Yankees GM wanted A-Rod gone?

07:29 AM ET 03.06 | The baseball operations department of the Yankees, headed by Brian Cashman, made a baseball decision. This was not about egomania gone wild or insecurity on parade or the fact that Alex Rodriguez was controversy's best friend. And it was two years before the world would learn A-Rod was a steroid cheat. No, in the fall of 2007, Cashman's department recommended that if A-Rod opted out of his contract for free agency that the Yankees should move on without him. This was not about hating the player. This was about hating the idea of giving even an all-time star record dollars into his 30s and, gulp, his 40s. Cashman had witnessed - and in many cases been responsible for - larding recent Yankee teams with declining veterans who clogged the roster and overinflated the payroll. So his department reasoned that what might feel good today by having Rodriguez as the cleanup-hitting third baseman would feel miserable someday during a long contract when even A-Rod's seemingly indestructible body began to deteriorate, turning him into a 19-homer DH or first baseman. The advice was ignored for reasons having to do as much with future TV ratings on the team-owned YES Network as winning.

New York Post