What Chase Headley Signing Means for Alex Rodriguez’s Future with New York Yankees

The resigning of Chase Headley spells trouble for Alex Rodriguez’s future in the Bronx.

The Alex Rodriguez circus is set to roll back into the Bronx this season, and Brian Cashman and the rest of the New York Yankees’ brass are doing their best to make sure that A-Rod doesn’t man the hot corner for one of the MLB’s most historic franchises.

The Yankees reached a four-year, $52 million free agent deal with 30-year-old Chase Headley on Monday, bringing Headley back to the team he spent the last two and a half months of the 2014 season with.

New York had acquired Headley from the San Diego Padres at the trade deadline last season in exchange for Yangervis Solarte and Rafael De Paula, and he didn’t disappoint.

After slumping with the Padres last season–he hit .229 with seven homers and 32 RBI in 77 games–Headley came to the Big Apple and increased his average to .262, and hit six long balls and drove in 17 runs in 58 games with the Yanks.

From the beginning, Headley made his impact felt with the pinstripes. Just a few hours removed from a plane ride to New York, Headley delivered a game-winning RBI single on July 22 to lift the Yankees over the Texas Rangers in the 14th inning.

A-Rod was at home on his couch.

With Headley back in NY, fans are left to speculate as to what the plans for Rodriguez are.

You’ll remember that Rodriguez was suspended for the entire 2014 MLB season after violating the league’s Performance Enhancing Drugs (PEDs) policy, and will also enter the 2015 season with two surgically-repaired hips.

Immediate thoughts would be that A-Rod could be the DH. After all, his hips now rival those of my grandma, and at 39, he’s not going to have the range of motion that’s needed to play third base–or at least that of Headley’s.

But yet again, Rodriguez throws a wrench into the Bombers’ gears.

According to John Harper of the New York Daily News, A-Rod is set on claiming his old position and has no desire to be a full-time DH, so there goes that plan for the Yankees.

Or does it?

If I’m Joe Girardi, I tell A-Rod where he’s going to play, and if he doesn’t like it, then he better get used to riding the pine.

I get the whole standpoint that it’d be a lot of money sitting on the bench–$22 million, to be exact–but Rodriguez has made it clear over the years that he’s no ordinary player, so I don’t see why he should be treated like one.

And on that subject, Cashman confirmed what most of us as Yankees fans were hoping–that A-Rod won’t receive any special treatment, and that he’s definitely not the player he used to be (via ESPN).

"I can’t expect Alex to be anything. I’ve got to think the worst and hope for the best. Even before the suspension, he wasn’t the same player at third base on the defensive or offensive side. And that was before the suspension. And now he’s been out of the game for a year. He’s approaching 40 years of age. And just to automatically assume given his circumstances that he’ll be able to plug right in, play third as an everyday guy and hold up and be productive, I think that would be dangerous thinking from my perspective, in the seat I’m sitting in."

Above everything else, we don’t even know if he can play at a high level without injecting performance enhancers into his bloodstream, so there’s no reason for Cashman and the Yankees to make a reservation for A-Rod that he’s not going to live up to.

The Yankees have made it clear that Headley is the full time third baseman and that Rodriguez is essentially in a ‘take it or leave it’ situation in terms of being the full-time DH.

Balls in your court, Alex.

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