Alex Rodriguez returns to Yankees for second year as adviser
TAMPA, Fla. — The New York Yankees paid Alex Rodriguez $21 million to work as an adviser to team owner Hal Steinbrenner last year. Apparently, Rodriguez found the work so agreeable he agreed to return — for what figures to be a relative pittance.
Rodriguez worked for the Yankees last season while fulfilling the final year of a 10-year, $275 million contract after being released late in 2016 and eventually retiring.
The Yankees did not say what Rodriguez, 42, will earn this year, but he will return to a role that former Yankees Reggie Jackson, Hideki Matsui and Nick Swisher will also serve in. A Yankees spokesman said he did not know if Rodriguez, who was a guest instructor last year during spring training, would serve in a similar capacity this season.
“These are exciting times for the New York Yankees and I do not take this opportunity for granted,” Rodriguez said in a statement released by the team.
His continued role as an adviser is something few could have foreseen five years ago, when Rodriguez was engaged in a public feud with Yankees President Randy Levine and had sued the team doctor as he fought a yearlong suspension from baseball over his use of performance-enhancing drugs.
Since then, though, Rodriguez has taken steps to rehabilitate his image. He has maintained a high public profile since the Yankees released him. He has courted singer and actress Jennifer Lopez — occasionally posting photos with her on social media — and was praised for his work as a baseball analyst for Fox the last two postseasons.
This season, Rodriguez will work as an analyst for ESPN’s Sunday Night Baseball, filling the vacancy created when Aaron Boone departed the network to become manager of the Yankees. Coincidentally, Rodriguez also replaced Boone as the Yankees’ third baseman in 2004 when they acquired him from the Texas Rangers after Boone tore knee ligaments playing basketball in the offseason.
Boone, though he knows Rodriguez only casually, said he expected him to be an asset because of his acuity for the game.
“Everyone understands how smart of a baseball mind he is, and his ability to communicate that sometimes is really something he’s special with — especially for the younger guys,” Boone said.
