As the Alex Rodriguez sweepstakes marches on, the player’s union is worried about possible collusion to keep Rodriguez’s value down. General managers have spoken openly at the winter meetings about what players they are interested in (a frowned upon act), leading the union to suspect that it might be a ploy to keep A-Rod’s value down. His agent, Scott Boras, had told the Yankees that $350 million was the starting point of negotiations last month.

Look, I think Alex Rodriguez is a tremendously talented baseball player. But the way things are in baseball right now, he’ll never win. He commands too much money, far more than his value, and has only made his teams worse. Cry all you want that the Yankees would have sucked last year without him, but the numbers don’t lie.

In his five years in Seattle, they went to the playoffs twice. I don’t blame him for anything in Seattle. He was on his first contract and didn’t cripple them. But it’s no coincidence that the team improved 25 games the year after he left, to a ridiculous 116 wins.

So he went to Texas in 2001, making sick money. The Rangers won 71 games in 2000, the year prior to A-Rod’s arrival. In his three years there, they won 73, 72, and 71 games. The year after he left they improved 18 games to be an 89 win team.

So it was on to New York. Prior to A-Rod’s arrival the Yanks won 103 and 101 games. In his four years there they won 101, followed by 95, 97, and 94. Yes, those are still good numbers, but my theory remains that Alex Rodriguez does not improve your overall baseball team. He hits, runs, and plays the field exceptionally well. But the price tag that comes with him makes it very difficult to fill out the rest of the lineup.

It’s true that baseball has no salary cap. That is, none imposed by the league. But every team, outside of New York and Boston, has a self-imposed salary cap that needs to be respected if they want to keep the team’s head above water. The money that Alex Rodriguez and his agent are expecting to get will only hurt whoever signs him. Hell, even the super-rich Yankees won’t pay him his exorbitant contract out of their pockets. They kept him while they were splitting the bill with Texas, and now don’t want to even negotiate with him if it’s all on their bill.

Again, I am not saying that Alex Rodriguez is anything less than a great baseball player. But for as good as he is, he has become tremendously overrated. He is not now, nor will he ever be, worth $30 million a year in 2008 money. And I feel no sympathy for the idiot owner and GM that fork over that kind of money when Scott Boras bends them over the negotiating table, and that team goes on to be slightly worse than they were last year. It’s not A-Rod’s play that I am criticizing, it’s that his contract will inevitably cripple the team that signs him.

For example, the $30-35 million that Boras is asking for would be more than both the Marlins and Devil Rays paid for all of 2007. It would be 50% of the payroll for three of last year’s playoff teams (Arizona, Colorado, Cleveland).

Scott Boras needs to realize that the last contract Rodriguez signed got him traded because it was too much money, booed out of New York because he was getting too much money — thus creating unrealistic expectations, and he didn’t even get invited back to the negotiating table with the bottomless checkbook that is the Yankees because it was too much money. And now they want to tack on another $100 million to the last contract?

If A-Rod signs a contract worth $350 million, what must he do to live up to that? I would say that he needs to win the World Series at least three times per five years, average in the neighborhood of .325 for the contract, and hit over 50 home runs every year. Anything less than this, while maybe still having great years, will be considered a failure. It’s the nature of sports today. It’s not that you need to be great anymore, it’s that you need to be better than what you were expected to do, and live up to what you make. If A-Rod’s next contract brings him anything less than a World Series ring and the all-time home run title, he will unfortunately be seen by many as a failure.

I have a hunch that Scott Boras is going to be in for a big surprise when he starts talking to teams. When no one will pay the ridiculous money that he wants, what does he do? With any luck, Rodriguez will take some initiative and get himself a proper contract, one that he can live up to. Because seriously, he doesn’t need the money, and he can’t have another contract that he constantly has to try to live up to. Sign a deal that is more in line with the rest of the league and I’m sure you’d see a more successfull A-Rod.

And if someone pays him his sick money that they want, then buyer beware. Good luck finding five starting pitchers for the length of his contract. This contract that A-Rod gets in this offseason may be the most important baseball contract ever signed. Keep an eye on it, because it may just ruin baseball.

UPDATE: Apparently A-Rod has reached out and contacted the Yankees without Scott Boras to try to make a deal happen. Boras had originally told the Yankees that the deal would have to be worth at least $350 million to begin the discussions. More on this as it becomes available…

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