compensation from 2008 - 2015 (ages 32 - 40) = $151M

This is just raw dollars, too. If you were to (and I stress, YOU) do an NPV on both those deals, the second contract would be even more attractive because so much of money is front loaded.

Someone needs to tell Steve Phillips he's no longer spending Mr. Wilpon's money and he should be more careful with his math.