A hypothetical:

If ARod were not under contract for $60m for the next three years, and he was a 39 year old free agent who's only had 181 plate appearances over the past two calendar years, and with his legacy and the baggage that goes along with it, what kind of demand would there be for him for the 2015 season?

What kind of contract do you think he would be able to get?  Single season, multi-season, high guaranteed dollars, low guaranteed dollars but lots of performance based bonuses, etc?

1 year $12 million.

I'd say closer to Nelson Cruz money. 8-9 million.

Yeah, that's exactly what I was going to say - 1 year $8 million, with maybe some performance bonuses ($2 million for 450+ PAs, $500,000 per 10 home runs hit, something along those lines).

If Barry Bonds couldn't even get a contract after another terrific season, why would A-Rod coming off his current status?

I don't see that there would be a whole lot of demand for him.  Age and the fact that he's barely played over the past two seasons are one reason.  All the baggage that comes along with him being another.  A lot of teams, probably most, would want nothing to do with him, as we saw with Bonds.

Most likely he would have a high salary expectation because "Hey, I'm Arod!".  But I don't see a lot of teams climbing over each other trying to get him to sign with them.

Supply and demand. Look at the third basemen available and the prices they will command. Didn't Stephen Drew (admittedly a SS and younger) just get a one year $14 million deal?

He has no value on the open market.

Posted by stinenavy on 9/29/2014 9:29:00 PM (view original):
If Barry Bonds couldn't even get a contract after another terrific season, why would A-Rod coming off his current status?

This is exactly what I thought. He would not get a job. Too much distraction, just like Bonds, and way less upside.

It's pretty simple.   If a team felt they could get a 280/350/480 A-Rod, they'd take the distraction.   I don't think anyone believes that's the guy they'd get.  Because it's been 4-5 years since he was that guy and, presumably, he's no longer getting a chemical boost.   Father Time is undefeated.

Posted by bad_luck on 9/29/2014 9:39:00 PM (view original):
Supply and demand. Look at the third basemen available and the prices they will command. Didn't Stephen Drew (admittedly a SS and younger) just get a one year $14 million deal?

How did that supply and demand thing work with Barry Bonds after his 2007 season, when he had an OPS+ of 169 and then nobody would touch him on the FA market.

That would be ARod today if he was on the market.  Minus the 169 OPS+.

Yeah, Stephen Drew has all the baggage, and age, that A-Rod brings to the team.

Posted by tecwrg on 9/30/2014 8:23:00 AM (view original):

Posted by bad_luck on 9/29/2014 9:39:00 PM (view original):
Supply and demand. Look at the third basemen available and the prices they will command. Didn't Stephen Drew (admittedly a SS and younger) just get a one year $14 million deal?

How did that supply and demand thing work with Barry Bonds after his 2007 season, when he had an OPS+ of 169 and then nobody would touch him on the FA market.

That would be ARod today if he was on the market.  Minus the 169 OPS+.

I think the league blacklisted Bonds. He still had value.

I'm assuming that wouldn't happen this time but I guess it's a possibility in this hypothetical.

I would argue there's a large amount of teams that would say "thanks but no thanks" to the A-Rod distraction. It happened to Bonds and he could play. I'd guess 1 year, $6-7M is a fair estimate, with a large amount of incentives for plate appearances and awards, driving it up to the $15-20M range.